XPost: alt.politics.equality, alt.government.employees, talk.politics.guns XPost: sac.politics
What this whinebag of a story leaves out is that these people were double- dipping military retirement paychecks with a federal job and later federal retirement.
Affirmative action courtesy of the USAF and buddies in the federal
government.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Evelyn Seabrook was able to buy a home even though she
had only a high school diploma. Glenn Flood worked his way up the career
ladder to become a public affairs officer for former Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld. And Calvin Stevens had a dual military and federal
service career that took him to high levels in both.
Now in their late 70s and early 80s, the three retirees are part of a generation of Black Americans who used the military and federal civil
service to pursue the American dream. They acknowledge there were
challenges. But they believe they received more opportunities in the
military and as government employees than they would have in a private
sector where racial discrimination and patronage were common at the time
they were ready to enter the workforce.
“I am glad I chose to be in federal service," Seabrook said. "Even with
all the drawbacks, my personal life was enhanced by my federal job.”
Seabrook, Flood and Stevens have more than 120 years of combined military
and federal service. As leaders in various capacities in the National
Active and Retired Employees Association, they are plugged into the siege federal employees are under during the opening weeks of President Donald Trump's second term. It started with the elimination of programs promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and has expanded to a culling of the
federal workforce under Elon Musk, a special adviser to the Republican president. Musk also seeks to eliminate agencies as head of the Department
of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
They say one thing being lost in the attacks on the federal workforce is
its important history as a stepping stone into the middle class for
minorities when paths were limited, in particular for Black Americans.
Speaking from their homes near Orlando, Florida, and in Decatur, Georgia,
and Palm Springs, California, the retirees said when they came into the military and federal service decades ago, the push wasn’t about
diversifying the workforce. Rather, the opportunities were about ending
the discrimination that left qualified people of color on the outside of
many workplaces.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/to-these-black-retirees-the-federal- civil-service-now-under-attack-was-a-path-to-the-middle-class/ar-AA1zdk5r
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