The Guardian
Lola Adesioye
guardian.co.uk,
Monday September 08 2008 19:00 BST
The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate exposes Republican hypocrisy regarding affirmative action
Republicans have always been hugely critical of affirmative action policies, believing that giving preferential treatment to women and minorities leads to the promotion of underqualified people over more qualified or experienced individuals. To them, affirmative action goes against the meritocratic nature of America. This explains why, in July, John McCain voted in support of a ban led by Republican Ward Connerly that would end race- and gender-based affirmative action policies in his home state of Arizona.
Outspoken conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, along with other critics of Barack Obama, has repeatedly denounced Obama as an "affirmative action candidate", suggesting that his success is not a result of his merits but because he is African-American. In fact, only a couple of weeks ago on his radio show, Limbaugh declared: "I think this is a classic illustration here where affirmative action has reared its ugly head. ... [The Democrats] ended up nominating and placing at the top of their ticket somebody who's not qualified, who has not earned it."
It's interesting - and somewhat hypocritical - then, that the same could be said about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. If an affirmative action policy existed for presidential and vice-presidential candidates and Obama and Palin were the beneficiaries, their respective cases would be living examples of the best and worst aspects of affirmative action.
Sarah Palin appears to be an example of the worst kind of affirmative action, the type that Republicans typically argue against and attribute to liberal political correctness. Their promotion of this particular female candidate is more of a cynical, tokenistic gesture than evidence of any real desire to promote merit in cases where it may have gone unnoticed, or to advance the cause of underrepresented women in politics. If that was the case, there are a number of other female Republican politicians – including Olympia Snowe and Kay Bailey Hutchinson - who could have been selected, and may have been better equipped for the role. It would be interesting to hear how those women feel - incorrectly used affirmative action policies often cause resentment among those feel that that they have been overlooked in favour of someone else who is clearly less able but seems to have benefited from special treatment. [To read the entire story, go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/08/uselections2008.sarahpalin2?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews ]
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Palin. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Sarah Palin and the Republicans' Favorite Sport: Extreme Affirmative Action!
Huffington Post
September 3, 2008
By Michael Melcher
Usually, Republicans hate affirmative action. A core Republican message is that they are the sole protectors of embattled white men against the forces of entitled minorities and aggressive women unfairly going after their turf. This message is picked up and amplified by Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and the like.
Republicans hate affirmative action. Until they think it will work for them. Then they just love it, in a big way. Look at Sarah Palin.
Affirmative action means making special efforts to increase the representation of targeted groups in schools, workplaces and government. It usually involves two practices: (1) engaging in outreach, to find potential applicants for opportunities that might not otherwise come over the transom; and (2) using a more subjective idea of merit when considering who would best fill a position.
Most people think of affirmative action as something that relates solely to ethnic minorities. In fact, decades of research has shown that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women. When Hillary Clinton attended Yale Law School, it was 10% female. Now Yale Law is fifty percent female. That didn't happen by accident. Women and to a lesser extent minorities have made advances into the work world over the past four decades because nearly all academic institutions, all large companies in America and the entire military have made it a priority to increase their their inclusion of people who were previously underrepresented.
Which brings us to Sarah Palin. John McCain's choice is a big-time affirmative-action choice! Palin has done some interesting things but she is certainly not the most qualified Republican to be vice-president.
Sarah Palin is not the most conventionally qualified. But she offers other attributes that are important to McCain: she's a right-winger who will appeal to the base; she presents the "gal/guy you want to have beers with" mystique that is so weirdly important to Republicans; she's a big gun nut; and she has a reputation as a reformer (of sorts), which matches McCain's desire to repurpose the Republican Party away from the crony capitalism of the Bush years and back into the good governance folks we knew sixty years ago. (You may recall that it was Eisenhower, a Republican who warned of the dangers of the growing military-industrial complex. Those were the good old days.)
Oh, did I mention that Sarah Palin is also a woman? The value of this is not that she's going to pick off any of Hillary Clinton's 18 million voters -- that seems very unlikely to me -- but rather than she makes John McCain seem -- to his party -- cool. And mavericky. And young. And dare I say it? - interested in diversity. Keep in mind that these messages are primarily for the Republican base, not for the average Huffington Post reader. The primary value that Sarah Palin brings to the Republican effort is that she makes them interesting. She has a good narrative. And in that respect, she's far more qualified to meet McCain's needs than Mitt Romney and crew.
