Archive for the ‘Glass ceiling’ Category
Sunday, January 8th, 2012
(The Root) Is Hollywood backsliding when it comes to providing high-quality, realistic roles for African-American women? According to the veteran black film and TV actresses, industry insiders and everyday observers the Daily Beast's Allison Samuels talked to in a piece exploring the issue, the outlook doesn't look great. Check out some highlights of the piece here:
Kim Wayans: I didn’t think we’d still be having this same conversation so many years later … The 90s were so bright and promising for people of color in Hollywood, and I for one thought it would only get better with the chance for me and other black actresses to portray any number of characters and in all types of stories.
Debbie Allen: I remember in the 80s when my sister Phylicia (Rashad) was on the The Cosby Show and I was on Fame, girl, you couldn’t tell me that it wasn’t a brand new day for black women and the way we were portrayed in film and television … No one could have told me we’d go in the complete reverse in the decades to come.
Full story…
Tags: actress, film, Hollywood, movie, role, SAG, Screen Actors Guild, TV
Posted in African American, Glass ceiling, Media/Entertainment | Comments Off
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011
(Chicago Sun Times) You’ve heard of the glass ceiling (women) and the bamboo ceiling (Asian Americans). It turns out there’s a blue-collar ceiling for Chicago Latinos.
So says a new study from DePaul University’s New Journalism on Latino Children project and the Latino Policy Forum. They analyzed Hispanic representation in 480 occupations identified by the U.S. Census Bureau and found that both Mexican immigrants and many of their U.S.-born counterparts are overrepresented in low-skilled, low-pay manufacturing, food service, and construction industries.
Considering that Latinos represented three of every five new entrants to the region’s labor force over the past decade and that their dismal high school graduation rates — a mere 59 percent — are colliding with a time when our city is turning toward a knowledge-based economy, this is very bad news.
Full story…
Tags: blue collar, census, Chicago, DePaul, Glass ceiling, jobs, labor force, latino, unemployment
Posted in Diversity, Glass ceiling, Hispanic American, Workplace | Comments Off
Monday, December 19th, 2011
(Physorg.com) Networking within an organization and having a mentor are widely thought to promote career success, but a new University of Georgia study finds that African-American men don't receive the same measurable benefits from these professional connections that Caucasians do.
Study co-author Lillian Eby, a professor in the Industrial-Organizational Psychology Program in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, said the finding shouldn't discourage African Americans from seeking mentoring and networking opportunities. Rather, it emphasizes the need for women and minorities to think broadly about the mentors they choose and with whom they network. People tend to have professional and social networks that are composed of people who are similar to them, she explained, and African Americans remain underrepresented in high-level positions.
Full story…
Tags: advancement, african american men, career, corporate ladder, job, mentor, mentoring, networking, professional connections
Posted in African American, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Workplace | Comments Off
Thursday, November 24th, 2011
(New York Times) A group of African-American pastors in New Mexico, along with the Albuquerque chapter of the N.A.A.C.P., said Tuesday that they have filed a complaint with the Justice Department alleging that black faculty and staff members at the University of New Mexico and its hospital are subject to discrimination.
The Title VI complaint, which was also filed with the federal Department of Education, says university administrators have created a racially hostile environment for black faculty members, students and the staff.
Specifically, it asserts that African-Americans have been excluded from positions in the school’s upper administration; that black women at New Mexico were virtually left out of all positions of authority; and that blacks on the faculty faced disparity in salaries compared with fellow minority colleagues.
Full story…
Tags: black, Department of Education, discrimination, NAACP, New Mexico, University of New Mexico
Posted in African American, Education, Glass ceiling, Workplace | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
(Gawker.com) The National Venture Capital Association has completed its 2011 census. Now we all know the business of doling out money to tech startups is a pasty one—right? we're all clear on this, yes?—but the association this year trumpets "signs of increasing ethnic diversity." So, take a wild guess at the combined percentage of blacks and Latinos among venture capitalists.
Did you guess two percent? If so, congratulations, you win another several decades of continued de facto exclusion and OMG HOW DARE YOU CALL ME A RACIST push back. After surveying 600 VC professionals, NVCA found the industry to be 87 percent white, 9 percent Asian, and 2 percent black or Latino. The low numbers of blacks and Latinos apparently precluded even breaking out separate tallies, even though these are the two largest U.S. ethnic groups after whites, constituting 16 and 12 percent of the overall national population, respectively.
Full story…
Tags: NVCA, VC, venture capital
Posted in African American, Business, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Hispanic American, Workplace | Comments Off
Friday, November 11th, 2011
(CNN) Wayne Sutton has been asking venture-capital investors and Silicon Valley executives a question that's not often broached here in the epicenter of the technology industry:
"Why aren't there more black people in tech?"
