WHERE IS THE BROTHER

Can anyone tell me how to get a hold of the brother. He got some definite opinions about affirmative action which just absolutely blew me away... You may find yourself facing these types of notions sometimes yourself... White males are being exploited; Blacks have got more than enough right now... The system favors them and that is reverse racism...

Here's Mr. Pirkle's article:
Federal Way Mirror
No link exists between diverse Federal Way School Board and better education
BILL PIRKLE, The Pirkle Report
Published: June 18, 2008 2:00 PM
Updated: June 18, 2008 6:56 PM


The concept of diversity was born when set-aside contracts and employment quotas for minorities came under legal attack.

The problem for the Civil Rights Movement was, how do we continue to discriminate against white males in this new legal environment based on reverse discrimination? The solution to the problem was the idea of “diversity.”

There are colleges that routinely turn down a white person for admission whose grades and test scores were higher than a minority who was admitted so as to have a diverse campus. Although that may sound nice despite the fact that a harder working student was discriminated against, it leaves unanswered a fundamental question: How does a diverse campus improve academic learning? Seems to me that the professor’s delivery would be color blind.

The last incarnation of the Federal Way School Board had four white men and one white woman. There were three Mormons, a majority. Yet little was accomplished. This school board lineup has two white women, one black woman, one white male and one black male. That seems pretty diverse, and if school board diversity is the answer to our problems, I would expect to see an improvement in standardized test scores. Standardized scores like the WASL are important since the teachers tend to give good grades to make everybody happy. It’s called grade inflation and is the teachers union’s answer to better education.

I would pose a derivative of this question to the school board. How does a diverse school board improve WASL scores? Let’s look at it logically, a thing that is rare these days where logic takes a backseat to emotion. The school board implements policies that improve learning. How does a diverse school board come up with better policies than a non-diverse school board? Hopefully, a diverse school board would be color blind.

We can assume that the most diverse school board possible would not have any white men of Anglo heritage. If there was such a person, then the school board could be made more diverse by replacing him, since diversity really means non-white.

Yet the connection between diversity and good education policy remains obscure. If there was massive discrimination in schools, one could assume that their policies would end it. Yet the minority kids go to the same school, use the same books and have the same teachers as the other kids. It’s the law.

If you think that there is discrimination in schools, the solution is not to make the school board more diverse. The solution is to go into federal court and file a discrimination suit for civil rights violations. That this is not being done means there is no evidence to support that assertion.

Diversity may even be harmful. Everybody brings to the school board their values and their agenda. As you increase diversity, you increase the complexity of the negotiations as we experience what we call agenda conflict stemming from value system conflict. We see this daily in American politics as the government is now deadlocked between liberals vs. conservatives, rich vs. poor, old vs. young, minorities vs. non-minorities, the legal American vs. the illegal Americans. Every law passed becomes a compromise of interests, making the law virtually useless at solving the problem that gave it birth. Yet we can claim a diverse government.

The fact is that we can no longer govern ourselves.

Hopefully this will not happen at school board meetings, but it is certainly possible.

We should remember that the goal here is better education for our children and not a diverse school board. If there is a link between a diverse school board and better education, someone should be able to express that link in words. I challenge anyone in Federal Way to write an article for The Mirror that explains this link. The gauntlet is tossed.

I know that I will be called a racist by even posing this question. I know this because racist labeling is the final refuge of those who can not defend their position with a logical argument.

Federal Way resident Bill Pirkle can be reached at bpirkle@zipcon.net.



I decided that it was time the elders in this country starting talking straight to each other and I sent this e-mail to his e-mail address: bpirkle@zipcorn.net.
Dear Mr. Pirkle: I read your opinion piece with interest, sadness, and disappointment.
I am an African American male, now 67 years old (which means I am looking at my own mortality squarely in the face and I no longer have time to get caught up in I know better than you what is real thinking). So let me offer you a very brief outline of my experience.
I am a minister, committed to the belief that God loves us all and wants us all to care for and support each other. For thirty years of my life I had the honor of helping students of all colors to meet their needs at Seattle University.
During that time I went through my finger pointing, self righteous phrase, and I honestly believed that the Affirmative Action plan was meeting the economic needs of the white women and men who oversaw the programs and the universitites who used government funding to build departments (where predominantly white professors taught).
I, sadly, often participated in the ongoing divisions across the races that have kept us apart since the founding of this country. As a footnote, I think that the diversity issue began here when the first settlers and the Native people forced each other to kill each other.
What do you really think about interracial relations in this country... I mean, beyond the cliches about having some really good black, brown, yellow, and red friends (notice how the division between Americans always begins after we have said the friends' part to one another)
At the same time I did not pay enough attention to the wonderful white women and men, and the parents, faculty, staff, and students of all colors who worked very, very hard to become people who respected the life of learning, their gifts, and each other.
Sir, you appear to an individual who also will not see another fifty years. I earnestly invite you to move beyond either/or thinking, see both sides of our living and struggling in America at this time, and ask yourself this question: how do you want to be remembered when you have gone on to our loving God... as one who judged others or one who understood others...

Sincerely concerned for all of our children's well being, I am

Joseph

Here is the response I got back from Yahoo
Hi. This is the qmail-send program at yahoo.com.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it didn't work out.

:
Sorry, I couldn't find any host named zipcorn.net. (#5.1.2)

?????!!!!!!

Will someone please answer these two questions for me...
How can I contact Mr. Pirkle?
What is going on?