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Since blacks have traditionally had an extremely limited role in Congress, how can they show "experience"? If a black congressman hires a disproportionate amount of blacks to staff his offices, isn't that how the blacks will gain the experience necessary to compete for future positions???
Isn't that how all groups - ethnic, gender, etc. - get their starts in systems???
I am white...and I have no problem with the blacks hiring the blacks. It's what us white folk have been doing for centuries - hiring our own. Rules should be the same for everybody.
see, acceptance really has nothing to do with religion at all... the right just doesn't want to consider us a minority, hence all the 'you chose your lifestyle' and 'special rights' bullshit.
Personally, I think the people on the right are worried that it'll be harder for married repugnican men to find raunchy sex in dimly lit bathrooms all over the country if being gay is accepted.
I was yesterday, too, but not on the gay front. Some "Scare Private Insurance Group had a television ad asking voters to call congress and complain about "guvment health care." I promptly called my congressmen on their dime to tell them "Government Health Care for ALL and we demand the same health care I've enjoyed in the military, and what congress enjoys!" I hope the Insurance Group enjoys paying for my calls because every time I see their idiot commercial I'm calling.
Re: Calling congressman. Find out where he/she sleeps. Rent a HUGE sound system with BIG speakers, rent a flat bed truck, and wake up your congress critter every morning with someone with a really irritating voice screaming, " single payer you lousy shithead." May not accomplish anything but it will keep him/her from being invited to "sleep over" with his/her boy/girlfriend.
One wonders if the Hispanic Congressional Caucus will mention that the African American chairmen are discriminated against Hispanics because there aren't enough hispanic staffers on their committees...
If one were to take a close look at the desegregation of the country, I think we would find that it was disproportionately at the expense of lower and middle class white males and that the upper classes in general suffered little cost or discomfort.
In particular, African-American members of Congress are likely to come from heavily African-American Districts, and the congress member likely has a fairly strong incentive to have his or her staff reflect that reality.
(And in my experience a fairly high percentage of staff have at least some degree of roots in the congressional district they represent--they're not just random people from DC.)
considering they're the second largest minority (Hispanic being the first)... how many Hispanic staffers are there? or Asian for that matter?
when is it going to be kinda racist to actually keep track of the numbers anymore? when are we all just going to be "people"??
We still don't have national health care, single payer college, decent environmental programs, or corporate oversight. That's the shit to be fighting for. If any of those people on those committees is a professed capitalist, why complain about their skin color? Vote them out of office for being corrupt and not working in the best interests of the working class.
then again, his skin color aside, we already have too many elected whackos on the hill (ahem... michelle bachman anyone?).
Fair is fair.
When you cut up the cake at a birthday party, do you cut the girls, the minorities and the homosexuals, a smaller piece?
Use your head for something besides a hat rack. We are all on this dirt ball spinning through space together, we either live together or the race will die.
Let's see: that means you either flunk middle-school math, or you're a racist.
Or, more than likely, both.
You're also having a problem with punctuation, another sign of a middle school drop out, and not surprisingly,ill-educated, pointy-head racists.
But your are making the case for racism = stupidity, so we have to congratulate you on that good work.
Jeez loiuse, ya hafta be BLACK TO GET IN????
And if O'reilly says it's racist...must be.
Maybe the way you've framed the diary, asking "questions" that gave 'em cover.
Talk about a none-issue: in the (very recent) past white committe chairs (and every other white boss hiring) overhired white employees.
Black committee chairs are well aware that if they don't give black employees a start in government, no one else will.
This sounds like as big a flap as the black women reporters covering Michelle.
Seriously, John, sometimes your latent racism does flair.
Look at it this way--there are very, very few women in the I.T. field, compared to the population. Nothing is keeping them out; they just mostly choose to pursue something different. Can we criticize Congress for having fewer than 50% women on their I.T. staff? No; because they have to hire from a pool of qualified people that isn't 50% female.
I have put peer-review panels together for state agencies, and while talking to a program director in another state, she commiserated by saying "I know, you need a backward-walking left-handed lesbian to balance the panel, right?" And she was right.
I'm a member of a large gay political organization in Philly, and our board is, by our rules, 50% male, 50% female. But our membership is overwhelmingly male. Membership is open to all, we recruit at all the gay events in town, but it's mostly men who feel the desire to participate in the political activities and volunteer. I think (if we're setting quotas) that the board should reflect the membership, not the general population. As a result of the rules, the men do all the work, and the few women who are members get a virtually free ride to board membership, qualified or not.
You do the best you can. I think that the members of Congress want to hire the best people for the job. The far, far more interesting statistic (though equally pointless in the end) would be to see how the hiring represented the makeup of all the people who applied for each position.
I'm finding it interesting that we have elected an African American president and white presidents have appointed African Americans as Secretary of State and head of the Joint Chiefs, but no African American has yet to serve as Secretary of the Treasury, or chairman of the Federal Reserve or even Comptroller of the Currency. Something to think about.
I find it very hard to believe there are many districts in this country which are less than 3% black. I'm sure there are many less than 10%, but not less than 3%. So, I tend to think this CBC report has a point.
I wonder what the percentage is for Hispanics in offices?
I find it interesting that the CBC study (at least as reported in CQ Politics) makes no mention of gender balance. That in itself seems hypocritical of them. Nor does it mention Hispanics or Asians. Why not? Should we be balancing for them too? Does the CBC think so?
Generally, offices should reflect the district, because these are people who know how to interact with constituents at home. In essence, an office that reflects your district is the best office for your district. Otherwise, you have people calling your office and the aide picking up the phone doesn't understand their issues, or can't speak well with them... which means you're going to have to learn how to do these things, which generally can't happen without personal experience. I'm sorry, but that person is not the right person for your congressional office.
These are extremely important factors in determining who's most qualified for a position... you could be a magna cum laude Harvard Grad applying to my office, with campaign experience up the ying-yang, and I wouldn't necessarily hire you if what I needed was someone who understood and could relate to issues surrounding the inner-city populace within my district, grasping with high rates of violence, horrible schools and few good jobs. Someone who grew up around that may be a helluva lot more likely to help my constituents out.
These are the people who have specialized knowledge of the area that the committee deals with, as well as the existing regulations. These are the people who, to a large degree, actually write the laws. You can't just pull people off the street and have them work for a committee!