As if the State Department of the United States of America didn’t have enough things to do, its Chief Diversity Officer (yes, there really is such a position) is now in charge of what we can and cannot say.  Policy Wonk John M. Robinson has just published a column in the Department’s online periodical, State Magazine, explaining to the uneducated masses how using perfectly innocent words and phrases might get you in trouble with the PC Police.  For example, did you know that if you ask someone to “hold down the fort” you are a racist?  Or, if you use the term “rule of thumb” you are a sexist?  Or if, heaven forbid, you suggest to your date that you “go Dutch” you are a Dutchist?  (Apparently, saying “go Dutch” implies that the Dutch are cheap?  Who knew?)  And don’t even get me started on how insensitive you’ll be if you dare to use the word “handicap!”  Golfers Beware!

Anyway, the point is…actually, there are two points.  The first is that the fact the Department of State finds it necessary to have a Chief Diversity Officer in the first place and gives him a fat federal government paycheck so that he can train us all in the proper usage of the English language according to the Word Czar.  Does anyone else find that insane or is it just me?  Considering that as we speak our U.S. National Debt Clock is traveling at the speed of light toward SIXTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS, or a mere $139,991.00 per taxpayer, I’d say we have a lot more to worry about than offending someone’s sensibilities by stating the obvious.  Americans have been communicating for a couple of centuries by using these common phrases with absolutely no disastrous results.  But now the Chief Diversity Officer of the U.S. Department of State is censuring YOU!

By the same token, it now appears that language restrictions are also being placed on ordinary Americans by none other than our local State Attorney’s Office.  Yeah, you read that right.

Which brings me to my second point.

Over in that cesspool of corruption known as North Miami, residents are up in arms that the City Council is giving away seven perfectly good garbage trucks to a foreign country, i.e. Haiti.  Because of a no-bid contract that mayor Andre Pierre and two of his colleagues threw as a bone to a private sanitation company seemingly in exchange for campaign donations, the city now has surplus sanitation equipment, including trucks.  I was told that Waste Pro, the no-bid winner of the sanitation contract, was supposed to purchase the trucks from the city, but for some reason this fell through.  What a shock.  I was also told that someone else offered the city $100,000.00 for the trucks but the offer was declined.  Instead of being fiscally responsible and accountable to the taxpaying residents of North Miami, the three Haitian council members decided it was more important to donate the trucks to Haiti.  After all, it’s the least Andre could do for HIS president.  Let the taxpayers eat cake.

In an email copied to Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arroyo, a North Miami activist wrote a scathing commentary on this issue and several others, telling it like it is.  She explained that regardless of what the residents want, the three Haitian council members consistently vote for anything that will benefit only the 33% of North Miami residents “claiming Haitian ancestry,” as Wikipedia describes the city’s demographics.

The activist goes on to describe how little respect residents, especially non-Haitian residents, receive from Pierre, et al, when they speak at council meetings.  She also complains of a complete lack of transparency (no-bid contracts?) and a blatant disregard of public records requests.

I can personally attest to the latter.  I have made three public records requests in the last six months, NONE of which were fulfilled.  I wonder if it has to do with the fact that I can’t “claim Haitian ancestry.”  Or, maybe they just don’t do public records requests in North Miami.  I still haven’t figured that out.

(As an aside, this is a good time to give a shout out to the North Miami Beach City Clerk Pamela Latimore and her staff, as well as our Chief of Police Larry Gomer, who respond to requests within hours, sometimes even minutes.  You guys are AWESOME!)

Waiting for public records requests in North Miami is akin to being in God’s waiting room.  Chances are you’ll die first.

Needless to say, the activist’s email was a bit over the top (even by Gadfly standards), but the response she received from Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arroyo was beyond inappropriate.  You would have thought the activist had told him to hold down the fort or something.  Sheesh!

Instead of addressing the problems spelled out in her email, Mr. Arroyo told her that her comments were “inflammatory,” and that he “would prefer not to be a recipient of e-mails that contain superfluous comments characterizing the City of North Miami as a ‘Third World Country’ [or] denigrating the City’s elected officials.”

In other words, it’s okay for the mayor and two of his colleagues to disrespect 66% of the entire population, rush no-bid contracts through with barely a discussion, and refuse to respond to public records requests, BUT HOW DARE ANYONE DENIGRATE THEM?  They are “PUBLIC OFFICIALS” for crying out loud!  Chief Assistant State Attorney Jose Arroyo determined that her comments were offensive.  But the actions of the “public officials” were not?

Really?

Undaunted, the activist wrote back:

“It is not my or anybody else’s responsibility to prove anything.  The State Attorney’s office has been provided with a ton of information and nobody has done a thing about the inappropriate conduct in this City.  The range of activities goes from make believe police badges that were supposedly destroyed without any proof, destruction of the City sanitation department in a heart beat, illegal use of cameras in Mayor’s office, Mayor’s private use of City facilities, using City Police Department as their personal employees, providing protection to the President of Haiti using City tax dollars, City’s refusal to provide public records requests, and more things then I am gong to detail at this time.  You all have the information and don’t care!  Interestingly enough your email is the biggest response I’ve received regarding the City of N Miami.  Is this what it takes to wake somebody up?”

I’d say she summed up the corruption pretty well in one short paragraph, wouldn’t you?

Apparently, the actual crimes and misdemeanors being continuously perpetrated by Mr. Arroyo’s esteemed “public officials” matter not.  What does seem to matter to him is that some people might find her “comments offensive.”

Chief Assistant City Attorney Jose Arroyo responded to her second email with:

“Your assertions, regarding our prosecution efforts are at best, inaccurate and ill-informed.  You are correct on one point.  It is our obligation to prove criminal conduct beyond and to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt.  I think that any further interaction between us via e-mail is not going to be productive.  I stand by my comments regarding your characterizations of the city and other comments are inappropriate communications with a public prosecution entity.”

Apparently the staff at Katherine Fernandez Rundle’s State Attorney’s Office got the memo from the Chief Diversity Officer at the U.S. Department of State that using certain words or phrases are politically incorrect.  Mr. Arroyo obviously ascribes to the belief that regardless of how dishonest, devious or corrupt your elected officials are, taxpaying citizens had better learn to use Politically Correct wording lest the offenders are offended.

In other words, if you can’t behave accordingly, don’t waste your time filing complaints.  Period.  End of discussion.

That would be a good rule of thumb to keep in mind.

Oops, sorry!  That was so sexist of me!

Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”