Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
The Outsourcing Sports post below has extracts from a USA Today article. In that article is a reference to ColorLines Magazine. Being me, I go find the thing.
Interesting.
The first day of 4700, the year of the Ram, came and went without great fanfare for most Americans. But if you happen to be one of the 175,000 readers of AsianWeek newspaper you may have stumbled upon the tastefully designed half-page ad wishing you "Happy Chinese New Year" from your friends at the Central Intelligence Agency.
…In the age of Homeland Security, many federal agencies are looking to "diversify" their workforce. You may have heard the Border Patrol appeal on your Clear Channel hip-hop station or the U.S. Navy plug on your Spanish-language banda station. Colin Powell is mugging for the State Department in Hispanic Business magazine. The National Security Agency (NSA) is stumping at the NAACP National Convention. The Defense Intelligence Agency and the Coast Guard are amassing electronic real estate at HireDiversity.com. And the FBI is hunting down recruits in publications like Turkish Times, Korean Times, Gujarat Times, Al Atrana International, Sher-e-Punjab, and Sing Tao.
Anyone with a rudimentary background in American history might wonder at the motives behind this targeted government outreach. The NSA�s College Relations Manager Ken Acosta explains his agency�s "diversity" and foreign language needs like this: "Our workforce must anticipate and respond to the actions of our extremely diverse targets. Therefore, we rely on the diversity of our workforce to envision all the possibilities, to conceive of a world very different from the one we live in–diversity is critical to the success of our missions." In other words, the color-recruiting effort is more than a magnanimous salute to affirmative action. What�s implied in Acosta�s "diversity" pitch is that U.S. intelligence and security agencies are also hoping to people the ranks with some cross-cultural emissaries who might serve as a buffer between the gray-suited old guard and the unknown "other."
In George W. Bush�s America, cultural buffering is no small task. This is the administration that has screened thousands of Iraqi Americans in places like Dearborn, Michigan, in hopes of uncovering high-level military secrets. It�s the administration that offers "snitch visas" in exchange for information about the terrorist next door. It�s the administration that plans–through "special registration"–to regulate the comings and goings of Americans from 25 enemy countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Twenty months into the "war on terror," the "with us or against us" message has seeped into the fabric of America. Appeals for patriots to step forward, like the Chinese New Year ad, are brilliantly cloaked in the language of civil rights, equal opportunity, and cultural uplift.
A goodly chunk of ColorLines Magazine is online. It's a Good Thing (if you're into that sort of thing).
Posted by P6 at October 6, 2003 04:34 PM | Trackback URL: http://www.prometheus6.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1867The article about staffing the homeland is very good and accurately reflects the way I think most Muslims feel about the issue.
The magazine's partent organization, the Applied Research Center, has some very interesting-looking reports available for downloading. I intend to check them out…it might help me look more intelligent.