Re: Furthermore, Condi Rice is an unknown quantity on the political front. Other than race and her sex, she would not add anything to the ticket.
And she certainly wouldn't be nominated over Colin Powell or many other candidates who possess some political clout.
I think the very fact that she will be Bush's NSA and head of the NSC is QUITE a slap in the face of the democrats and Jackson crew.
Yesterday night I was afield and I didn't have time to read all that stuff....
Well, from a Brussels perspective, I'd say that the problem with black leaders and their "roadies" in the US boils down to what I call the blind top, that is to say that African-Americans don't get the full sense of having black/minority people acceding to such prominent positions.... After all, from the masses' viewpoint, Powell and Rice are merely yet-another-black-celebrities --alongside Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey, Air Jordan, CNN anchorman Bernie Shaw, etc. Not to mention more mundane black leaders such as the black superintendent of the Chicago PD or the president of the US association of physicians or... you name it.
Now, the irony is that white Americans themselves don't realize the full extent of their readiness to open their decision-making circles to minorities.... In that sense, both black and white fellows seem entangled in the meshes of America's racial legacy.
White Americans could easily disable black grouches by telling them to watch abroad --in Europe for instance. Yet, for Mr Charley to pitch such a cross-Atlantic comparison test, it's necessary for him to travel Europe first...
On the other hand, token minorities will never make up for all past and present prejudices.... Perhaps the way out of this anthropological deadlock is to consider racism as one among many other discriminations --after all, millions of crackers also will never make it to the top! So, does that mean that US elites are prejudiced against whites as well?
Re: Personally, I think the whole thing is BS, though... The very fact that we make such decisions based upon race, and not solely upon merit, is detestable. Kinda like voting for Kennedy because he was Irish and Catholic.
I disagree.... Frankly, Ron, what does "solely upon merit" mean? Do you really believe in PURE merit? C'mon! Human achievement was and never will be based on such a thing as "pure merit". Pure criteria and benchmarks are valid for computers and robots --not for humans. For instance: according to his school resume, Frenchman Roland Moreno is a dunce. Indeed, he never attended a university course and barely got a high-school diploma... Yet, he invented the smart card in the late 1970s. BTW, pushing your logic into its reductio ad absurdum would lead us to believe that we just live in the best of all possible worlds --since every white worker deserves his/her job on the basis of "pure merit".
Well, at least in the case of Ms Condi Rice, no one can question her credentials: she entered Denver Univ. at 15 and graduated at 19; afterwards, she bagged a professorship at Standford at 24 and became Standford's youngest provost at 26.... In front of such an academic blitz, even Dr H Kissinger looks tacky....<gg>
Gus. |
