EthnicMajority

(Mail Online) The all-white makeup of the 33 women chosen to be ambassadors of this year's Indianapolis 500 Festival has sparked a vitriolic debate over diversity within the racing culture.

Columnist Erika D. Smith highlighted the homogeneity of the Indy 500 'princesses' - a group that is selected from hundreds of applicants every year – in a piece for the Indianapolis Star, in which she suggests that their lack of diversity stems from an broader minority deficit among racing fans.

'As a non-native Hoosier, I couldn’t begin to hazard a guess as to why minorities seem to avoid the Indianapolis Motor Speedway like the plague,' Smith writes. 'Whatever the reason, though, it’s likely at the core of why all 33 of this year’s 500 Festival princesses are white. And it’s the reason that they are almost all white every year.'

Full story…

(Washington Post) When two Swedish economists set out to examine whether economic freedom made people any more or less racist, they knew how they would gauge economic freedom, but they needed to find a way to measure a country’s level of racial tolerance. So they turned to something called the World Values Survey, which has been measuring global attitudes and opinions for decades.

Among the dozens of questions that World Values asks, the Swedish economists found one that, they believe, could be a pretty good indicator of tolerance for other races. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbors. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose “people of a different race.” The more frequently that people in a given country say they don’t want neighbors from other races, the economists reasoned, the less racially tolerant you could call that society. (The study concluded that economic freedom had no correlation with racial tolerance, but it does appear to correlate with tolerance toward homosexuals.)

Full story…

(Business Insider) Teen clothing brand Wet Seal has reached a $7.5 million settlement over allegations that it horrendously discriminated against employees of color, because they didn't have the "white," "blue eye," "thin and blond" look the brand wanted, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Three former managers filed the lawsuit last year, accusing the nationwide retail chain of actively firing and denying raises and promotions to black workers. One plaintiff, former manager Kai Hawkins, said that her boss threatened to fire her unless she hired more white employees. Another, Nicole Codgell, claimed that she was fired the day after the company's senior vice president for store operations toured several outlets and sent an email to lower managers, "African American dominate — huge issue." 

Full story…

(McClatchy) Hispanic lawmakers and community leaders warned Republicans on Tuesday about the consequences of blocking President Barack Obama’s nomination of Thomas Perez to be labor secretary.

The show of force at a Capitol Hill news conference came a day before Wednesday’s scheduled confirmation vote on Perez by a Senate committee, following a two-week delay caused by partisan infighting.

“Tom Perez is eminently qualified for this job,” freshman Rep. Joe Garcia, a Florida Democrat, said in an interview. “If Republicans wanted to show an understanding of the Hispanic electorate or sympathy for the Hispanic electorate, they picked the wrong guy to make a scapegoat.”

Some Republican senators have criticized Perez’s performance as the head of the civil rights division in the Justice Department, accusing him of unfairly blocking several states’ voter ID laws and of enforcing anti-discrimination laws too aggressively.

Full story…

(Washington Post) Important segments of President Obama’s base have been hammering him for not appointing enough Latinos and African Americans — and no gays — to his second-term Cabinet.

Thirty-two years ago, when Ronald Reagan’s first-term team was coming together, the Cabinet included one woman, U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and one African American, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Samuel Pierce.

But the number of women and minorities increased later in Reagan’s term, and he named the first Hispanic Cabinet member.

Quick Loop Quiz! Who was that person?

Ah, you guessed it: Education SecretaryLauro Cavazos.

Cabinet diversity increased substantially in the Bill Clinton administration as the 42nd president worked to fulfill his pledge to have a Cabinet that “looks like America.” Clinton was first to name women secretary of state and attorney general. In his initial Cabinet, he had five African Americans, five women and two Hispanics.

Obama appointed more women (seven) and more Asian Americans (three), putting together the most diverse Cabinet ever in his first term.

Full story…

(CNN) – Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, the high court's only African American jurist, opened up recently about his thoughts on race and the White House.

