https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/13/us/politics/trump-cabinet-women-minorities.html
The above URL links to an article by the New York Times describing the Presidential Cabinet of current President Trump as it relates to previous presidents of the United States. Not surprisingly, the results are rather regressive from the diversity the Obama Administration was working toward. In accordance with the above article, "women and nonwhites will hold five of 22 cabinet or cabinet-level positions... Those five members will also be in some of the lowest-ranking positions." The above photo is from President Trump's personal twitter post on February 16th with the not-so-surprising handle: "#MakeAmericaGreatAgain" (https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/832447477391491073).
With this and numerous other cultural/racial diversity issues receiving much of the limelight recently, I cannot help but be drawn to Langston Hughes' poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" which, as many of you know, is a poem about the ever-reaching stuggle of the African American minority. While overall the poem might be thought of as hopeful, I am particularly drawn to the repeated phrase "my soul has grown deep like the rivers." This speaks to the dark history surrounding the history of African Americans, which seems to be only getting darker as the years progress.
Being a victim of the "Millennial" generation, I find it very difficult to relate to the idea that minorities, which in itself is slightly derogatory of a term, are any less than the same as those of purely "white" descent. Now I should specify by no means do I believe that all racist arguments are centered around this idea, however it is an unfortunate truth that this idea still seems to be viable in certain areas of the United States (those with disturbing alt-right policies). The same goes for women. I cannot find any justifiable reason, and frankly refuse to, as to why racism (or sexism) is still prominent to date.
Now, some may argue that the the mere fact that Trump has a mere 5 non-white male members of his cabinet (oh and only one person of color by the way) is not a wholly telling fact that this is an instance of racism or fear of cultural diversity. To those claims I would consequently agree. However, combined with his previous disturbing rhetoric as it relates to literally every grouping of individuals beside white males I would argue that the odds do not look good. I too believe that the best candidate for a position should get that position, and at times the lengths some officiants go to in order to give the impression to the press of being "culturally diverse" is fairly ridiculous, and if I'm being entirely honest I might just never like a thing this despicable excuse for a public figure will ever do on account of his previous rhetoric and degradation of social change and equality. I also suppose that I could be another "bleeding-heart" liberal zombie brainwashed by our supreme overlord CNN. Yet at what point should we begin to consider the idea that we, being white persons (and males at that), might be racist in our actions and ideas? Is it when we bastardize their image in media? What about when we make it statistically improbable for them to advance to positions of power or leadership? Or when we elect a fowl mouthed leader to kick them all out of our country?
Yeah, maybe then.
I find your connection to be very interesting. I do agree that the new administration has led to a set back in progression of a having a truly diverse administration. I do not agree that the "history around African Americans is only getting darker" because as a nation there has been a lot of progression when it comes to the African American community. Of course there is way more to go but when looking back to the history of African Americans a lot has been accomplished. The issue that exist today and what I feel that will always exist is White Privilege which affects not only the African American community but other minorities as well. Just like there is still discrimination and racism there will always be white privilege I believe that white privilege can be used in a good way to speak out on when acting on the racial issues of today's America.
ReplyDeleteHello Evelyn, thanks for the reply! I believe I should clarify that I did not mean to discredit any accomplishments of the African American people (and yes they have come a VERY long way!), what I meant to say falls more along the lines of "the road keeps growing longer"- the end being a severely less racist society- than darker per-se. I was mostly trying have a sort of play on words, but sacrificed clarity of my ideas it seems!
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