General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's attack on the federal workforce is an attack on the Black middle class
Jan. 26, 2025, 5:00 AM CST
The Trump administration has already launched sweeping attacks on the federal government itself, from hiring freezes at various agencies to shutting down the Justice Department’s civil rights division. These moves are not simply about abstract opposition to government; fully explaining them requires acknowledging U.S. history. From the military to the United States Postal Service to sundry federal agencies, the federal government’s personnel policies — though nowhere near perfect — have helped expand and sustain a Black middle class.
The most well-known example of this shows up at your home every day: the U.S. Postal Service. The Post Office Department, as it used to be called, was once the single largest employer of Black people in the United States. In 2022, according to the Government Accountability Office, “about 53 percent of [the Postal Service’s] total workforce consisted of individuals from historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic groups, and women made up about 46 percent of the workforce.”
And it’s not just the post office. As the Center for American Progress pointed out in a 2020 report, “the federal government has hired Black Americans at higher rates than the private sector going back a century or more.”
Not coincidentally, generations of conservatives — from George Wallace to Donald Trump — have plotted to rein in the federal government. Let’s be clear, then, why the federal government has bothered conservatives so much and for so long. And let’s be clear about the impacts reducing the federal workforce — either via the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” or by unleashing anti-DEI “patter rollers” — would have.
Snip
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-dei-federal-workers-civil-rights-rcna188966
![](/du4img/smicon-reply-new.gif)
Hugin
(35,472 posts)Over 30% of the Federal workforce are veterans. It’s an astounding bigoted move to try to push them out wholesale.
LiberalArkie
(17,279 posts)However, women mainly followed by not-white of either gender.
His target seems to be mainly those who would not be in the white supremacy groups.
probably over 50% of the federal workforce is female. If I was a woman working in a non secretarial job, I would be worried.
If I was non-white in any job I should already have my resume in at small companies as the large corporations have already kissed Trumps ring and sworn fealty to him.
Hugin
(35,472 posts)Veterans are not limited in the modern era to white males. That’s a misconception.
LiberalArkie
(17,279 posts)I think that a White veteran won't have problems unless they are liberal. Probably gay white veterans won't have a problem right off the bat, but later when the purging has been going on for a while, yes.
If the administration goes after the marriage equality bill, which I really believe they will, then the gays will be purged. But after the women and non-whites. Non-whites being Asians like Vivek. I think he figured it out.
Do I know anything? Nope. but being 77 male I have see where we were when I was young in South Arkansas. How much progress has been made. How much that progress changed the world. And how the ones who never changed hated and resented those changes.
I have known plenty of workers in tech and other high learning fields lost out to the B1B's, MaInly because the H1B's cost the companies less money and were easier to get rid of when the job was over. But I saw a company I used to work with have to bring large groups of software auditors to check remove the backdoors that the H1B's built into their code.
We as a nation are going to drop in standing, and maybe rightfully so. I really do not think we should be looking to be the standard for excellence any more.
Bluethroughu
(6,825 posts)crud
(895 posts)they will assume you are disloyal. if you are a manager, and you hire or promote any people of color they will consider you disloyal. These are the real world consequences, real folks need to face.
LiberalArkie
(17,279 posts)I have worked at a company with a woman as the lead or manager and the people under her tend to be all female (whether of her doing or just circumstance). One was the project managers department as I had a friend trying to get in and was qualified and perhaps better qualified than the people she hired.
If might be than as a minority (or woman) that they feel more comfortable around employees that are probably not as toxic as some.
I do not really know. I worked around these managers all the time and I never had a problem, but a person notices when a whole department is either all male, female or a single race.