First question on my mind when I read this N&R above the fold (that means our local paper of record thinks it’s really really important) story—-did anyone even notice that Greensboro City Council member Sharon Hightower boycotted the graduation for fire department recruits because there were not enough minorities?
Fire Chief Bobby Nugent sure didn’t. At any rate—a couple of questions here— there were 18 graduates, only one of which was African-American. The N&R article doesn’t say how many were in the class—usually 24, but due to the fact that the ” the city has built several new fire departments recently”—-public safety is a core government function—the “department has doubled the number of recruiting classes and boosted members to as many as 36.”
So if there were 36 recruits in this class and 18 graduated, with six or seven minorities dropping out, then that would mean 11 white recruits dropped out. If that’s the case, then what’s the problem?
Now if it were a class of 24, then it would indeed mean the majority of dropouts were minorities. But how about this Ms. Hightower—instead of staging a boycott that nobody noticed and griping about the number of minorities who didn’t graduate, how about you attend the graduation ceremony and support the one minority recruit who did graduate? Would that not be a more positive service in your role as City Council member?
