FEMA's Almost All-White Leadership Plagued by Discrimination Complaints

[confludemocrat]

DiversityInc Exclusive: FEMA's Almost All-White Leadership Plagued by Discrimination Complaints
By Yoji Cole
© 2005 DiversityInc.com®
September 20, 2005

You read it here exclusively. Information obtained by DiversityInc reveals the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an organization plagued by racial inequities, which makes clear the reasons for its inability to relate to and provide for people of color, especially low-income blacks.

Information obtained by DiversityInc through a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shows FEMA's leadership is almost entirely white and the federal agency has been subject to a disproportionate amount of discrimination claims.

Race became a salient factor in judging the effectiveness of FEMA's response after DiversityInc learned that of the organization's 19 senior staff members listed on its Web site, only one is a person of color and only five are women. The only person of color is the director of FEMA's Office of Civil Rights, Pauline C. Campbell, a black woman.

In addition, employee complaints citing race and gender bias at FEMA have increased dramatically in the past year, according to DiversityInc's findings.

snip
Discrimination complaints are soaring at the agency. In the first three quarters of FY2005 (the federal fiscal year ends Sept. 30), FEMA had more internal complaints based on race and sex than it had in 2003 and 2004 combined and more than it had in any year since 2000. The first three quarters of FY2005 saw race-based complaints more than double, from 12 in 2004 to 31 in 2005, according to data released to DiversityInc by FEMA.

The first three quarters of 2005 also saw complaints based on gender discrimination soar, up almost 400 percent, from 11 in 2004 to 43 in 2005. That also was an increase in complaints from 15 in 2003, 16 in 2002, 20 in 2001 and 17 in 2000.

snip
This is of concern to black members of Congress as well, especially Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking member of the U.S. House Committe on Homeland Security.

"I just spoke to Michael Chertoff about an hour ago and told him that I'd been in several meetings this weekend in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and I had not seen one African American who works for FEMA," Thompson told DiversityInc Monday.

"I was in New Orleans, in Jackson, Miss., in Hancock County, Miss., this weekend and at every meeting there were a number of FEMA representatives but not one was African American," Thompson said.

The dearth of leaders of color becomes even more alarming when a great many of the citizens FEMA is supposed to help are people of color and poor. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of New Orleans in 2000 was 485,000, of whom 326,000 (67 percent) were black, 136,000 white, and the remaining Asian American or Latino. Median incomes in New Orleans and the other affected areas are significantly lower than the national average. Based on poverty rate, Mississippi is the poorest state in the nation. Louisiana is the second poorest.

snip
Thompson said he's already heard that black victims are not receiving equitable treatment from FEMA representatives. To make FEMA aware Friday, he sent a letter to FEMA's Acting Under Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response, R. David Paulison.

Many of the residents in New Orleans were single mothers, and there is no indication that FEMA leaders thought that keeping black families together was important since many have been separated in shelters in different states. The perception: "As I saw the African Americans, mostly African-American families ripped apart, I could only think about slavery, families ripped apart, herded into what looked like concentration camps," said Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., on the rescue and relocation efforts. Her thoughts were shared by many black television viewers. FEMA lacked the leaders of color who could speak out and say that separating black families echoed slave-era atrocities.

Another perception is that there is no need to provide exceptional relief for poor black citizens. The perception: "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this—this is working very well for them," said Barbara Bush to television reporters at Houston's Astrodome. FEMA lacked a leader of color who could tell the media and the public that the organization did not share Mrs. Bush's point of view.

As a result, the following perception prevails among the nation's black communities: "George Bush doesn't care about black people," said Kanye West on an NBC telethon for hurricane relief.

FEMA's leadership is sorely lacking in representation of color, people who could have contradicted the negative perceptions of not only the black residents of New Orleans marooned at the city's Superdome but of itself and the administration.

The Bush admin is incompetent at every level you

link:http://www.diversityinc.com/members/17322.cfm
(subscription only)
I hope this is excerpted enough to conform to the rules

[htuttle]

1. There's no sense contradicting a negative 'perception' if it's true

And it's true: George Bush doesn't care about black people.

[MissMarple]

2. George doesn't care about poor people.

He doesn't care about people who can't do anything for him, black, white, yellow, red, or pea green and from Mars. He uses people. If you are not serving one of his purposes, you are irrelevant.