Grab and Keel

The Equal Opportunity Equation

It’s been hot for days. Sans the air conditioner in 102 degrees weather, the idea of typing lyricism into a sticky keyboard, while worrying about whether my dripping sweat is going to short it out, has provided an easy prohibition to the effort. Really though, the last two weeks have been too overwhelming. The effort to record and distill the events has been too hard a task. Finally, Gloria Steinhem helped with her recent article.

Clearly some voted for Barack Obama simply because he was biracial. The pull to do so is understandable. No matter what, his accomplishment is now a signpost of the future. So in that sense, something has already been accomplished. The final test will be, if he is elected, whether we have moved past the other affirmative action hurdle; an unfair requirement for a higher standard of competency. Let us remind ourselves that a true test of equal rights is that, after we are hired, we have an equal opportunity to have a different viewpoint, and an equal right to fail with equal consequences, in our efforts. We don’t like to think this way in relation to a Presidential pick, but there it is.

 However, I have no doubt that if the Democratic black vote had been offered the choice of whether to vote for a biracial male Republican or a white woman Democrat, the same sort of deliberations occurring this week among feminists, would be in process in amongst blacks. That the Democratic Party could be the instrument of this cleaving, in all meanings of the word, is despicable. Because, make no mistake, just like all all the other “Black Politics“, Obama has tried to minimize, black equal opportunity has many facets.

 So one question is, whether white woman for VPOTUS or biracial man for POTUS, have we come to a point of acknowledgement that these choices are of primary importance politically? Either of these choices WILL change our government simply because of their race or sex. We may wish to imagine we are beyond that, but we cannot be until we take this step. We wanted our votes to count based on our assessment of an individual’s capabilities and Party planks. However, we are still swimming in the pond of discrimination. Our heads may be out of water, but the rest of us is still paddling toward the shore. Unfortunately race is now the add-on to our (?) platform achieved by nefarious means. Gender has become a kind of pork barrel add-on to a political platform we Democrats may mostly reject. 

Over and over we heard the argument (with which I disagreed) that Obama’s, and Clinton’s platforms were 90% alike. Therefore, I should be able to vote for Obama. I heard Clinton was old school and Obama was the future. Following that line of logic only two conclusions were possible. One: I should vote for Obama because of the 10% difference. Two: I should vote for the 90% of Obama that is like Clinton, because he is NOT Clinton.

From the beginning then, Party elders and Obamacons were primarily saying one thing: NOT CLINTON. Aspersion, therefore, could only be expressed in personal ways. The thrust to corral the minority urban vote was planned clear back in 2004, the process thinking occurring earlier. The visible discomfort in the Democratic Party over the Republican VPOTUS choice is tacit acknowledgement of their machinations. They recognize the ploy.

For some the morality of the Democratic ploy depended on the prize value, or whether the end justified the means. The question then becomes, did their ploy have tactical value? Did it make sense to wrest power from the Democratic body in order to give power to another group?  Should feminists, otherwise opposed to a Republican platform, consider an equivalent strategy? Is there value in the Gray Panther choice?

As to our quest for equality: for me, the question is of now one of that between apples, apples and apples. We broke the age barrier with Reagan, but we have forgotten that lesson. Affirmatively speaking, and by the numbers, of course, the next barrier breaker should be a woman. To begin to make up the gender inequality the next 42 presidents after this election should be women. No? Well, at least 21 of them should be. Given this line of thought, it is safe to assume some of them will be Republican. So, seems pretty clear that this might be the election, under the banner of McCain’s reform plan, a woman becomes VPOTUS. It might even lead to righting one of the stumbling blocks of the Equal Rights Amendment, unisex draft.

Unintended by Democrats, America’s affirmative action chickens are roosting in unlikely places. Having worked so hard and for so long to get to this moment, it appears the thinnest stain of humanity; race, or the feminine gender and to a lesser extent age, will finally wash across the top of the Executive Branch. The permanence of this dye cannot yet be known. In the mean time there is now a real threat to an end of Affirmative Action. It’s too early a demise for minority politics and hardly a start for women. Behind the push to break the barrier, behind equal opportunity, were all the social liberal planks, we Democrats wanted. We needed eight transitional years of Hillary. Now a bitter and fractious fight is coming.

I Own My Vote, Just Say No Deal, Puma Pac, the Denver Group