A Democratic activist and donor.
In fact, it was in proportion.
My perception of what America "looks like" needs to catch up.
I was happy to see non-White speakers -- as was my correspondent. But we each feared that White voters might resent seeing so many of them.
Some decades ago I began noticing Black people showing up in TV advertisements. In a group of five or six young men having fun drinking Budweisers, one would be Black. I recall later seeing Hispanic and Asians slipped in, too. In recent years they aren't in background; they are the central character upgrading a cell phone plan or singing the praises of Ozempic. Advertisers were representing a diverse set of customers.
My correspondent and I each estimated that about half of the people on the convention stage were people of color. We thought that half was far more than an equitable proportion, that it was an example of overzealous "inclusion." We thought it would play into the White-displacement fear that Trump has made a centerpiece message. The choice of speakers, we thought, was likely to undermine the Democratic message that they had moved away from the overzealous DEI policies. As a mixed-race woman, Kamala Harris was the ideal candidate to stop talking about race, and start talking about self-reliance, work, and achievement. She could do it without being accused of being prejudiced against Blacks, Asians, and women.
The GOP is over 75% White, but Democrats are just over 50% White.
I am married to an immigrant. I like immigration. Immigration addresses a labor shortage and the balance between workers and retirees. I perceive the changing demographics in America as a combination of inevitable and good, as long as young, ambitious people want to come here, and so far they do.
Republican voters -- fueled by relentless stories of crime, caravans of invaders, a misperception of who gets public benefits, and accusations of voter fraud on Fox and in Trump's rallies -- see the changing face of America with alarm. I am not alarmed, but I am surprised. My mental image of America had not caught up with reality. The line-up of faces at the Democratic convention wasn't anybody bending over backwards. It reflected reality. Democrats are a party that looks like America.
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20 comments:
The observations in this post conflate "black" and "people of color". Numbers of the latter among DNC speakers were apparently in proportion with America's numbers, to the extent that should be dispositive. Numbers of the former, on the other hand, I suspect (though don't know for a fact), were well over 13%. And Hispanics as such, by contrast, well under 19%? It's a worthwhile inquiry given that for instance Asians, including Indians/Pakistanis, are considered for many purposes to be white-"adjacent" by race-identity nose-counters on the social justice Left.
The U.S. has a long history of violence and repression against non-Whites, particularly Native Americans and Blacks. The Native American population was reduced from an estimated 10 million to 300,000 by 1900. Africans were imported as beasts of burdened and brutally suppressed even after slavery was made illegal.
After centuries of official, systemic repression, gross disparities persist between Whites and people of color in such areas as health, wealth and incarceration. Attempts to address these inequities with programs such as Affirmative Action have been met with howls of protest from Whites who claim they’re the ones being discriminated against, especially since Trump was made president.
Now we have the classic matchup: an old, overstuffed White male racist vs. an intelligent, experienced woman of color in her prime. It doesn’t get more American than this – a contest between our nation’s prejudice and its ideals. May the best woman win.
Who spoke at the DNC and what color or sex they were is not the problem that the Democrats have.
The actual problem is when they predetermine who to appoint based solely on race or sex, like when Biden said he would appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court: not the best possible judicial mind, but the best black female judicial mind he could find.
By doing that, he made Ketanji Brown Jackson into a DEI hire. All he needed to do to avoid that was to appoint her without announcing beforehand that he was going to limit his choices that way.
We are not supposed to discriminate against (or for) any race or sex. But, apparently, that’s not “good enough“ for progressives.
Thank you for your (again) misquided insight.
In 2020, the second election that weird Don Old lost, a lot of people, myself included, wanted Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket.
Michael seems to have trouble accepting that there are people with impeccable qualifications who are not White.
Well, the best black female judicial mind hailing from the political Left, anyway!
Another actual problem is the invidious working assumption that disparities between identity-group numbers in certain target groups and identity-group population percentages overall MUST be the active or passive result of sinister race discrimination.
As noted, however, say in college admissions, Asians for example suddenly lose their "of color" designation when "proof" of supposed discrimination gives way to the wider goal, namely gerrymandered group quotas to suit fashionable social "justice" sensibilities.
The artificial primacy of group over individual identity in this connection serves no good policy end.
