Does not ability matter any more?

who should have never left from where?

Linda experience and ability!

That is what i say. If you do not have experience, you have the ability and that should show in your work ethic and your desire to apply yourself not whether you have blond hair, dark skin. And if you complain you are considered a racist. Why if I got in charge of labor and said that preferential treatment should be given to people of German, English, Austrian, and Welsh ancestry, they would cry "racist and bigot!"

I wonder whether in the future, since a lot of children are influenced by television, that they get a wrong idea and feel that they cannot try for a position because of their race or some get the idea that they can just go into a company and demand to be a manager or the boss because of their race. I know that there were a lot of women who thought why get an education because when I was young, the idea was you did not need a university degree to be a housewife and there were lots of men who paid for their sons to go to college, but would not do the same for their daughters and I still remember my mother not trying because she had to have higher marks to go to college then her brother and he went and she could not.

I am about ten years younger than you, I think, and there were strange things about college then as well. I was raised being told I was going to college, but not really why. I did not want to teach, work in an office or be a nurse. I went for two years. I read somewhere that the philosophy of educating women of my time was to steer them all into Liberal Arts degrees, because when they drop out to get married they will not have lost much. Funny, I have taught, worked in an office and done nursing work, and social services. All I really wanted to do was have a home, and family, and I did that too. My biggest obstacle is that I am too easily distracted.

I was very bad at chemistry and terrible at math, and was more interested in being a housewife, but for some reason, I was also very curious and loved science -good science not the junk science of today. I knew why things happened, and reasons for things, and could figure out the cause and effect, but that does no good if you get the symbols mixed up.

It is what is portrayed on Tv. Do you remember when experienced black or aboriginal people were mad when they could not get positions of power? Well now it has reversed. What I want is that color and religion should not matter. So the one who has the ability and experience or potential gets the position, not the one who is of the right shade - whether it was blond blue eyed Nordic looking or black haired, almond shaped Japanese or Chinese, or black very curly haired, dark brown skin, dark brown eyes African American, or Native American or Native Canadian. Whenever I watch Tv shows, and they call to see the commander or the chief of police or the boss walks in, and most of the time (except in that show about those crooked cops) I say not again? I wonder why I do not see someone come out and say"Lieutenant Commmander Jose Alvarez, I did know the corporal," or someone introduce himself as "James Wong, I am the owner and chief CEO of this company, you have to talk to me," but no (unless you are counting that short period when they had bosses who were Japanese Americans or Canadians.) And as for your cousin, did those shows where people who were the right color help him? That is what I am getting at. He thought I am the right color, it works on Tv, I should get the job, but he did not. So Tv does not mirror reality. I can see maybe a few people of color getting positions on top, but not as much as the Tv shows portray.

It seems that we have changed things so that color and gender matters more than ability. And what happens if that the tv shows think that all we need to do is to make sure the bosses or the ones in charge are of a certain ethnic group or 'race' and everything will be all right. And it gives the wrong impression that everyone of that 'race' or 'gender' has exceptional ability and moral incite and that if you are not of that 'race' then you are morally backrupt, greedy, hedonistic, etc. and cannot be trusted.

That is what it should be, but it seems that on Tv dramas, that is the ones I watch, police and investigation types, there is a tendency to make race matter more. I mean NCIS just went from a woman director to a black director, the character who admitted that he pressure to get that job. It does give a wrong impression about race and that is what I do not like. I can talk to everybody, but I am sure there are some people who might be rather nervous.

NCIS, it seems that when Jethro and the group go and ask a Marine or Navy captain about something, he is usually African American, the Unit's Boss is African American, and that new show Flashpoint, when they had the boss come, guess what? Now there are other shows that give everyone a chance, The Law and Order Series where they have a mixture,all the CSIs is not that bad, neither is Without a Trace, they have a variety. But it seemed for a while that many of the tv shows the police chief is always black, and I often wondered why there was not an American Indian, or a Japanese or Chinese American just as qualified, especially if the show was either in the middle states or in someplace near Seattle or it was in San Francisco. I am not demanding that all the bosses be white, but there was only a small period of time when they had Japanese American bosses looking after an American company. But the reason is with this focus on tv dramas to give race a chance, it seems to have more importance than ability. You see you do not need affirmative action, you need to get the children better educated (more money for the better books, better teachers) so that when they become adults, there will not be any of the "blacks can get into college with less then 4 points then whites," or whatever system they use. (sorry I am Canadian, and we have the Canadian natives - that is the Cree, Assinboine, etc. who get privileges the rest of the Canadians do not get and that includes Chinese=Canadians, Japanese-Canadians, Ukrainian-Canadians, Jewish-Canadians, etc. But I guess you want race to be a factor in getting to be top dog and that is not fair because you see, that makes people suspicious of any one of that ethnic group rising to the top through his own efforts. They believe he may have been given the position through affirmative action and that is not right. Oh and I am not going to tell me that I have friends of ---whatever ethnic group you think I hate, all I can tell you is that I live in a neighborhood who is rather ethnically mixed.

"NCIS, it seems that when Jethro and the group go and ask a Marine or Navy captain about something, he is usually African American, the Unit's Boss is African American, and that new show Flashpoint, when they had the boss come, guess what? Now there are other shows that give everyone a chance, The Law and Order Series where they have a mixture,all the CSIs is not that bad, neither is Without a Trace, they have a variety." I don't watch NCIS, The Unit or Flashpoint; I'm not saying they're not good shows, they likely are, but I've just never gotten into the habit of watching them because either I'm doing something else or watching something else when they're on. The other shows you listed as well as Cold Case I do watch and they all have a white man as the one "in charge". I agree there aren't nearly as many people of other ethnic groups in high positions on TV as there are African Americans. I think they're trying to reflect the general population, as in there are more whites than any other groups, then comes African Americans, then Hispanics, etc. I'm not saying I agree with their reasoning but it might explain it. I hope as much as you do that eventually there will be no need for any kind of affirmative action but I'm afraid we're not there yet. I definitely agree totally that it's all about better education for everyone and I believe as today's children become adults the prejudices that have existed forever will dissipate greatly. I'm sorry to say that I know people in my own area who are in the position to hire people who will admit straight out if they know there's nobody listening who will get them into trouble for discrimination that they won't hire a minority even if they are the most qualified if they can possibly get away with it. These people are generally good people but they have this prejudice that's been drilled into them all their lives that won't go away and it's sad. THAT'S why some form of protection is needed for minorities. I'm not sure if it's working well as it is right now, it likely could use some "fixing" but even people such as Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Clarence Thomas have benefited from affirmative action. They probably shouldn't have needed it but unfortunately in our society they did. I do NOT want race or gender to be a factor in getting to be "top dog"! I'd love to live in a totally color-blind and gender-blind society and I have some hope from talking to kids like my grandkids and their friends that we'll get there one day soon. I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I think you "hate" anyone because I didn't mean it that way. I had suspected you hadn't been exposed to many other ethnic groups and therefore had some kind of a fear or distrust of them. PLEASE forgive me if I'm not choosing the right words here! I fully understand there are some of our generation who have not been around many minorities or people from different cultures or ethnic groups. Annie But