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The bravest got a scathing rebuke — accused of everything from racism to anti-Semitism — from a man who used to be one of its own. Thomas Von Essen, the city’s former fire commissioner, told a rapt audience in February that firefighters were mired in a “culture of incivility.” All manner of slurs were routinely tossed about inside neighborhood firehouses, said Von Essen, who served 51/2 years under Rudy Giuliani.
“The talk routinely gets rough and the biases and intolerances come out,” he told about two dozen guests during a recent speaking engagement at the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Conn. “It is often aimed at anyone with a darker skin, although gay-bashing, anti-Semitism and sexism get air time, too.” The shocking admission, based on his experiences with the FDNY from more than 15 years ago, comes as the 68-year-old Von Essen is expected to testify at a civil trial to determine whether the city intentionally discriminated against minority FDNY applicants."
That's pretty much how the fire department has always been and still is....you think decades of this behavior magically disappears in a few years? It's the last place in NYC which still thinks it is 1965...and they are blatant and thumb their nose to NYC....and get away with it. How much longer do we have to tolerate this?
What? The NY Fire Dept is intolerant of minorities? I'm shocked. I'd never think a mostly Irish and Italian-led organization would be hostile towards gays, blacks, or Jews.
What's bizarre for me is that this guy was the head of the FDNY for 15 years. If that was occuring as he claims, why the fu@* was he not able to make serious changes to the department? He is as much to blame, moreso in fact, than the individuals in the FDNY who perpetrate these atrocities day in and day out. It all starts from the top down..if that is the culture you allow and support....that is what you will get.
Nevertheless, it is another sad testament to the dysfunctional and toxic FDNY culture....in 2014 no less.
What's bizarre for me is that this guy was the head of the FDNY for 15 years. If that was occuring as he claims, why the fu@* was he not able to make serious changes to the department? He is as much to blame, moreso in fact, than the individuals in the FDNY who perpetrate these atrocities day in and day out. It all starts from the top down..if that is the culture you allow and support....that is what you will get.
Nevertheless, it is another sad testament to the dysfunctional and toxic FDNY culture....in 2014 no less.
I suspect that even if Von Essen had wanted to shake things up at FDNY he would not have been allowed to. Remember who his boss was -- a man almost constitutionally incapable of understanding the frustrations and aspirations of black, Hispanic and female New Yorkers. This was a guy, after all, who first told his wife he was going to divorce her on the evening news.
And you cannot hack it as a human being. Why are you trolling on this thread? The former FDNY commissioner himself acknowledges the very sad and angry environment that exists in the FDNY. But thanks for the usual race baiting and deflection.
Then why arent they firemen? Test too hard for them? Need to be dumbed down?
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