A Dream Deferred, Part 2

The New Haven firefighters who successfully brought the Ricci v New Haven case included 17 "whites" (which included Italian-Amercians like Ricci, whose ancestors had faced their own discrimination, but never mind) and 1 Hispanic. The Hispanic, it turns out, has had to face his own struggles because of his stance: For New Haven Firefighter In Bias Suit, Awkward Position, But Firm Resolve

The two dozen firefighters who packed into Humphrey’s East Restaurant were celebrating a coming marriage, drinking and jawboning in the boisterous style of large men with risky jobs, but Lt. Ben Vargas spent the evening trying to escape the tension surrounding his presence.

During a trip to the bathroom, he found himself facing another man. Without warning, the first punch landed. When Lieutenant Vargas awoke, bloodied and splayed on the grimy floor, he was taken to the hospital.

Lieutenant Vargas believes the attack, five years ago, was orchestrated by a black firefighter in retaliation for his having joined a racial discrimination lawsuit against the city over its tossing out of an exam for promotion that few minority firefighters passed. (No arrests were made in the attack, and the black firefighter vigorously denies having been involved.)

When the Hispanic firefighters’ association and its members — including Lieutenant Vargas’s brother — refused to publicly stand behind him, he quit the organization.

Lieutenant Vargas, who posted the sixth-highest score on the exam, was ridiculed as a token, a turncoat and an Uncle Tom — all of which, he said, “made my resolve that much stronger.”

Would it be rude for me to call this sort of thing a disgrace? And that a legal regime that supports such behavior is also fundamentally unequal and unjust no matter how many time the folks enforcing such outcomes quote and and misquote Martin Luther King?

Mostly, though, it's clear that Lt. Vargas has the wrong attitude:

“I consider myself an American — I was born and raised here,” he said in an interview on the porch of his home in the wooded suburb of Wallingford. “I love my people. I love my culture. I love our rice and beans, our salsa music, our language — everything my parents raised us with. But I am so grateful for the opportunity only the United States can give.”

Hey, Yankee Doodle! Go to Texas ,if you've got an attitude like that! New Haven don't take kindly to the likes of you!

Vargas is hardly the sort of privileged wastrel who supposedly benefits from the old-boys network that affirmative action was supposed to dismantle. But, he has no need for affirmative action because he's capable and ambitious enough to make it on his own. In fact, whatever stumbles he has had in his career have been due to the litigous efforts of lesser men than he:

He grew up in the troubled Fair Haven neighborhood of New Haven, a complicated city known for Yale University but also for urban decay, high crime rates and failed prospects, roots he sees as similar to Judge Sotomayor’s in a Bronx public housing project.

His father was a factory worker, and his mother took care of the couple’s three children. (In addition to his brother, David, who did not respond to interview requests, he has a sister who now lives in Puerto Rico.) The family spoke Spanish at home, making his adjustment to school “traumatic,” he said.

Lieutenant Vargas decided to follow the path of an older friend, John Marquez, whom he looked up to. Mr. Marquez had worked his way out of the neighborhood by joining the Fire Department.

“I used to tell him, ‘You know where I came from — if I can make it, anyone can,’ ” Mr. Marquez, now a deputy chief in the department, said in an interview. “ ‘But don’t expect anything to be handed to you. Work for it.’ ”

But Lieutenant Vargas’s aspirations were stymied by a 1988 lawsuit, filed by black firefighters, that shut down hiring for years. The lawsuit challenged a written test that relatively few nonwhites passed. In 1994, the city agreed to disregard the test, over union complaints, and hire 40 firefighters — 20 white, 10 black and 10 Hispanic.

In Judge Sotomayor, who tried to sweep this case under the rug at the appellate level, Lt. Vargas found the worst sort of enemy; a self-styled progressive who mouthed the right words about ethnic solidarity, but who was more interested in enforcing a racial spoils system that has views ambitious and capable men like Lt. Vargas as the enemy. He can pass any test you put in front of him, while others in the department will probably never pass, even if they are given the answers ahead of time. But, it is this latter group that has been able to find better protection both in politics and in the courts. If you're in New Haven, try to stay out of burning buildings, the air will be thick with equality of this sort.