Posted on 10/04/2012 8:03:09 PM PDT by Hunton Peck
The U.S. government paid a Chicago consultant hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on diversity training workshops that, according to one watchdog, included an exercise in which employees were told to chant "our forefathers were illegal immigrants."
Conservative group Judicial Watch made the claim this week as it released a handful of documents pertaining to the program -- and alleged that the sessions held by the Department of Agriculture ended up enforcing political views more than promoting tolerance.
"Instead of being diversity-oriented or tolerance-oriented, it's more about adopting a mindset," said Lisette Garcia, a senior investigator with the group. "It seemed to go so far as to encourage illegal immigration."
But the USDA denied that the workshop was anything more than a training exercise to "examine stereotypes."
"Participants did not chant during these workshops," a department official said. "In one portion of the session, the presenter had participants repeat provocative and potentially offensive phrases as part of an exercise to examine stereotypes. The statements were not reflective of USDA or its policy."
Judicial Watch began to investigate the sessions earlier this year after being approached by a tipster at USDA who was "offended" by them, Garcia said. Judicial Watch claims it has identified at least $200,000 spent by the USDA over the last two years on the company Souder, Betances & Associates.
The USDA later confirmed that amount.
The tipster, Garcia said, described one session in which the speaker led workers in chanting "our forefathers were illegal immigrants" while pounding on the table and getting others in the room to join in.
"How does that fit into the USDA mission at all?" she said. "The price tag makes it more egregious."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Let's give the USDA employees some one-way JetBlue tickets.
I’m sure there would be some real kickback if they were called by their real name: forced indoctrination sessions.
My tax money went for this? How many $7 government donuts were purchased for this wasteful exercise?
Meetings like this are going on all across the U.S. Govt.
October is “Hispanic History” month.
The months before were “LGBT Diversity Month”, “Pride Month”, etc.
This stuff is being shoved down the throat of employees though often these meetings are voluntary. However, other sessions are mandatory to upper level officials.
Basically nobody gives a damn what month it is. The real diversity is the fact that so many people from so many different backgrounds, races, religions, cultures, etc. are working together in a peaceful harmony.
Nobody gives a darn what you are. It is whether you can do the job or not.
“Diversity” has become the Great Divider, not uniter.
As a former employee of the USDA I actually had to sit through some of these types of sessions. A particularly memorable one was a presentation by a 1st generation Mexican immigrant, sorrowful that his children growing up in the U.S. did not know their heritage, nor could they speak Spanish, while railing against the polluting effects of white Europeans in the U.S.
The irony that Spain is a European country apparently never occurred to him.
“speaker led workers in chanting “our forefathers were illegal immigrants” while pounding on the table and getting others in the room to join in.
“How does that fit into the USDA mission at all?” she said. “The price tag makes it more egregious.”
The worst part is , it’s a LIE! Only a handful of the founding fathers were any kind of ‘immigrant’! The vast majority of them were born on this soil. They were NATIVES!
[snip]Fifty-six men from each of the original 13 colonies signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Nine of the signers were immigrants, two were brothers and two were cousins. One was an orphan. The average age of a signer was 45. Benjamin Franklin was the oldest delegate at 70. The youngest was Thomas Lynch Jr. of South Carolina at 27.
http://www.aspecialdayguide.com/yorktown/foundingfathers.htm
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.