Asked if he ever expected to see an African American president in his lifetime, the conservative justice said he always knew "it would have to be a black president who was approved by the elites and the media, because anybody that they didn't agree with, they would take apart."

"And that will happen with virtually – you pick your person, any black person who says something that is not the prescribed things that they expect from a black person will be picked apart," he said in an April interview at Duquesne Law School in Pittsburgh, which aired on C-SPAN.

"You can pick anybody, don't pick me, pick anyone who has decided not to go along with it; there's a price to pay," he continued. "So, I always assumed it would be somebody the media had to agree with."

Full story…

(Christian Science Monitor) By nominating Charlotte, N.C.President Obama> adds some additional racial diversity to his administration, comes a step closer to completing his second term Cabinet, and moves a youthful African American politician into the national spotlight.

In a ceremony in the White House East Room Monday afternoon, Mr. Obama called Mayor Fox "one of the most effective mayors Charlotte has ever seen,” and detailed Foxx's transportation experience.

"Since Anthony took office, they have broken ground on a new street car project that is going to bring modern electric tram service to the downtown area, they have expanded the international airport, and they are extending the city’s light rail system," the president said. "All of that has not only helped to create new jobs, it has helped Charlotte become more attractive to business.

"So I know Anthony’s experience will make him an outstanding transportation secretary."

Full story…

(The Root) — Since Mad Men premiered in 2007, the show's diversity (or lack thereof) has been an ongoing, real-life subplot to the series' success. For a show set against the racially charged backdrop of the 1960s, critics say, the absence of significant black characters isn't just an oversight; it's inaccurate.

But last week — after five seasons — the show finally figured how to integrate without being ingratiating.

In the episode "To Have and to Hold," secretary Dawn Chambers, the only African American employed at the storied ad firm Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, actually had more to say than "Good morning, Mr. Draper." And all it took was dinner.

Dawn (played by Teyonah Parris) isn't a revolutionary. She's quiet, sweet and sincere to the point of goody-two-shoe-dom. Unlike Don's other secretaries — Peggy, who became his protégé, and Megan, who became his second wife — Dawn seemingly has no bigger aspirations than doing her job so well she gets to keep it.

"What am I gonna do? Throw a brick through their window?" asks Dawn once she finally gets the opportunity to vent some of her frustrations to someone who looks like her, someone who might actually understand — a friend whose wedding Dawn is in.

Full story…

(San Jose Mercury News) If a company has a workforce that is predominantly one demographic, with none on its senior staff, is there a glass ceiling? And what could be done about it? These are questions raised by women like Sheryl Sandberg in her new book LEAN IN. We enthusiastically endorse her "choose to lean in" advice.

But we put these same questions to leaders including CEO Meg Whitman, CEO Tim Cook and COO Sandberg, whose Silicon Valley workforce in HP, Apple and Facebook is largely Asian American but whose leadership teams posted on their web sites are conspicuously lacking in Asian Americans.

While the proportion of Asian American high tech workers in Silicon Valley has grown from 38 percent in 2000 to over 50 percent in 2010, their representation on senior executive teams is only 11 percent. In board rooms, their presence has declined from 8.8 percent to 8.3 percent. And even though Chinese Americans constitute the largest Asian group, their board representation has dropped from 5 percent to 3 percent.

Asian American women appear to face a double-pane glass ceiling. Women are 17 percent of boards and 16 percent of senior executives in Silicon Valley, but Asian American women are less than 1 percent in both.

These are red flags missing in the public conversation about the corporate glass ceiling.

Full story…

(Hispanic Business) The U.S. Senate proposal to replace diversity visas with a merit-based program is being met with skepticism by some civil rights groups and black lawmakers. 

The current proposal is to create at least 120,000 merit visas a year by 2015 that would be replace the 55,000 diversity visas that have been doled out annually via lottery. 

Advocates said they haven't seen evidence yet a new merit-based program is an acceptable replacement for the diversity visas. 

Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington office, is advocating the diversity program be retained, the Washington publication The Hill reported Friday. 

Full story…