From: mss2@quads.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: More elections, a victory...
Keywords: discrimination, hatred, intolerance
Date: 5 Nov 92 03:46:27 GMT
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations

In article <Bx7rAp.5HA@news.cso.uiuc.edu> trumpins@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu (Barbara Trumpinski) writes:

>kitten raises her glass, downs her champagne, and flings the glass
>into the fireplace..."and may i add that here in illinois we elected
>the first black woman senator...to carol mosely braun! and all the
>other women, minorities, gays and others who will be represented for
>the first time!"

	"Um... Kitten?  There's something about the way you phrased
that that makes me a little uncomfortable.  You referred to `women,
minorities, gays and others who will be represented for the first
time'.  While I certainly think that a legislature which more closely
reflected the makeup of the country would be a good thing as such
(though preferably with above average intelligence, wisdom, and
leadership if I actually got my druthers), I'm worried about an
increasing tendency to suppose that one can only be properly
represented by 'one of one's own'-- defined in terms of ethnic
background, sex, orientation, or any number of other characteristics
which don't really have anything inherently to do with one's political
views.  (Which is not to say that political views are randomly
distributed, but I hope you'll agree there's a difference between
voting for Candidate X because you agree with her on family leave and
voting for her because she's a woman.)

	"One of the results of this has been deliberate, often blatant
gerrymandering to create black districts, Hispanic districts, and so
on.  Basically, they're "separate but equal" voting districts, except
that this time it's not the segregationists who are supporting them,
but the proponents of diversity.  I have to wonder, though, if
increased diversity in the legislature is worth the cost of saying,
basically, that blacks and whites, or Hispanics and Anglos, have such
fundamentally opposed interests that one person cannot adequately
represent both of them.  This was taken to such a degree that when a
non-Hispanic candidate looked likely to win a carefully created New
York City Hispanic district in the primaries, there was outspoken
criticism of him for choosing to run there when he "knew" that that
district was supposed to be for a Hispanic to win-- and never mind
what the voters wanted.  (As it happened, he lost.)

	"I've always thought that the ideal was to judge people "by the
content of their character" and politicians by their politics.  The
reason that it seems wrong to me to have a Congress composed solely of white
males is that there _are_ qualified, competent people all across the
political spectrum who _aren't_ white males, and the near-total lack of
them in high office suggests systematic bias, which means we're
probably getting, on-average, worse people than we might otherwise.
(Of course, as per the recent probability discussion, it's
theoretically possible that by some amazing coincidence, all the best
possible politicians have been white males.  But when I see results of
a hundred coin flips come up heads, _I_ for one assume that the coin
is fixed.  :-) )  But I didn't think that the problem was that disadvantaged
groups weren't _represented_.

	"Because it seems to me that that sort of thinking plays into
the hands of one's enemies.  After all, if blacks can only be
represented by blacks, and women by women, then the racists and
sexists who vote against such candidates without giving them any
consideration are right in doing so, aren't they?  After all, they can
only be represented properly by white males.  Obviously, that's
nonsense-- and the Illinois election indicates that a fair number of
Illinois voters know it to be nonsense, as Carol Mosely Braun got
elected by more people than just black women.  And presumably the
white, Hispanic, Asian, etc. etc. voters in Illinois will not go
unrepresented for six years.

	"Kitten, I do apologize for using your remarks to launch
myself onto a soapbox.  But the fission of the country into seperate
communities is a continuing trend which worries me.  In the end, if
people consider themselves members of small groups first and members
of a larger whole second, then I think we're in trouble.  Being proud
of one's heritage and gender and such is one thing, and is I think a
good thing-- but to consider them more important than ideas and ideals
endangers the foundations of a country in which all the citizens are
supposed to be politically equal, and suggests that we are in fact not
a single nation, but many nations playing a zero-sum game, in which
the only way to help one is to hurt another.  (Let me make clear that
this is something I don't for a moment accuse you of-- it was just
your phrasing which triggered a long-standing concern of my own.)  I
don't believe that the political process is a zero-sum game-- it can
have positive (or negative) sums, and which it is depends far more on
what the candidate believes and does than it does on who the
candidate's parents were or whether the candidate's genotype contains
XX or XY (or XXY or XYY, for that matter :-) ).

	"In any case, though, I'll second your toast to Carol Mosely
Braun.  Not because I like her-- had I been voting in Illinois, I
probably would have voted against her, because she and I do _not_ see
eye to eye on politics.  But I'll raise my glass to the fact that a
state in which a large majority is white and nearly half are men, a
majority of those people chose to vote for the politics, and not the
race and sex of the candidate.  Their politics aren't mine, and I
suspect that I'll have reason to disagree with Ms. Braun over time, as
part in parcel with my rather gloomy opinion of the future of the
federal government for the next four or more (probably more) years.
But the fact that they did _not_ vote against her because of her race
or sex is a good sign.  (And it would be still better if I weren't
certain that thousands of vote choices, for her and against her, were
made on that basis. :-( )

Michael


-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mss2@usite-next.uchicago.edu     Virginia (1784)