Symptom or Sista?

Symptom, or Sista’ ?
It’s a game, and you can play!

Some of these are from babynames.org’s list of African-American baby girl names, the remainder from Wikipedia’s list of medical symptoms. Can you tell which is which?

Amusia
Renell
Cachexia
Melea
Tachell
Somnolence
Hematuria
Koyana
Akathisia
Cyiarra
Bradykinesia
Pyrexia
Afyia
Malaise
Larhonda

White People Need Not Apply, says Mass. Cabinet Secretary

Well now. It’s always entertaining to read when government officials say stupid shit, but this is some of the most egregiously stupid shit I’ve read about in a very long time. I mean, it’s on a par with ‘nucular’ for just outright stupidity, and it could qualify for a whole new category of prize, since it represents the official position of a department of government.

From the Worcester Business Journal:

Suzanne M. Bump, Massachusetts secretary of labor and workforce development, said she could staff her entire operation with solely white lawyers

[snip]

“I could fill my office with white lawyers,” Bump said. “We’re choked with applications from them. But they’re not going to get the job done.”

[snip]

Bump offered her remarks last week at a forum on diversity in the workplace held in Natick, co-sponsored by the MetroWest Alliance for Workforce Diversity and the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce

Now, I’m just gonna jump right out here and call bullshit. Isn’t the whole idea of our anti-discrimination laws that the color of your skin does not determine whether or not you can ‘get the job done?’ I mean, anyone that works in Human Resources in any capacity will tell you that you don’t get to pick who you hire or let go based on their race, gender, age, or what body part they’d rather get fucked with. And now a government official not only steps up to the plate and (a) admits that it’s her practice to do so, but also (b) extols it as the only way to ‘get the job done?’

Some people believe that the concept of ‘reverse discrimination’ or ‘reverse racism’ does not exist, and quite frankly that it cannot exist.  To those people, I offer up this challenge with respect to the above-linked article.  Re-read it, but every time that the word ‘white’ appears, substitute ‘hispanic’ or ‘African-American.’  Are you finished yet?  Now are you pissed?  Great. 

This is not about white power, or supremacy, or any other bullshit about how white people are better … it’s just about equal fucking protection.  Same rights that everyone else gets.  It is flat out fucking illegal to discriminate against anyone based on race. For the Massachusetts laws, see Title XXI. For Federal laws, shit. Title VII of the CRA, and the CRA of 1991 are good places to start.  Hell, Massachusetts is working on some new laws prohibiting height / weight discrimination.  Watch out – in a little bit here, the whole ‘you must be this tall to ride’ or ‘weight limit: 600 pounds’  may be illegal!  But … it’s perfectly legal to not hire white lawyers because ‘they’re not going to get the job done.’