It is my firm belief that race should play no role in politics. This is not to say that people of all racial backgrounds should not be actively engaged in politics. Rather, I think that our political system would be altogether improved if we adopted a truly color-blind mentality.
The fundamental cause championed by the Civil Rights movement was that men and women should not be judged by the color of their skin. This notion of civil rights has been altogether forgotten. In fact, on the whole, we have become so devoted to political correctness, social awareness, and diversity that we have reversed the problem.
While egalitarianism is all about a person being a person, we are told by everything around us that the presidential election currently underway is about a black man versus a white man. Before that, it was about a black man, a white woman, and a host of white men.
The current election has never been about one person vying against another person in an effort to see who truly is the best candidate for president. I recently heard a restaurant manager I know, upon being asked who he thought should be the next president say, “I’m for the best candidate. Not ‘the woman’ or ‘the black guy’. Either one of them may be the best candidate, but I don’t know.” I qualify that he is a “restaurant manager” only to show that this profound statement did not come from a university professor or politico. Consequently, this was not a prepared official statement but rather an off-the-cuff remark taking place somewhere between the kitchen and the bar where all the servers tend to gather.
My point is this: every “average” American – if there is such a thing – knows that a person’s gender and skin color really have nothing to do with their ability to lead this country. That said, why should we even bother giving race or gender any thought at all? (I think the same can be said of religion and sexuality as well.) To put it simply, any issue other than merit should have no room in politics, period.
While pre-civil rights America was controlled by a political system that said minorities at large were worthless and therefore should not be allowed to engage in politics, post-civil rights America is controlled by a political system that says individual minorities are worthless so we should only refer to minority groups as such – groups rather than individuals, entities rather than human beings. It seems quite likely that a number of non-minority elites in this country are joyfully ushering in “diversity” so that we can be happy with how liberal and tolerant we are. Do they really care if any particular candidate who happens to be a minority of any sort actually has any desirable governing abilities? Are we electing government officials based on who they are, or what they are?
Here’s the thing. We get all caught up in politics because for some reason we think it’s fun, exciting, involving, and engaging. But what do politics have to do with government? At the end of the day, the people we elect to public office actually have to get some work done. Every April we see exactly how much it personally costs us monetarily to support the candidates we elect every November.
If I were going to have brain surgery, I would do some shopping around before I let someone cut into my skull. I wouldn’t care about what color a potential surgeon’s skin was. It wouldn’t matter to me whether a male or female held the knife. All I would care about is finding the best brain surgeon in the world and paying them as much money as I could to make sure I woke up when the surgery was over. Shouldn’t we use the same reasoning in reference to potential leaders of government?
Shouldn’t politics be more than a game we play every November? Shouldn’t we focus more on governance than elections? Shouldn’t our aim be legislation instead of campaigns? When was the last time anyone actually paid any attention to the government of the United States? When did we forget that politics was never meant to do anything more than provide for us with the best leaders possible?
When will we realize that in order to really value every person as human we have to forget about their race and sex? The moment you refer to a man as black or white you have already made him something other than a man – something less, it seems to me.
Matt Brumit is a junior humanities major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].
