MySanAntonio.com
By William Packwpack@express-news.net
Updated 08:54 p.m., Friday, October 28, 2011
The U.S. Department of Agriculture is serious about becoming a more culturally diverse workplace but will need time to transform itself into the fully representative agency it strives to be, the department's only minority under secretary said Friday.
The department, which admits to having a checkered past regarding civil rights issues, has not attained the racial breakdown in staffing it hopes to accomplish but is working hard to get there, said USDA Under Secretary Edward Avalos.
Read more: http://www.mysanantonio.com/business/article/USDA-department-striving-to-become-more-diverse-2241473.php#ixzz1cSESSuc7
Showing posts with label Department of Agriculture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Department of Agriculture. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
USDA Flap Shows 'Post-Racial' Future Has Not Arrived
NPR
by Alan Greenblatt
July 21, 2010
The decision to fire Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod — an action Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has now rescinded — is clearly part of a larger debate about discrimination and racial sensitivity in the public sphere.
It's also evidence that hopes so often expressed during the 2008 presidential campaign that Barack Obama would lead the country into a "post-racial" future have thus far gone unrealized. The controversy has brought up complaints about past government discrimination against African-Americans and highlighted a feeling among some whites that the administration is biased against them.
In video posted online, Sherrod is seen recounting her thoughts that a white farmer who came to her for aid in 1986 should go seek help from "his own kind." But the clip initially posted by blogger Andrew Breitbart failed to show the larger context of her remarks, in which Sherrod described how she had overcome such sentiments.
It's also evidence that hopes so often expressed during the 2008 presidential campaign that Barack Obama would lead the country into a "post-racial" future have thus far gone unrealized. The controversy has brought up complaints about past government discrimination against African-Americans and highlighted a feeling among some whites that the administration is biased against them.
In video posted online, Sherrod is seen recounting her thoughts that a white farmer who came to her for aid in 1986 should go seek help from "his own kind." But the clip initially posted by blogger Andrew Breitbart failed to show the larger context of her remarks, in which Sherrod described how she had overcome such sentiments.
Picture: Shirley Sherrod, NPR
Sherrod not sure she would go back to Ag Dept
Yahoo News
By MARY CLARE JALONICK and BEN EVANS, Associated Press Writers Mary Clare Jalonick And Ben Evans, Associated Press Writers – 22 mins ago
WASHINGTON – The woman at the center of a racially tinged firestorm involving the Obama administration and the NAACP said Wednesday she doesn't know if she'd return to her job at the Agriculture Department, even if asked.
"I am just not sure how I would be treated there," Shirley Sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he would reconsider the department's decision to oust Sherrod over her comments that she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago.
The White House called the Agriculture Department Tuesday night after more information about Sherrod's remarks emerged, a White House official said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the call, said the White House and the department agreed that the case should be reviewed based on the new evidence.
"I am just not sure how I would be treated there," Shirley Sherrod said in a nationally broadcast interview. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he would reconsider the department's decision to oust Sherrod over her comments that she didn't give a white farmer as much help as she could have 24 years ago.
The White House called the Agriculture Department Tuesday night after more information about Sherrod's remarks emerged, a White House official said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the call, said the White House and the department agreed that the case should be reviewed based on the new evidence.
Full Story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100721/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_usda_racism_resignation#mwpphu-container
Picture: Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack
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