It's official--your race determines who you are

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Years ago, Bill Clinton said he wanted a cabinet that looked like America. Rather than condemn him for not picking the best people available regardless of race or sex, many Americans seemed to think this was a good idea.

More recently, when asked to defend his racial policies, President Bush pointed to high-ranking African-Americans in his cabinet, as if this meant anything. (By the way, I don't mind people saying "some of my best friends are..." to defend against personal accusations--why this line is considered so ugly any longer is beyond me.)

Recently, I was reading a Washington Post article about Ralph Nader demanding a recount in New Hampshire (good luck, buddy). Beneath it was a piece called "A More Representative Hill." Since there are more African-Americans, Latinos and women in the 109th Congress, and their percentage is closer to what it is in the general population, this means, for some reason that escapes me, that this Congress is "more representative."

I would think, as long as people are free to vote, that Congress is always pretty representative. Apparently, though, it's now common wisdom--not even worth discussing--that having the right skin color or sexual organs makes you better at representing certain people. One of the great ironies of the civil rights movement is it's devolved into such essentialism. Luckily, other groups that were discriminated against (Jews, Irish, Italians, Catholics, etc.) solved their problems before the modern civil rights establishment was able to legally separate them from everyone else.