The vast majority of top executives at the leading Silicon Valley tech firms are white men. Women and Asians have made some inroads, but African-American and Latino tech leaders remain a rarity. About 1% of entrepreneurs who received venture capital in the first half of last year are black, according to a study by research firm CB Insights.
This lack of diversity in Silicon Valley made headlines last month when influential tech blogger Michael Arrington, in an interview for CNN's upcoming documentary "Black in America: The New Promised Land: Silicon Valley," said, "I don't know a single black entrepreneur." Arrington later recanted the statement, saying he was caught off guard by the question, but the sensitive issue sparked a public dispute between the newly minted venture capitalist and CNN's Soledad O'Brien.
Full story…
Tags: black, entrepreneur, Silicon Valley, startup, tech, venture capital
Posted in African American, Business, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Workplace | Comments Off
Friday, November 4th, 2011
(Washington Post) When Al Flowers was born, his grandmother brought him home in a shoe box and sat all night by the wood stove to keep him warm.
When he was 10, he went to the tobacco fields with the adults, “cropping” leaves by hand and dumping them in a cart drawn by two gray mules.
He lived in a tin roof house with no running water and bathed in a No. 10 washtub.
Coming of age, he thought: There must be something more.
There was.
This month, Maj. Gen. Alfred K. Flowers, 63, retires from the U.S. Air Force as the military’s longest-serving active-duty general.
He is also the longest-tenured active-duty service member in the Air Force, and the longest-serving active-duty African American in the six-decade history of the Defense Department.
Full story…
Tags: Air Force, Al Flowers, Defense Department, General, military
Posted in African American, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Workplace | Comments Off
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
(SFGate) Justice Michael Douglas is the first African American on Nevada’s Supreme Court and served a stint as chief justice, a rotating position, earlier this year. Speaking recently in San Francisco, where he went to law school, Douglas recalled the welcome he received the first time he entered a Nevada courtroom as a lawyer.
It was in 1982 when the newly hired Legal Services attorney showed up in a three-piece suit to represent a low-income client who wasn’t in court. Douglas said the judge looked down, saw a black man sitting by himself at the counsel table, and assumed that the client hadn’t been able to find a lawyer so the case would be defaulted. Only when the opposing attorney spoke up did His Honor realize that Douglas, too, was a lawyer, he said.
“I was slapped in the face. …It brought me back to reality,” Douglas, now in his seventh year on his state’s high court, told law students and attorneys at a Golden Gate University panel on “Chief Justices of Color.”
Full story…
Tags: appointment, attorney, judge, judicial, Justice, law, lawyer, legal
Posted in Diversity, Glass ceiling, Politics, Workplace | Comments Off
Thursday, October 20th, 2011
(Asian Journal) To promote Asian-American leadership in government, the White House Initiative on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) has launched a training program for managers.
The program is expected to increase the number of senior and mid-level managers in the federal government.
“(This is) part of ensuring that our government looks very much like our community. We are committed to preserving that diversity in government,” Kiran Ahuha, WHIAAPI executive director told media last Oct. 14.
The one-year mentor training fellowship program is expected to enhance communication and leadership skills in these individuals.
“There is a sense of frustration among AAPIs because of cultural upbringing,” Ahuja said, referring to how these individuals think they are seen as future leaders.
Ahuja noted that doubts about their communication style or “how outspoken” they need to be are common questions among AAPI government employees.
Full story…
Tags: civil service, government, jobs, management, manager, training, White House
Posted in Asian American, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Politics, Workplace | Comments Off
Monday, September 26th, 2011
(McClatchy) Senate Republicans balked the last time President Barack Obama nominated an Asian American from California to a prominent bench seat, which some conservatives considered a stepping stone to the Supreme Court.
Now, with the nomination of Los Angeles-based U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Hong-Ngoc Nguyen to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Obama and GOP lawmakers will get another chance to either fight or reconcile over a potentially historic appointment.
"I look forward to a speedy confirmation by the Senate," Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.
In the current political climate, this might be wistful thinking.
Obama's prior choice for the 9th Circuit, then-law professor Goodwin Liu, saw his nomination languish under a GOP wet blanket for some 15 months before he withdrew last May. Ninety-two federal judiciary vacancies remain, including 17 on appellate courts.
Full story…
Tags: 9th circuit, appointment, barack obama, Court of Appeals, Goodwin Liu, Jacqueline Nguyen, judicial, judiciary
Posted in Asian American, Diversity, Glass ceiling, Politics, Workplace | Comments Off
