Equality is dumbing down America

Recently, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division (Interpreted: Double jeopardy by another name) sent notification to the Virginia Beach Police Department that their entrance exam was racially biased against blacks and hispanics. What, you may ask, were the culturally devisive questions? Math problems. That's right, questions involving the ability to do mathematics. Supposedly, since 80% of the white folks who take the test can pass the math section, and much less that 80% of the blacks and hispanics who take it can't, then the test is biased.

This leads me to a question: How in the hell can math be biased? You either know it, or you don't. One of the critics against the math questions wants to know exactly how math plays a role in police work. Well, let's see: A tractor-trailer collides with a pick-up truck after the pick-up skidded 77 feet on a 3-degree downhill grade into an intersection, and in order to try to determine minimum travel speeds of the two vehicles you want to use a formula for Conservation of Angular Momentum, along with Combined Speed Formulae and Crush Damage Assessment. Sounds like math to me.

Breath alcohol concentration in NC is measured as grams per 210 liters of breath. Blood alcohol is measured as grams per 100 milliliters of blood. Hope you know the metric system.

Angular effect in radar speed enforcement can be determined by the Cosine of the Angle to the Target Vehicle. Trigonometry, baby!!

Law Enforcement is more and more becoming a profession, requiring educated, professional people. Gone are the days where you hired big, brutish men who could kick ass but weren't much good for anything else. If you want professionalism in law enforcement, you have to hire smart, competent people, and you have to pay them a professional salary.

You are involved in a bad wreck, and questions arise. Do want an officer investigating who couldn't score the 80% when math is needed? You are a victim of a bookkeeping scam. Do want an officer who can't do simple math and interest computations to determine your loss?

Everybody should be treated equally, but we shouldn't lower the standards of excellence and achievement to accomplish that perspective.