A Labor Day Salute to Diversity

Recently,  Corrine Bauer and Pat Melody, members of my Mindfulness Meditation Group,  held a vigil on behalf of Hispanic immigrants locked up in the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center. Thanks to Corrine and Pat for being mindful of the welfare of others.

I'm re-posting the text below from Labor Day 2007 as it continues to be relevant in the context of the status of immigrants in this country and around the globe. Too many Americans oppose immigration as they fear competition for jobs from immigrants seeking safe haven within US borders. The success of an initiative by my employer a few years ago should lay those fears to rest. Nevertheless, we continue to harass Hispanic immigrants in the US, while around the globe, Syrian refugees are too often turned away.

Picture this: I’m a young WAF assigned to clerical duties in an office on Scott Air Force Base, near East St. Louis, Ill. On this particular morning I overhear an Air Force major and a colonel, both Caucasian, discuss the qualifications of a civil service employee under consideration for promotion; the colonel apparently likes her resume. Then he asks, “Is she Caucasian?”

“Negative,” the major replies.

Here's the deal: I’m a Caucasian who grew up in lily-white, rural northwestern Ohio, and this was the first time I’d seen up close the ugliness of racial discrimination. Stunned, I sat there at my typewriter, trying to focus on my work.

(In the weeks that follow, I notice the employee in question is not promoted.)

On the upside, my stint in the military provided my first opportunity to make friends with members of other races and ethnic backgrounds.

I’ve not forgotten Hispanic Maria Venegas; African-Americans Katie Harmon, Annie Terry, and Adeline Lincoln; Parisian French Caucasian Monique Horlaville; and New Orleans French Caucasian Priscilla Bertrand.

Years passed before I encountered a comparable diversity in civilian life ― diversity fostered intentionally in the regional office of a large corporation located in a thriving upscale suburb.

Admittedly, the company’s motives were more practical than altruistic. At a department meeting, Tony, our African-American assistant manager, asked if any of us knew what was behind the diversity initiative. He rolled his eyes when I suggested that our company supported diversity because it was the right thing to do.

Tony then explained the business case for diversity: “If we want to sell our products to the Hmong community, African-Americans, Hispanics, Gays, women, or other minority group, we’d best include their members in our workforce.”

Altruistic or not, it’s amazing how quickly people can adapt to an inclusive environment when their livelihoods are at stake and before long, the 2000 plus employees in that huge office building formed a genuine community featuring many of the amenities and rituals of a small town.

Sad to say, our community ― by then a model of diversity ― became a casualty of corporate downsizing when, thanks to technology, our work was moved elsewhere. But for quite a few years each of us had good cause for celebrating Labor Day.

Perhaps the time will come when a majority of Americans will have matured sufficiently to create similar communities, whatever their context, purely because it’s the right thing to do. 

 

Posted by VIRGINIA BERGMAN at 6:44 AM No comments: Links to this post

Why don’t male veterans support President Obama?

Gallup’s headline for its recent poll of military veterans is misleading. Not all veterans - only male veterans - support Romney 58% to 34%. 

As a veteran of the U.S. Air Force (WAF), I was annoyed at having to read down a couple of paragraphs in Gallup’s report to find that women veterans support Obama 47 to 42.

Full disclosure: I served in the military for primarily one reason: I came from a poor family and hoped to attend college on the GI bill. 

Perhaps we should remind ourselves on Memorial Day that it is usually the poor who fight our wars. 

It was peacetime when I served, and I tuned out the “kill or be killed” indoctrination in basic. And I later took advantage of the education benefits to earn a BA degree.

Conventional wisdom has it that military personnel and veterans of the armed forces typically cultivate a macho culture. In that light, it’s puzzling that such a large percentage of the guys pick Romney over Obama, neither of whom has served in the armed forces. 

Surely, the Obama Administration has been more ruthless than the Bush Administration in its prosecution of war, incessant drone attacks - irregardless of civilian deaths - and take no prisoners strategy in dealing with terrorists.

On the other hand, although Obama’s attitude toward women can be condescending at times, he is more progressive on matters affecting women’s rights than Romney and company. Even so, women vets in this poll don’t give him much of a lead.

Read Gallup’s full report here:

Reducing war to an antiseptic video game

Syed Wali Shah age 7 was killed  in  CIA Drone Attack in Pakistan on Aug. 21, 2009. Photo courtesy of blog.alexanderhiggins.com

 

The Christian Science Monitor’s Anna Mulrine reports on “unmanned drone attacks and shape-shifting robots” in America’s growing arsenal for reducing war to an “antiseptic video game.” Mulrine's article is chilling:

In the shadow of a heavily fortified enemy building, US commanders call in a chemical robot, or what looks like a blob. They give it a simple instruction: Penetrate a crack in the building and find out what's inside. Like an ice sculpture or the liquid metal assassin in "Terminator 2," the device changes shape, slips through the opening, then reassumes its original form to look around. It uses sensors woven into its fabric to sample the area for biological agents. If needed, it can seep into the cracks of a bomb to defuse it.

Soldiers hoping to eavesdrop on an enemy release a series of tiny, unmanned aircraft the size and shape of houseflies to hover in a room unnoticed, relaying invaluable video footage.

A fleet of drones roams a mountain pass, spraying a fine mist along a known terrorist transit route – the US military's version of "CSI: Al Qaeda." Days later, when troops capture suspects hundreds of miles away, they test them for traces of the "taggant" to discover whether they have traversed the trail and may, in fact, be prosecuted as insurgents.

