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 or a newspaper that
has taken racial bean counting to new levels, the sea of smiling
white faces in the graphic accompanying yesterday's top
story in USA Today was a shocker. But then that was the
point, as the paper made clear in its MLK Day headline: "These
are America's governors. No blacks. No Hispanics."
Reporter Kathy
Kiely begins her article this way: "It's a fact so obvious
and so widely accepted that it's not even a political issue. But
if the U.S. Senate and the National Governors' Association were
private clubs, their membership rosters would be a scandal. They're
virtually lily white."
There's an
equally obvious fact that somehow eluded Kiely, however, and it's
that the Senate and NGA in fact aren't private clubs —
the rules of membership are totally different and so are our expectations
of who may belong. (By the way, why is it acceptable to use the
expression "lily white" when it is presumably not acceptable
to say the NBA is "black as night"?)
Kiely runs
through a series of explanations for why so few blacks and Hispanics
are governors and senators. She cites "plain old prejudice"
as one reason — and then quotes none other than Rep. Bobby
Rush of Illinois. "Only way an African-American can become
a member of the Senate is by some kind of fluke," says Rush,
who Kiely describes as "a former Black Panther."
Hmmm. Could
it be that most voters aren't keen on elevating politicians such
as Rush — left-wing activists who have very little to offer
the ordinary voting public?
Kiely cites
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as a key to the success of minority
politicians. She's correct to do this — though not for the
reasons she states: "The act opened the doors of state legislatures
and the U.S. House of Representatives by allowing lawmakers to design
legislative and congressional districts likely to elect minorities."
Wrong. The
1965 law removed the systematic voting prohibitions blacks faced
throughout the South — an important step to increasing the
number of minority officeholders. What it didn't do, though, was
allow the sort of gerrymandering that Kiely later credits with electing
several dozen blacks and Hispanics to the House of Representatives.
That impulse came later, from amendments that distorted the original
law. But even now race-driven redistricting is problematic: The
Supreme Court has struck down a number of districts whose bizarre
maps were drawn with the specific purpose of creating safe seats
for blacks and Hispanics.
Kiely makes
it seem that if there were only more gerrymandering, there would
be a better "farm team" of minority officeholders who
might then advance as senators and governors. But this is exactly
wrong. What gerrymandering has done is create a generation of Bobby
Rushes and Maxine Waters — radical-left politicians who have
no ability or even desire to build multiracial voting coalitions
that can succeed at the statewide level.
And that's
the most important — and unstated — reason why there weren't
any black or Hispanic faces illustrating yesterday's cover story
in USA Today.
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