Some folks just can’t accept that Blacks could be as qualified as Whites, or that disparities between Blacks and Whites are the products of prejudice rather than their inferiority. They even have a pseudoscience known as ‘scientific racism,’ advanced by White nationalists, to support their theories of White supremacy. Trying to convince them otherwise is as hopeless as trying to convince the ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ types that Trump lost the election.
Slavery may be illegal anymore, but the mentality that justified remains very much with us.
I have no trouble with excellent people, regardless of race or sex.
I have a problem with the left enforcing race/sex quotas, and turning our society into a zero-sum conflict between the subgroups they seem to want to split us up into.
Mc seems to have a problem with listening carefully to what I say, as opposed to projecting images of a preferred opponent onto me. I don’t agree with quotas, so I must be a racist — right, Mc? Is that how your “reasoning” goes?
Too hard to actually debate, so take the easy way out and toss the R-word at me?
For those of you who read this blog and are unable to understand why it is necessary to make conscious decisions and commitments to correct something so engrained in our society that most people don’t even notice, think of it this way: If people had assumed for over a hundred years that only women were capable of being medical doctors and most people still felt this way, would you, as a man, hope that your hospital or clinic would put forth an effort to hire more male doctors? These men would have to be as qualified as the women applicants, but their perspective would be welcome, in particular when it came to men’s health. This scenario could apply to just about any occupation that has been dominated by either men or women. It is not “reverse discrimination”; it is not the dreaded “quota system”. It is increasing diversity because it contributes so much, and due to the innate biases we all have, it is not going to happen by chance.
I can see the point of this for medical doctors.
But what about, for example, quantum physicists? Is there something that females versus males bring to the ongoing attempts to understand the interactions of neutrinos?
It seems to me that in fields like quantum physics (and my own field of computer programming) what you want is the smartest and most skillful people you can find, regardless of what sex or color they happen to be.
Jennifer clams that diversity hires “would have to be as qualified.“ That’s a nice aspiration, but that aspiration can often be violated when DEI bureaucrats put pressure on organizations to “get the numbers right.“
I did an excellent job for 20 years teaching community college students to write code. I brought some unique talents and qualifications to the job. I observed the DEI pressure placed on the hiring process, and it saddens me that a white male like me would have very little chance of getting hired for that job in the current environment of woke academia.
Thank you, Jennifer, for your cogent clarification of what should be obvious: When a minority group has been deliberately deprived of so much for so long, eliminating that handicap requires a focused effort by the repressive society. That effort is called Affirmative Action. White nationalists call it “reverse discrimination.” They’re in a panic over the prospect of losing their White privilege.
How COULD poor Asians straight off the boat avail themselves of white privilege? They should be ashamed of themselves.
Maybe it’s that the work, family and educational ethic are all somehow inherently “white”. That does sound racist, admittedly….
Michael Trigoboff, with regard to quantum physics, women have contributed a great deal but up until recently the credit (including the Nobel Prize) was given to a male co-worker. So in that case, gender equity would require that the woman's contribution be recognized.
I agree with you that sometimes mistakes are made regarding hiring when people are overly anxious to create a diverse workforce, but keep in mind that there are no guarantees. If someone is not meeting expectations, they can be replaced.
Your feeling that you would be overlooked for a job because you are a white male is what the rest of us have experienced since we entered the workforce. It's too bad this didn't cause you to feel empathy rather than resentment.
Asians have experienced plenty of prejudice in the U.S. (think WWII concentration camps, Chinese Exclusion Act, etc.) but they obviously didn't experience the centuries of violent, brutal subjugation that African Americans did. Maybe that made a difference?
As to "of color" status, it apparently does.
Jennifer, I’m opposed to discrimination in any direction; against you and also against me. You seem to be in favor of reverse discrimination, perhaps to “even the score“?
I am more of the opinion that two wrongs don’t make a right. Discrimination is bad, regardless of the direction.
Longstanding prejudice and discrimination have created the disparities between Blacks and Whites, men and women – nor has it suddenly disappeared. Correcting these disparities is the opposite of discrimination but to the “anti-woke,” it’s as “wrong” as the racism and sexism that spawned them. Go figure.
Michael, when I explain affirmative action the way I explained it in my original comment, some people get it, some people don't. I have had men friends who, when their wife or daughter was discriminated against, the light came on. Perhaps some day the light will come on for you as well.
Or, maybe, Jennifer, someday your son or brother will be discriminated against, and then a different light will come on for you.
Don't count on it.
Yeah, his last response says it all.....
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