I saw the ad as I pulled my beat-up 1991 Honda Accord behind a Maryland Transit Administration bus: It was a recruitment poster for the Baltimore County Police Department.
Four pictures were on the ad: One white woman, one black woman, one black man and one Latino man. “What the heck?” I said to myself. “Is the BCPD saying no white guys need apply?”
I wondered if a subtle form of America’s new favorite sport was afoot. You know the one I’m talking about: White-male bashing, and its first cousin, white-male dissing. Don’t even try to deny it. If white-male bashing were an Olympic event, our team would easily have won more gold medals than China in the games that recently ended.
The game has been around awhile. I notice it whenever some character on the left side of the political spectrum takes a swipe at the U.S. Constitution, dismissing it as a document written by a bunch of dead white guys who owned slaves.
I invariably inform the lefties that they’re comparing white men circa 1789 to “men of color” of the 20th and 21st centuries. The only valid comparison is between the white men of 1789 to nonwhite men of the same era. And I defy the lefties to show me a document written by nonwhite males circa 1789 that is superior to the U.S. Constitution.
My challenge is usually greeted by silence.
In a writing class I teach at Johns Hopkins University, women who’ve spent one day too many in feminist forums — which is to say about two days — occasionally take a swipe at white men. I remind them that in my course, they can indeed bash white males. But I hasten to add that in my course, white males get to bash back.
That usually ratchets down the white-male bashing.
But could the BCPD possibly be getting in on the white-male bashing? I told myself no, that the BCPD was too smart, too professional for that. So I called Bill Toohey, the spokesman for the BCPD who has made up his own rule for media relations folks. I call it “Toohey’s First Law of Flakking.”
“It’s better to be a resource than a target,” saith Toohey. Current and future flaks would do well to heed this advice. Knowing I could get my answer from Toohey, I tried calling him at BCPD. Unfortunately, Toohey was out of town.
So I talked to Cpl. Mike Hill, and asked him if the recruitment poster is part of some diversity initiative.
“It probably is,” Hill said, “but I can’t say with any authority.”
But the theory makes sense. Maybe the recruitment ad doesn’t diss white males. Maybe BCPD brass simply acknowledge that they already have enough white-male officers. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Look at it this way: Do the commissioners of the National Football League and National Basketball Association really need to launch a recruitment drive or diversity initiative for black players? The country has more black players in both the NFL and NBA than we’ll ever need.
There is no shortage of black professional football and basketball players. Truth is, I wouldn’t mind seeing black parents ban their sons from even looking at a football or basketball until they reach the age of 18, but I know that’s a pipe dream.
But back to the BCPD. Much as my fellow conservatives cringe at the mention of the word “diversity” — and I admit to some cringing myself, especially when the left’s diversity police are being extra silly, which is often — there really is nothing wrong with going for diversity in a police force in a county that’s growing and changing demographically.
According to figures that Hill supplies, more than 1,400 of the BCPD’s 1,905 sworn officers are white males. That’s 76 percent. White females make up 12 percent of the force and black males make up 8 percent. There are only 37 black female officers on the force, 18 Hispanic males, one Hispanic female, 17 Asian males and three Indian males.
Baltimore County is no longer my daddy’s or your daddy’s Baltimore County. Let the BCPD’s diversity initiative proceed forthwith.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Maryland and Baltimore for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at [email protected].
