this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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You could also argue that he was hired for representation. The goal is not to get as many black women into power as possible, but to keep the congress diverse. So ideally, there would be half men, half women, some significant fraction black, and so on.
She could have picked another woman as a VP, and it would not have been too bad. But from a diversity perspective, it is better to represent more parts of the population in these positions.
This. I don't understand why people think diversity is a bad thing. True democracy and progress comes when everyone is well represented and everyone's opinions are heard.
With that said we have a lot of institutional barriers that need to be utterly demolished before the people will actually be heard. We have a long way to go, and the first step is to participate in your local elections and vote for the people who actually listen.
I would love to see Gretchen Whitmer but reality says we are (hopefully) ready for a woman in charge, two is sadly pushing it. Maybe in 20-40 years, it will be something to see before I die. (I’m 50). But I’m estatic about Walz!!! He so… wholesome? “Perfect”? Perfect fit. So warm and compassionate. And the ticket has GenX! We are FINALLY represented! 💙
I'm not sure I'm hearing anyone saying diversity is a bad thing.
People used "diversity hire" as an attack on Harris, but no one is using it as an attack on Walz, even though everyone basically immediately knew that the VP pick was going to be an older white man if only to make the ticket less of a "leap".
That an all woman ticket, a ticket with two not-white people, or anything else not "default American politician" would face issue is kinda OPs point that we still have a long way to go to overcome those institutional barriers you mention.
Needing to consider diversity or representation when picking people is a sign that something has already gone wrong.
If the system were just and those barriers didn't exist, people wouldn't consider diversity, they'd just pick the best person and the diversity would just be there as consequence of demographics. (In a fair system, the top N% of the population will have a comparable demographic breakdown to the population at large).
It's a sign of a cultural hangup that we definitely consider diversity, and need to in order to have decent representation, when making these choices, and even more sad that it's only used as a cudgel against minorities , even when they were the first pick and others are being used to offset their "riskiness".
i haven't either, but the tone is weird, and it's making me a little iffy seeing people not go "look tim walz is a great pick, but this is definitely a shower thought to think about more completely" but instead its mostly just comments about how it's a little weird that kamala picked a white VP even though that makes perfect sense.
I understand why affirmative action is needed to somehow bring back some fairness and equality, but it is just sad that it is accepted as a permanent feature of a system that is systemically racist/mysoginist. It prevents tackling the root causes and investing in a free education system which is the only way to fix this on the long run. But anyway we have science fiction movies and series that do it right... I mean the fact that e.g. a ticket Harris/AOC is science fiction saddens me
It's not preventing solving the root cause. It's helping put people in power who can attempt to solve it by for example investing in free education. Unless you put enough such people through education into the halls of power, you can't hope that someone from the winner class of the system would do things to hurt their children from having such advantage to win. And then you have people who constantly and actively oppose any such actions. So things are improving but there still aren't enough people in the halls of power to do the work needed to root out these problems.
The implication is they are chosen due to their demographics instead of merit/experience, and it “just so happens” white men are only where they are due to merit and not because they were hired/chosen/etc. based on their demographics
The thing is... you're not really represented because they look the same as you. Someone who could run as the Aryan candidate may represent the downtrodden PoC than someone who looks like them.
There's plenty of PoC who still represent the GoP, even if it's not the same as Democrats.
Values are about more than appearance, despite what many conservatives will tell you.
Representative democracy.
Should represent the diverse concerns, culture, and needs of the diverse population.
Equitably including the diverse.
yes THIS, i don't know why people don't see this. Tim walz literally represents tens of millions, of people in the US population, it's very clear why he was chosen.
Because it definitely isn't there yet, due to overrepresentation of white (cis, straight, Christian, abled) men.
So from a diversity perspective, she should have gone for anyone other than a white man, but instead she has to cater to white men who somehow still manage to feel like they're lacking in representation, because picking a running mate that wasn't a white man would have tanked her campaign. Everyone knows it, but few are willing to admit to themselves why - racism, sexism, and a bunch of others too.
Is he the best from the options she had? Looks like. But the options she had were limited.
no, from a minority representation perspective she should've absolutely gone for another minority candidate who doesn't get the same rep as these people do.
But for a diversity perspective, you're picking the most immediately broad and comprehensive minority and majority/plurality groups available. You want a diverse coverage of the US population, and the easiest way to do like 50% of that is with a white candidate.
I realize you're probably talking about the federal government more broadly, but that's an unreasonable comparison because her running mate, and cabinet picks are what are arguably most representative of the average population here.
House and senate members are literally voted in, so that's already a solved problem, just vote in minority candidates. Everyone else is an employee of the government, so who gives a fuck about them.
you mean to tell me having representation of only like 20-30% of the population means you're not going to do well? That's weird.
Not when one group is already vastly overrepresented, but well done on missing the point. Your congress is not diverse, and adding/keeping a white man in the mix is never going to make it more diverse.
And with that, thanks for demonstrating my actual point (and also that you are clearly conflating diversity with representation, as well as ignoring every statistical reality about the makeup of your government and population to build your strawman):
I know it's so so scary to even imagine, but don't fret, even if she had picked someone who isn't a white man, you'd continue to be vastly overrepresented for no good reason at all...
“When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression"
yeah, and the congress is irrelevant and again, voted in by voters. Kamala is not at the reins of the congress, you should be advocating for minorities to run for congress positions then. I'm in support of that, i have nothing against that. I just don't believe you should be going for ONLY representation in government, you need the correct people in office.
Might i also add that the kamala ticket is also the most diverse ticket we have in this election cycle, every other candidate you can vote for is old white men, this one is an older black woman, and an older white man who is her VP.
you mean the point you were making about how the US government is a representative democracy which intends to equally represent the demographic of each state relatively equivalent to the population demographics of that state?
vastly over-represented how? Do my votes count more magically because i'm white? If we're talking about representation i think we should put mentally ill people into office because i feel extremely under-represented in that category.
there is almost no situation in which the presidential candidate and their VP being both of minority status would "increase" diversity in any meaningful way. Arguably since it's federal, and we're talking nationwide, the most diverse and representative cast would literally just be a white person, and someone else.
To be clear, i have no problems with two minority candidates running for office together, if they have good policy and a really good campaign. Kamala and walz have quite literally the best campaign built in a long time. Picking anybody other than walz in this would have likely been a mistake. It just wouldn't get as much reach as it currently is. And when you're literally trying to run to gain a representative vote in your country, not having a white person on your ticket is probably going to hurt that representation.
also, little tidbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States#Race_and_ethnicity some demographics data, as of 2020 census, about 50% of the US population was white, not mixed white, but white, about 20% was hispanic (always bigger than i remember for some reason, i guess i just don't think about it often lol) every other group except for blacks being less than 10%
so in your optimal minority pick, you would pick hispanic, and black candidates, which would represent about 30% of the country. Kamala and walz is about 60% of representation, about 2x as much as the optimal minority pick. The OPTIMAL pick would be white and hispanic, at about 70% representation total.
to make my point clear here, if you're trying to reach out for as much representation and support based on that representation as possible, which is what the idea behind diversity primarily is, this is a pretty good lineup.