Race: No need to panic.

Joe Biden says he wanted an administration that looks like America.

That means some Black people, Latinix, Asians, women, LGBT.  It also means positions filled by them will not be filled by White, heterosexual males.

No need to panic. They are Americans, too.

Watermark: Hammermill Bond

This blog attempts to look closely at intentional and unintentional messages sent and received in the political world. We interpret messages through the filter of our own imprinting. We think by creating mental shortcuts and ascribing meaning to categories. Humans jump to conclusions. We stereotype. We profile.

We are a collection of impressions and assumptions, taught to us by culture and experience. They remain like watermarks on bond paper, simultaneously visible and invisible, there but not-there, deep in the fiber.

Joe Biden pleased some people when he announced at an early debate that his vice-presidential choice would be a woman. That immediately got opposition. Biden did not say "I want the best, most highly qualified person, the person who will be a heartbeat away from the presidency." He said "a woman." It was a declaration that identity mattered. A politician does not simply "happen to be female."  She is female. He wanted that perspective as his Vice President. He got a highly qualified one.

Herb Rothschild

I don't intend to condone prejudice or minimize how contrary it is to our own principles of fairness and equality. I acknowledge internalized assumptions are present with everyone, always. Prejudices--shortcuts--are not some unique character fault of "deplorables." I assume all finger-pointers condemning racism or misogyny or other prejudices are in some sense hypocrites themselves, blind to their own imprinting. The meaning of mental categories is taught from earliest infancy, and it continues throughout our lives. We were imprinted by parents in ways we cannot imagine. How could we avoid having unfathomable feelings about women, about figures of authority, about the familiar? 

Change is what we intentionally write atop the watermark.

Herb Rothschild shares thoughts on intentional diversity. He retired in Southern Oregon. He grew up in Louisiana and is old enough to have seen and welcomed the Civil Rights revolution as a young adult. He had a long career as an English professor and remains active on behalf of peace and justice.

 

Guest Post by Herb Rothschild

                     The resistance to intentional diversity never dies

In the thread of comments on your February 8th blog, the issue arose in reference to President Biden’s appointments. Very intentionally he has chosen women and people of color—Black, Latinix, Asian, Indigenous and an openly gay man—to occupy prominent positions in his administration. There are far too many to charge “tokenism,” as one commentator did, because tokenism means just one for display at the front counter. This is a genuinely inclusive group of well-qualified public servants reflective of our nation’s make-up.

Does Biden’s intentionality itself vitiate the genuineness of the diversity? To argue that would be another way of decrying affirmative action, which met severe resistance from its inception. But consider this: we white men have always represented significantly fewer than half our nation’s population, but until intentional diversity began we occupied almost all the positions of economic and political power. Why? Because we white men had control of the selection process, and we simply preferred our own, intentionally excluding women and people of color. We were the administrators and beneficiaries of an affirmative action program established from the start. 

None of that would have changed without intention. And the change has meant that we are on our way to mobilizing the talents and skills of our entire population. I witnessed that result first-hand during my years in academia, especially with the flourishing of women of all races and ethnicities as students, faculty and administrators.  

The Democrats’ one failure of diversity was their turning away from blue collar and lower wage working people. Starting with Carter and very pronouncedly with Clinton and Obama, the party was largely captured by the same economic elites that continue to control the Republican Party. Thanks to the Sanders candidacy in 2016 and continuing through the 2020 campaign, the Democrats under Biden seem committed to including once again working-class whites in their base. We’ll see if they deliver.

And then we’ll see if white men can finally value justice over race.