It seems that people have problems with the make up of certain political parties or politicians from certain areas. The problem stems from the idea that they aren’t filled with enough diversity. As if diversity is the goal and not an accurate representation by qualified people.
And that’s the general problem with most politics of our age. Everyone is so caught up with “changing the landscape” and ensuring that minorities are represented that they are endorsing and electing people simply because they are different than old, white men. This is absolutely concerning and dangerous.
This is Identity Politics. That’s a term that will trigger some people as well. They don’t want people pointing out the truth of their strategy or reducing their supposed virtues and moral superiority to a political term. Yet you shouldn’t be criticized for calling a kettle black.
I believe that, at least in the US House of Representatives, that elected officials should be as close to the representation of their constituents as possible. While it isn’t exactly in line with demographic distribution of our population, even by area, it is getting better and closer to it. Kudos to those people who are electing qualified and diverse representatives for their communities!
But there’s the catch – diverse does not equate directly to qualified. It is a case of A can equal B, but A does not ALWAYS equal B. Diversity is fine if it’s for the right reasons. Diversity just because you want to rob white people of their seats in politics because of some perceived injustice is baloney.
Representation in politics is also a numbers game. It stands to reason that the people who actually run for a position are the ones who have a chance of actually attaining it. And following that, only people with the interest and ability to run for positions will even do so. So maybe it’s not the fault of the evil white man that congress is so old, male, and white. Maybe it’s the fault of the constituents who fail to support each other or decide not to run for office.
Then again, Baltimore, MD as a city is nearly entirely run by black politicians. It’s a pretty accurate representation of the inner city. But no one is crying that the white people in that city aren’t represented enough or that the city council and other seats of power aren’t diverse enough. Where’s the Asian representation? Where’s the Hispanic representation? Oh, that doesn’t matter unless the predominant population is white.
Make no mistake, this is diversity for diversity’s sake. And underlying it all is a sinister idea that white people, especially white men, are evil and deserve nothing but condescension and vitriol.