Fire Department Hiring Practices

* Re: “Inmates’ Spark of Hope,” June 28.

You’ve just been convicted of carjacking or armed robbery. Congratulations! Since you are female and a “minority,” you get to be a firefighter!

I understand “teaching young women skills . . . to improve their lives,” but the most important thing to teach them is to not carjack people or duct-tape people and rob them at gunpoint. And this is being done by training them to be firefighters--one of the most coveted professions in Southern California?

I have friends who have been testing to be firefighters for close to 10 years, with college degrees and no criminal record, who are unable to get hired because they are white males.

What must the victims of these violent crimes feel, knowing that the people who inflicted such physical and emotional pain on them are being rewarded for the crimes they have committed?

Why are we being made to feel that these convicted criminals are actually the victims? Second chances should not be given to people at the expense of honest, hard-working people.

The fire department’s written policy of adding points to the scores of applicants who are not white males is pure discrimination. This nauseates me and only serves to perpetuate racism. To quote a rap song’s lyric, “ . . . darker skin to the score add 10, whites needn’t apply, tell a friend.”

MIKE THOMPSON

Oxnard