Read more:

Mother’s Day Musings: "I Was a Stranger and You Took Me in"

Tomorrow, May 10, is Mother’s Day, and the kids are taking me to the movies. I’ve been promised either Slumdog Millionaire or the new Star Trek, depending on what’s available. After reading Garychapelhill’s recommendation this morning, I’m kind of hoping for the new Star Trek.

I love being remembered on Mother’s Day, but this afternoon, I’m thinking of my own mother who died several years ago. A particularly poignant memory involves an incident that occurred in the 1950s when our family lived on the outskirts of a small village in northwestern Ohio.

Our house was perched on an embankment across the street from the Mt. Blanchard railroad station. My nephew David and I, ages eight and 10 respectively, often waved from the yard as the trains rumbled by, and we usually got a friendly wave or two in return.

That summer afternoon a one-armed man paced up and down the tracks as he waited to hop a freight. He was obviously one of the homeless wanderers who followed the rails through our small town from time to time.

Mama watched from our living room window. She was a mountain woman, transplanted a few years earlier with my father and their several children from Appalachia to northwestern Ohio. She brought with her from the hollows of southeastern Kentucky few worldly possessions and an indestructible faith, often citing a favorite passage of scripture:

“For I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in.

“Naked and you clothed me, I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came unto me.”

Others might have labeled the one-armed man a hobo, but to Mama he was a war veteran. This was the 1950s, and two of my three brothers were in the military: Kenneth was on combat duty in Korea, and Don was stationed at an airbase in Germany.

Mama rolled up a set of Don’s old work clothes and put them in a paper bag. On top of the clothes, she placed a couple of bologna sandwiches wrapped in heavy wax paper. She then instructed David and me to take the bag to the stranger.

Accepting our gift, the one-armed man smiled down at his scrawny, barefoot benefactors and said “God bless you.”

The next time the whistle blew, David and I beat Mama to the window. The train screeched to a stop, and our war veteran pulled himself up with his good arm, holding the paper bag tightly beneath the stub.

The sound of a train whistle every few hours during our years in Mt. Blanchard imprinted in my psyche a longing to travel. Following the example of my brothers, I enlisted in the Air Force right after high school. After basic training and tech school, I was stationed at Scott Air Force Base near St. Louis the first time I took the train home.

Enlisted personnel weren’t paid very much in those days, and I didn’t have a dime left after buying a round trip ticket to Toledo. In any case, I was too excited to worry about food or renting a pillow to rest my head.

As the train lurched forward, a five- or six- year old boy slid into the seat next to me. He never spoke, but nodded agreeably when I asked if he’d like to hear a story. My Appalachian heritage assured a knack for storytelling, and I’d polished my skills in long hours of babysitting nieces and nephews back home.

Every so often my young companion would get up and leave but he’d return within minutes — still without speaking — and I’d resume my tall tales. After dark he disappeared for longer than usual, and I figured he’d rejoined his parents for the night.

All was quiet that evening when the conductor came by to thank me. He explained the little boy I’d entertained throughout the day was his son. He handed me a thick steak sandwich and a glass of milk, and he gave me a pillow.

I finished my meal and got comfortable. As the train sped through the night, I heard above the engine’s roar Mama’s soft, southern-accented voice: “For I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in.”

A Labor Day Salute to Diversity

Picture this: I’m a young WAF assigned to clerical duties in an office on Scott Air Force Base, near East St. Louis, Ill. On this particular morning I overhear an Air Force major and a colonel, both Caucasian, discuss the qualifications of a civil service employee under consideration for promotion; the colonel apparently likes her resume. Then he asks, “Is she Caucasian?”

“Negative,” the major replies.

Here's the deal: I’m a Caucasian who grew up in lily-white, rural northwestern Ohio, and this was the first time I’d seen up close the ugliness of racial discrimination. Stunned, I sat there at my typewriter, trying to focus on my work.

(In the weeks that follow, I notice the employee in question is not promoted.)

On the upside, my stint in the military provided my first opportunity to make friends with members of other races and ethnic backgrounds.

I’ve not forgotten Hispanic Maria Venegas; African-Americans Katie Harmon, Annie Terry, and Adeline Lincoln; Parisian French Caucasian Monique Horlaville; and New Orleans French Caucasian Priscilla Bertrand.

Years passed before I encountered a comparable diversity in civilian life ― diversity fostered intentionally in the regional office of a large corporation located in a thriving upscale suburb.

Admittedly, the company’s motives were more practical than altruistic. At a department meeting, Tony, our African-American assistant manager, asked if any of us knew what was behind the diversity initiative. He rolled his eyes when I suggested that our company supported diversity because it was the right thing to do.

Tony then explained the business case for diversity: “If we want to sell our products to the Hmong community, African-Americans, Hispanics, Gays, women, or other minority group, we’d best include their members in our workforce.”

Altruistic or not, it’s amazing how quickly people can adapt to an inclusive environment when their livelihoods are at stake and before long, the 2000 plus employees in that huge office building formed a genuine community featuring many of the amenities and rituals of a small town.

Sad to say, our community ― by then a model of diversity ― became a casualty of corporate downsizing when, thanks to technology, our work was moved elsewhere. But for quite a few years each of us had good cause for celebrating Labor Day.

Perhaps the time will come when a majority of Americans will have matured sufficiently to create similar communities, whatever their context, purely because it’s the right thing to do.