Midwest Chick's Place

B had a post last week regarding the law that keeps furloughed, non-essential employees paid (albeit delayed).

I found this article in Forbes that claims that reductions in force of furloughed employees is actually racist. And you know when they pull the race card, they have scraped the bottom of the barrel.

This is especially true for Black workers. For decades, federal employment has been one of the few ladders to economic stability for Black Americans. Pensions, healthcare, and union protections helped level a playing field tilted by discrimination elsewhere.

But that ladder is cracking. Before the shutdown, nearly 19% of the federal workforce identified as Black, according to Office of Personnel Management data.

So in essence, they are claiming that federal employment is just a DEI program designed to offset ‘discrimination in other sectors’.

Now, with more than 4,000 RIFs and tens of thousands of buyouts issued under DOGE’s reorganization, analysts say the blows are falling hardest on Black women, the very backbone of the government in health and education, and Black men who serve a similar role in enforcement and inspection.

These aren’t faceless jobs. They’re the steady paychecks that have kept Black families in the middle class for generations. When those paychecks disappear, so does a pillar of racial economic equity in America.

…

Alsobrooks hails from Prince George’s County, Maryland, where more than 60% of federal workers are Black. 

Per Judicial Watch in 2022, TSA is a major employer of minorities:

Although the majority of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees come from “underrepresented racial and ethnic groups,” the agency is hiring a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the recommendation of a special Inclusion Action Committee (IAC) created after George Floyd’s death.

…

Despite a 55% racial and ethnic minority staff, the agency with 60,000 employees will work to ensure it is inclusive and that diversity is reflected at all levels, according to an extensive report published by the inhouse IAC.

The Forbes article, I am sure, was meant to cause consternation due to its very obvious bias. I am equally sure that it missed the mark. And they botched their own premise which was that black federal employees are scattered throughout the US with their own information (60% of federal employees in Prince George’s County are black), so that means that federal employees are clumped in certain areas, mainly urban.

No matter how much you hate the media, it’s never enough.