One reason affirmative action works is that once people see black, or Latino, or Asian, or female, or handicapped people in positions of authority, they start noticing the ways they are succeeding. So as Sarah Palin takes on a more national presence, more of America will start seeing her as vice-presidential material simply because that's how she will be introduced. Because the Republicans want to win, they will start attributing positive qualities to her, which in turn will increase her confidence and capabilities.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-melcher/sarah-palin-and-the-repub_b_123747.html ]
September 3, 2008
By Michael Melcher
Usually, Republicans hate affirmative action. A core Republican message is that they are the sole protectors of embattled white men against the forces of entitled minorities and aggressive women unfairly going after their turf. This message is picked up and amplified by Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs, and the like.
Republicans hate affirmative action. Until they think it will work for them. Then they just love it, in a big way. Look at Sarah Palin.
Affirmative action means making special efforts to increase the representation of targeted groups in schools, workplaces and government. It usually involves two practices: (1) engaging in outreach, to find potential applicants for opportunities that might not otherwise come over the transom; and (2) using a more subjective idea of merit when considering who would best fill a position.
Most people think of affirmative action as something that relates solely to ethnic minorities. In fact, decades of research has shown that the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women. When Hillary Clinton attended Yale Law School, it was 10% female. Now Yale Law is fifty percent female. That didn't happen by accident. Women and to a lesser extent minorities have made advances into the work world over the past four decades because nearly all academic institutions, all large companies in America and the entire military have made it a priority to increase their their inclusion of people who were previously underrepresented.
Which brings us to Sarah Palin. John McCain's choice is a big-time affirmative-action choice! Palin has done some interesting things but she is certainly not the most qualified Republican to be vice-president.
Sarah Palin is not the most conventionally qualified. But she offers other attributes that are important to McCain: she's a right-winger who will appeal to the base; she presents the "gal/guy you want to have beers with" mystique that is so weirdly important to Republicans; she's a big gun nut; and she has a reputation as a reformer (of sorts), which matches McCain's desire to repurpose the Republican Party away from the crony capitalism of the Bush years and back into the good governance folks we knew sixty years ago. (You may recall that it was Eisenhower, a Republican who warned of the dangers of the growing military-industrial complex. Those were the good old days.)
Oh, did I mention that Sarah Palin is also a woman? The value of this is not that she's going to pick off any of Hillary Clinton's 18 million voters -- that seems very unlikely to me -- but rather than she makes John McCain seem -- to his party -- cool. And mavericky. And young. And dare I say it? - interested in diversity. Keep in mind that these messages are primarily for the Republican base, not for the average Huffington Post reader. The primary value that Sarah Palin brings to the Republican effort is that she makes them interesting. She has a good narrative. And in that respect, she's far more qualified to meet McCain's needs than Mitt Romney and crew.
One reason affirmative action works is that once people see black, or Latino, or Asian, or female, or handicapped people in positions of authority, they start noticing the ways they are succeeding. So as Sarah Palin takes on a more national presence, more of America will start seeing her as vice-presidential material simply because that's how she will be introduced. Because the Republicans want to win, they will start attributing positive qualities to her, which in turn will increase her confidence and capabilities.
[To read the entire article, go to: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-melcher/sarah-palin-and-the-repub_b_123747.html ]
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Palin, Obama & Affirmative Action
America, The National Catholic Weekly
Posted at: 2008-09-02 00:29:00.0
Author: Michael Sean Winters
The first CNN poll taken after both the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention and the surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate showed surprisingly little movement. The race remains essentially tied despite record viewership for Obama’s speech and the countless commentaries about how choosing Palin was a "game changer." This election is not a game and little has changed.
But, there is a deep irony in Obama’s and Palin’s inability to move their numbers and it has to do with affirmative action. The real reason Obama is lagging behind the rest of the Democratic Party in national polls is because he is black. And a large number of people, especially white, ethnic Catholics, argue that their forefathers, and foremothers, came to these shores with nothing and made a life for themselves and a future for their families. They did not need government hand-outs or affirmative action. The resentment at affirmative action was encapsulated in the famous "white hand" ad run by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms in which a white hand held a rejection letter while the voice-over intones, "You needed that job… but the company had to hire a minority." Helms won the election.
This "noble immigrants v. ignoble recipients of affirmative action" storyline is not entirely accurate for a variety of reasons. The GI Bill may not have been a hand-out but it was definitely a government hand-up. And, white, ethnic immigrants did not come with the burden of slavery weighing down their history, a history of families torn apart, a history of being robbed of all personal power and autonomy. And, once they acclimated, they also blended in. Affirmative action may have been unfair to some. It may not even have worked. But, there is a reason it corresponded to a felt societal need to repair the damage done to black Americans by slavery that was different in kind, and not just in degree, from the damage done to white ethnics by the various traumas of immigration. Most importantly for this election, the narrative fails because Barack Obama did not get into Harvard Law as a result of affirmative action: He got into Harvard Law because he is smarter than the rest of us.
