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Does workforce diversity live up to its promise? As a female and member of the most ignored and overlooked minority in the U.S., I can say with authority, "A resounding NO, it does not".

I am business-friends with the former head of a local police force. They have a policy, she says, of no discrimination in any aspect of their work. I have been in business for myself for most of my life, and have seen that her attitude is overly optimistic, since a policy has never changed the perspective or attitude of a bigot - which is why we speak of prejudice. It means, "pre-judging", after all. My first foster father used to say of such people, "my mind is made up; don't confuse me with facts".

Most depressing is the fact that when we look at the records of tickets handed out, the vast majority of them are not to people of Caucasian extraction - they are to people of ITI extraction. Yet, the police will state categorically that they do not profile. Yeah, right.. if they aren't profiling, then why do they hand out more tickets to us ITI and why are those tickets always for more severe violations than if the offenders were not ITI?

Past that, why are the sentences handed out to us ITI almost invariably harsher than the sentences handed out to whites? There aren't many blacks hereabouts, but the same applies there, as well. And this carries over into the work place.

I am currently in the midst of an ongoing filing against a local temporary-help agency for discrimination on the bases of age, gender, and race. Who is to blame? The deeper I dig, the higher the problem goes. First, it appeared to be just the local branch's manager; but on further inquiry, I have found the problem goes across state lines to the President's office of this company. Disgusting, say I..

A couple of years ago, my man and I were sent to a union construction site by an agency that did a lot of temp-to-hire placements. When we got there, the foreman took one look at us and said, "YOU'RE what they sent?" and snorted. We had gotten out of the pickup and were wearing our tool belts, which are not new but they aren't battered to uselessness, either. We each had over 20 years' experience at that time - But all this jerk cared about was that we are ITI.

Later, I overheard this foreman remarking to one of the electricians about the "*&A^%## squaw" and wondering how long it would be before I started 'coming on to him'. The electrician eventually told him to stop

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