There was a chart in the newspaper that seemed to tell it all: The Chicago Police Department has racist hiring policies. It is unfair to blacks.
Of course, you don’t need a chart to know that. Black aldermen have been yelling themselves hoarse on the subject lately.
But the chart gave the cold, hard, damning numbers.
One side of the chart showed that 37.9 percent of Chicagoans are white and 38.6 percent are black.
Yet the other side showed that 66.9 percent of the cops are white; 24.6 percent are black.
As the headline said: “Department Doesn’t Reflect the City.”
Which is true. It’s obvious that the racial makeup of the Chicago Police Department doesn’t reflect the population of Chicago.
To which I respond: So?
Charts and graphs and statistics can tell us many things. But standing there by themselves, they can also tell us nothing. And that’s about all those statistics accomplish.
I could put together a chart showing the number of white surgeons in Chicago hospitals; professors in Chicago’s many universities; holders of advanced university degrees; lawyers, physicists, engineers and architects.
None of these professions would come close to reflecting the population of the city. If anything, they would be even less representative than the police stats.
Would that mean that there is a conspiracy by hospitals, universities and the various professions to prevent blacks from becoming surgeons, professors, physicists, engineers, architects and holders of advanced degrees?
No, it would mean that a far greater percentage of whites come from more stable families, live in more comfortable and less dangerous communities, go to better schools, get better educations and generally have a clearer shot at excelling at most job opportunities in our society.
To become a cop, you don’t need a college degree, although more and more recruits have them. But most cops, black and white, are from the Chicago area.
So which Chicago-area high school graduate would have a better chance of passing the entrance tests: a white person from a middle-class neighborhood who went to strict, demanding Catholic schools and had two parents at home, or a black person from a gang-dominated neighborhood, with a single welfare mother and a diploma from one of the notorious public schools?
You don’t need three guesses to answer that one.
There are other factors, such as really wanting to be a cop. Many white cops come from police families: father, grandfather, brother. It’s part of their culture, a calling.
More Top Picks Best Sunrise Alarm Clocks For Kids
Or when they were kids, they admired cops and thought police work would be an exciting career.
Unfortunately, these aren’t widespread black traditions in Chicago. If anything, many young blacks view cops as adversaries, not role models. The Rodney King videotape didn’t exactly tell black youths: “Boy, that looks like a career that will be satisfying, fulfilling and socially useful. As long as I’m not the guy on the ground.”
While the number of recruits with college backgrounds is increasing, a black with a degree is more likely to take other opportunities. Many corporations chase minorities. And there are federal and other governmental jobs that pay as well or better and don’t require you to walk up dark stairwells at 2 a.m.
So there is a lot more to the imbalance than discriminatory hiring practices, although you wouldn’t know it by listening to the howling of the aldermen.
Their latest beef is that the police union contract doesn’t require affirmative action in promotions.
Affirmative action. That’s such an interesting phrase. I’ve always wondered who thought it up. Probably some bureaucrat, who said: “We can’t say `racial quota system’ because that is too precise. So how about `affirmative action,’ which is suitably broad and vague? I mean, if I change a flat tire, it affirms that I can drive my car, so that is an affirmative action.”
What it means in the Police Department is that Officer A and Officer B take a test to be promoted to sergeant. Officer A does better than Officer B. But to fill a racial quota, Officer B becomes a sergeant and Officer A doesn’t.
This pleases Officer B because he feels that it makes up for past discrimination and injustice. But it infuriates Officer A because he doesn’t feel responsible for past discrimination and injustice.
So who’s right, Officer A or Officer B? Probably both. Until the courts stepped in some years ago, black cops were routinely shafted in hiring and promotions. Not that they were alone. The department was so political that a white genius who lacked clout could spend his days as a lockup keeper.
Now the promotion testing is reasonably legit, I’m told. If so, is it fair for a cop with a higher test score to be passed over for someone who didn’t do as well? Is he being unreasonable when he says that maybe it’s time, to use an overworked phrase, for the playing field to be level?
I don’t know the answers. But listening to the aldermen bray, I’m not even sure I know the questions.