Rights Watch : The ‘Joke’ Falls Flat

“Humorous”? Surely he jests.

That’s how one Los Angeles Fire Department captain defended a videotape that depicts female recruits in an offensive way. One can only wonder whether he would have said the same thing if the hourlong “bloopers” tape had featured only African American firefighters tripping while their white counter-parts performed smoothly? Or only Latino recruits?

Chief Donald O. Manning has acquitted himself no better in the latest embarrassment to the Fire Department. Incredibly, Manning said that an internal probe he called for after he had viewed a portion of the tape found no wrongdoing. Still, the chief ordered that the tape no longer be played-it reported was shown at a number of fire stations-because it might be “misinterpreted” as being demeaning to women.

Fire Department brass apparently cannot fathom how the tape, also shown on some TV newscasts this week, would be seen as humiliating to women; yet it depicts women exclusively as bunglers, dropping ladders on themselves, even injuring themselves during training drills.

The department is already under sharp scrutiny in the area of human rights; a city audit found that women and minorities had been harassed and unfairly evaluated by supervisors in an effort to run them off the force.

Manning’s response to discovery of the videotape only lends credibility to these charges. It also raises the uncomfortable question of whether the department’s problems begin in the chief’s office.