gender, race, and politics

I’ve long felt that whenever a women or a racial/ethnic minority came up for election in a national election, that individual would be the recipient of my vote. These are two subsets of US citizens who still need incredible boost in equality, and a chair in the Oval Office, Senate, or House would certainly give power to the groups the chair holder represent… in theory.

Some folks have suggested that racism and racial problems are largely done within the U.S.; and now the crux of social and economic inequality is largely reduced to class. So if you buy into this theory (which I don’t) an African American in office doesn’t matter for African Americans, what matters is their class interests. I like to think that this is not the case, however, we have witnessed a handful of recent African American politicians, on a national level, who are not interested aligning themselves with African American social and economic interests.

Stating the obvious here, the same thing could be said about women. Having a woman elected as a national official doesn’t matter unless that woman aligns herself with women’s social and economic interests.

I really do want to see more women and minorities in elected office, and high level appointed positions, but, I’m not a fan of Hillary or Condoleezza. However, I wouldn’t vote for either one of them on the basis of their gender or race/ethnicity, rather I would vote based on their economic policies. I don’t feel that either one of these potential candidates represent their gender or (in Rice’s case) race well, or that is simply too bad. We need more than just tokens in office, we need advocates.