Wednesday, December 02, 2020

Birthright


Oh, Reverend, you're so 2015:

After all, what Thurgood Marshall and Dr. King and Medgar Evers was about, was fighting for the American dream. What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent: [Of the many, we are one]. One big tent.

Actually, Reverend Jesse Jackson made that statement in 1997, to PBS' Frontline, when he was considered on the left-wing of the Democratic Party. Today, America's presumed pluralistic party has something different in mind as The Washington Post reports

Jennifer Psaki, a veteran Democratic spokeswoman, will be Biden's White House press secretary, one of seven women who will fill the upper ranks of his administration's communications staff. It is the first time all of the top aides tasked with speaking on behalf of an administration and shaping its message will be female.

Biden's team will be steered by Kate Bedingfield, a longtime Biden aide who was his campaign communications director and will hold the same title in his White House.

To those who believe the color of one's skin is more important than the content of one's character, that is is insufficient:

The faces of the economic team President-elect Joe Biden unveiled publicly Tuesday included an African American woman, a man born in Nigeria, an Indian American woman and just one white man.

The response from Asian American, Black and Latino Democrats: It's not enough.

Jesse Jackson's plea was for diversity- diversity by quota, but still for diversity, for blacks (fewer Latinos and Asian-Americans at the time) to be fully included in a national mosaic. Now diversity is honored in the breach, a rhetorical trick. In the Post's 26-paragraph article, "diversity" or its root is mentioned seven times, though not by Kamala Harris, who nonetheless maintains

Our country is facing unprecedented challenges — from the coronavirus pandemic to the economic crisis, to the climate crisis, and a long-overdue reckoning over racial injustice. To overcome these challenges, we need to communicate clearly, honestly, and transparently with the American people, and this experienced, talented, and barrier-shattering team will help us do that.

Addressing the pandemic, economy, climate, and racial injustice take a back seat to breaking a glass-ceiling. Those born with testosterone need not apply.

In the video below, journalist Zaid Jilani notes that with Senator Harris ascending to the vice-presidency, California governor Newsom is being lobbied by forces advocating she be replaced by a Latino. others for an African-American, and still others for an Asian-American. Qualifications and ideological principles take a back seat.  Saagar Enjeti observes "the discussion around this is around quotas. None of it is around policy." There has not been

one iota of sort of oh, it pushes this person, it pushes this policy, believes this person would change this, or this person would adhere very strongly to Kamala Harris. But then again, this is the problem with Harris herself. She never really stuck by any sort of ideological prism..... the way that they talk about these issues, it boils down to something completely vacuous and empty, that when it comes down to filling a successor, they're literally using a quota system.

Enjeti and Zilani were referring to California, where most prominent Democratic officials support ethnic discrimination in public policy. But perhaps in California, and more likely nationally, they might find that replacing "no blacks need apply" with "no whites need apply" or "no men need apply" is no recipe for long-term electoral success. More clearly, it is very bad policy.



 

 

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