sweasel.com

That. Is. Totally. Awesome.

Many many years ago (in the mid 70’s, actually), I was the Air Force just at the time when the decision was made to start collecting ‘ethnic group’ preferences. I did (perhaps) thousands of record reviews with Airmen confirming the accuracy of the data that was in their computer records, and collecting, for the first time, their ethnic group preferences.

Ethnic group preference was defined as “The ethnic group to which you feel most closely affiliated”.

I made a deliberate hash of that question. I remember one guy from Kansas who felt most closely affiliated to his Korean girlfriend. I cajoled and persuaded people to put in whatever I felt like and ran ‘specials’ on exotic ethic groups to persuade people to affiliate with them. None of us cared since all it was new to us, and the social implications weren’t obvious to us, the young and ignorant. Ethnically speaking, those were simpler times.

I remember one distinction that’s always puzzled me:

Alaskan Eskimo (Does not include Aleut) Aleutian Islander (Does not include American Eskimo). I used to ask everyone – do property values go up or down when an Aleut moves into an Eskimo neighborhood?

Only later did I find out that promotion test scores – and promotions – were being weighted by ethnic group preference.

Oh, Jimmy Carter – what didst thou wrought?

Spam filter ate that, Lokki. I have NO idea why. All feex.

Lokki, I feel your pain.

While in the Coast Guard, I had the delightful torment of having to sit through “diversity” class. Given by black petty officer who’s career was in the dumper because everything that befell him was because he was black, and one of the smallest Samoans I’ve ever seen.

At any rate, we finally arrived at some module in the outline where the “aggrieved” party is advised to file greivance with some committee; and I could take no more. So as the senior petty officer present, I leapt from my seat and took over the class.

Me and the other seniorest petty officer present (female, BTW) explained that an order had not been followed: and theat 3 days bread & water followed by 45 days restriction and 45 days extra duty was going to be more effective than some damn committee.

Great. Now I’ve got the image of a tiny Samoan stuck in my head.

A tiny, aggrieved Samoan in uniform.

Ahh…. but was he in the system as a Samoan, or did I convince him to sign as as an Hispanice because he liked Salsa?

THAT may have been part of his problem!

As for the Spam filter, I figure it was the mention of J*mmy C*rter that set it off. I’ll be more careful in the future.

The best one Lokki did was to convince a midget of Swedish descent to associate himself with the Maasai.

But you shoulda seen his sister!