I admit that I have struggled to understand what “Woke” means. I decided to do some research on its political meanings. I believe the following definition is the best explanation;
“It’s kind of this lumping together of anybody whose views could be construed as being progressive on issues related to identity and civil rights.”
So, what did the fire cadets say or do that merits them being terminated? Someone knows, but they aren’t sharing it with the media.
”[The decision] shows, in my administration, we have zero tolerance for any racism, any trash talk of our community,“ Whitmire said. ”[…] We’re not going to talk about people’s race [or sexual orientation] in a negative way. We want good, decent firefighters.”
Was it race, sexual orientation? What did they say or write in that chat conversation that merits firing?
Are we going to get thought police now that will monitor our brains to make sure that we are woke or not woke?
But what got my attention was Whitmire’s outlandish claim that they may have spent a million dollars on training the 12 cadets who were dismissed.
Mayor Whitmire acknowledged these concerns, conversationally estimating that the city could have lost as much as $1 million from the combined funds in training.
An HFD spokesperson confirmed these estimates to KPRC 2’s Rilwan Balogun, saying that the total costs in training average out to about $100,000 per cadet. These expenses include the cadet’s salary, plus fees for instructors, training and equipment, all of which is paid for by the city.
The spokesperson was trying to justify Whitmire’s estimation of the cost that the city had incurred. It may have been true that the cost of the instructors is part of the value lost; there were 27 other cadets who graduated from the class.
