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Why the race issue warrants discussion
7 comments- TAGS:African Americans, BDPA, Earl Pace, racism
- IT TOPICS:Careers, Management
I received an e-mail this afternoon from a reader who wrote to inform me that he had cancelled his print subscription because of my interview in this week's issue with Earl Pace, founder of Black Data Processing Associates.
The reader expressed the view that the interview doesn't belong in a technology publication, and that intrigued me. The inference is that this publication shouldn't cover non-technology issues relating to what people deal with in the IT workplace. Are gender- and age-related issues out of bounds, too? The fact is, covering such issues has been Computerworld's mandate since its inception more than four decades ago.
Below is the full text of his e-mail string, which includes an e-mail he sent me in December following a column I wrote about how the race issue is still beset by destructive labels. My position is that it's exactly this sort of rant that makes it so evident that the race issue in particular needs to be discussed rather than swept under the rug. And continue to be discussed it will.
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From: Schumacher, Peter A.
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 1:54 PM
To: 'don_tennant@computerworld.com'
Subject:
Mr. Tennant,
After reading the Earl Pace interview (or parts of it), I called to cancel my subscription.
Those evil white people (/sarcasm) holding everyone back, like President Obama, black CEOs, and the U.S. Attny. General, who would call me a 'race coward'.
I don't think this belongs in a technology publication.
Regards,
Peter Schumacher
Area Missile Systems Engineering
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
[phone numbers and e-mail address provided]
ps. I read the Time magazine ad pages were off 47.5% (ouch! haha) which is pretty close to the percent of people who voted for McCain. Liberal bias like at Time can drive away subscribers who don't like their opinions vilified and misrepresented.
______________________________
From: Schumacher, Peter A.
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2008 10:47 AM
To: 'don_tennant@computerworld.com'
Subject:
Mr. Tennant,
Please just stop with the racial discussion or cancel my subscription. You libs just can't stop putting down white people, "another white educator walked up to him and in essence said...". So you think whites are unrepentant racists?
Well Mr. "I'm so enlightened", hear this! In 1983 I was rejected from Brown, Williams, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Berkley, and wait-listed by Hopkins and Cornell. I had 1280 SATs (old days before scores adjusted), was a freshman varsity letterman in multiple sports, 3.55 gpa, top 5% of Howard County Maryland public high school class (one of best public schools in country), served as Student Rep. to the County Board of Education in my senior year and worked as a computer tech part time.
The black girl in my class got scholarships to most of those schools even though her SATs were 1000ish and GPA 3.0. (She went to Berkley in end). She grew up in upper middle class Columbia, MD. Your liberal affirmative action created some deep anger in me, as I had already sold my slaves and didn't feel that I should still be punished by overt racial and gender discrimination on my college admissions.
So, the liberal solution of coddling minorities with racial preferences could only come from one underlying philosophy 1) they are too dumb to compete head to head or 2) the racist white man keeps them down. Either premise is false and ignorant. It is time to move on. In case you didn't notice a black man was elected President of the U.S. (His name is Barack Obama). Although I didn't vote for him, it is perhaps noteworthy.
But, hey, let's rake up old hard feelings and waste a day talking instead of fixing computers. I'm sure you will solve the race issue with this discussion!
If you were really brave, you wouldn't just blame whitey for the problems of the black community. But, that is what libs do! Racists attitudes die hard I see.
Regards,
Peter Schumacher
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