Seeking a level of comfort
Our history of racial prejudice has not prepared us well for dealing with today’s multi-racial, multi-cultural society.
It continues to be difficult for many of us to reach a level of comfort with those who differ from us, whether in race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, or even age and gender. Some still harbor secret prejudices, while others are overly concerned they might appear to be prejudiced.
The attack on our soldiers at Fort Hood has resulted in a big debate about whether it was terror or mass murder by a deranged man. They can leave me out of that argument for I don’t really care what people want to call the attack.
I do care that the Army’s apparent efforts to be politically correct allowed a Muslim with murderous thoughts to continue serving in a military he gave every sign of hating.
I’m also concerned that the massive overhaul of government into the Homeland Security Department wasn’t able to prevent the attack. I’m upset that our intelligence agencies didn’t communicate with one another about an obvious threat. The whole point of restructuring was to share intelligence about threats to the American people, and, obviously, it wasn’t done.
For most of this nation’s history, the majority of our citizens didn’t worry about being politically incorrect. Many could have cared less if they used words that were dismissive, condescending or even derogatory to describe people in the minority.
As minority groups gained more rights under new legislation and court decisions, it became politically incorrect to openly refer to them with derogatory labels. As citizens became more educated and, frankly, as older people died off, attitudes began to change and the way groups treated one another improved.
Unfortunately, there is still an underlying level of discomfort dealing with minority groups and it badly distorts our thinking. Institutions and employers have become so fearful of lawsuits alleging discrimination they will ignore incompetent performances, and in the case of Major Nidal Malik Hasan, ignore disloyal and threatening behavior, as well.
Too often, people in supervisory positions will cite the possibility of being sued if they were to dismiss an employee who is older, disabled, a female, or member of a minority group. If employers are certain they have not denied any member of a minority group equal opportunity, avoiding lawsuits should not be their primary concern. If an employee underperforms, employers should not be afraid to get rid of them.
My experience working in human resources taught me that if supervisors will do the hard work of documenting unsatisfactory performance, confronting and counseling the employee and setting a time limit for performance to reach a satisfactory level, they have every right to dismiss a poor-performing employee. It’s not only their right; it’s their responsibility.
Apparently the FBI – once again – failed to communicate with other entities; in this case, the Army. This failure contributed to the disaster that befell Fort Hood. But the bottom line is Major Hasan’s superiors did not do their job. His record of poor performance, disloyalty and radicalization appears to have been clearly evident, and yet he was promoted, put in charge of the welfare of soldiers traumatized by war, and allowed to continue drawing a paycheck from a government he held in contempt.
How he could still have been serving in the U.S. military appears to come down to one thing: fear on the part of the Army that booting a Muslim out of the service would have been viewed as discrimination.
Perhaps, if we were not so hung up about minority groups, we wouldn’t be so hung up about being politically correct. If there had not been such a long history of discrimination against African Americans, Italians, Irish, Jews, Muslims, old people, women, Hispanics, gays, the disabled, and just about any other minority group I can think of, we might be more skillful dealing with one another.
When we try to hide our prejudices, we aren’t fooling anyone. Ethnic groups can sense discomfort in those whose true feelings lie just below the surface, women can easily spot hostility towards them and a disturbed Muslim probably recognized conflict in his Army superiors and took advantage of it.
It’s time to get over our silly hang ups about minority groups. We shouldn’t target people for bad deeds just because they belong to a minority, and we shouldn’t excuse members of minority groups just because we’re afraid of offending them.