So, along comes Ms. Palin. What precisely qualified her for her job? Writing in The New Republic, Marty Peretz commented, "To have dug so hard and to have come up with such circumstantial assets as being a woman and an evangelical Christian is really not much. There are millions of them, even pretty ones, which speaks to another political asset." It is this last asset, prettiness, that jumped to my mind when the CNN poll reported that 38% of those polled viewed her favorably. Not one of those questioned, I suspect, was well informed about how the Alaska Governor had handled budget negotiations with the legislature in Juneau, nor whether she hailed from the isolationist, Pat Buchanan wing of the conservative movement or the neo-conservative imperialist, Bill Kristol wing of the GOP. But, she sure is pretty.
Pretty. Born-again. Most of all, a woman. If the selection of Palin doesn’t count as affirmative action, I don’t know what does. You can picture the ad. A man’s hand putting down a cell phone. Voice-over: "You wanted that job…but they had to give it to a woman." The camera pulls back and shows a disgruntled Mitt Romney, still looking at the phone. He turns to the television which shows Palin arm and arm with McCain. "Here’s looking at you sweetheart," Mitt says bitterly, crying in his Arnold Palmer.
The polling numbers will not change much unless events intervene because the polls tell us less about Palin and Obama than they do about ourselves and our prejudices.
Michael Sean Winters
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=215611EB-5056-8928-108B9F6A78037DEC
Posted at: 2008-09-02 00:29:00.0
Author: Michael Sean Winters
The first CNN poll taken after both the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention and the surprise selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be John McCain’s running mate showed surprisingly little movement. The race remains essentially tied despite record viewership for Obama’s speech and the countless commentaries about how choosing Palin was a "game changer." This election is not a game and little has changed.
But, there is a deep irony in Obama’s and Palin’s inability to move their numbers and it has to do with affirmative action. The real reason Obama is lagging behind the rest of the Democratic Party in national polls is because he is black. And a large number of people, especially white, ethnic Catholics, argue that their forefathers, and foremothers, came to these shores with nothing and made a life for themselves and a future for their families. They did not need government hand-outs or affirmative action. The resentment at affirmative action was encapsulated in the famous "white hand" ad run by North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms in which a white hand held a rejection letter while the voice-over intones, "You needed that job… but the company had to hire a minority." Helms won the election.
This "noble immigrants v. ignoble recipients of affirmative action" storyline is not entirely accurate for a variety of reasons. The GI Bill may not have been a hand-out but it was definitely a government hand-up. And, white, ethnic immigrants did not come with the burden of slavery weighing down their history, a history of families torn apart, a history of being robbed of all personal power and autonomy. And, once they acclimated, they also blended in. Affirmative action may have been unfair to some. It may not even have worked. But, there is a reason it corresponded to a felt societal need to repair the damage done to black Americans by slavery that was different in kind, and not just in degree, from the damage done to white ethnics by the various traumas of immigration. Most importantly for this election, the narrative fails because Barack Obama did not get into Harvard Law as a result of affirmative action: He got into Harvard Law because he is smarter than the rest of us.
So, along comes Ms. Palin. What precisely qualified her for her job? Writing in The New Republic, Marty Peretz commented, "To have dug so hard and to have come up with such circumstantial assets as being a woman and an evangelical Christian is really not much. There are millions of them, even pretty ones, which speaks to another political asset." It is this last asset, prettiness, that jumped to my mind when the CNN poll reported that 38% of those polled viewed her favorably. Not one of those questioned, I suspect, was well informed about how the Alaska Governor had handled budget negotiations with the legislature in Juneau, nor whether she hailed from the isolationist, Pat Buchanan wing of the conservative movement or the neo-conservative imperialist, Bill Kristol wing of the GOP. But, she sure is pretty.
Pretty. Born-again. Most of all, a woman. If the selection of Palin doesn’t count as affirmative action, I don’t know what does. You can picture the ad. A man’s hand putting down a cell phone. Voice-over: "You wanted that job…but they had to give it to a woman." The camera pulls back and shows a disgruntled Mitt Romney, still looking at the phone. He turns to the television which shows Palin arm and arm with McCain. "Here’s looking at you sweetheart," Mitt says bitterly, crying in his Arnold Palmer.
The polling numbers will not change much unless events intervene because the polls tell us less about Palin and Obama than they do about ourselves and our prejudices.
Michael Sean Winters
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=215611EB-5056-8928-108B9F6A78037DEC
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