This is also a test

"In this entire mix, somehow it is completely forgotten that there are roughly 200,000 voters out in the eastern fringe of the 11th district that are white voters," said Marta Kirsch of Pepper Pike on WCPN's "The Sound of Ideas" (9/10/08). The topic was who would replace the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones and how that candidate would be chosen. Guests included former Congressman Louis Stokes who, along with Cleveland mayor Frank Jackson and 19 other community leaders, held a closed-door vetting of seven candidates for the position.

"What I'm not hearing, not seeing, it has never been broached, is the possibility of nominating a white person for this job," Kirsch said. "There seems a disequity in that and it's very uncomfortable for me."

As one of those white voters in the 11th District, I was seriously offended by the implications underlying Kirsch's questions. Sure, as a white person, I was embarrassed by her ill-disguised -- although apparently completely unself-conscious -- racial hostility.

But I was more disturbed by the implied relationship between politics and race, and the damage that attitude could have to the candidacy of the first viable African-American presidential contender in the history of our country. Kirsch understands the relationship between an elected representative and his/her constituents is as a quid-pro-quo politics based on primarily, if not entirely, on ethnic identity. The implications of this belief are::

• that rather than govern with objectivity, an African-American congressperson would only look after the interests of African-American voters (and would be more biased than a white congressperson, who presumably would look after everyone equally?)
  
• that the needs of white and African-American voters are so divergent that meeting the needs of our group necessitates screwing over the other group.
• that white voters of the 11th district are a homogenous group with identical concerns and interests (and yo, I am SO not like you, Marta, you can't begin to imagine)
  
• that black voters of the 11th district are a homogenous group with identical concerns and interests
  

Kirsch understanding of race and politics (which I assume other people she knows shares) won't have much real impact in this congressional race (60% of voters in the 11th district identify themselves as African-American).

But we saw these assumptions writ large in the primary race between Clinton and Obama, in which white male middle-class voters repeatedly told the press that they were more comfortable voting for a white woman than a black man.

I do understand that human beings are more comfortable with people we perceive as being like ourselves.
But it's no way to vote. In fact, it is downright un-American.

From its inception, America has been a democratic republic in which supreme powere rests in the hands of we, the people. Since we can't literally sit all our butts down in Congress, we exert our power through elected representatives. When we vote we're trying to chose the candidate whose background, experience or platform suggests they can be to you that you'llto act for us. individuals to carry in which But the criteria for electing a congressperson or president isn't "guy you'd most like have on your bowling team" or "woman who belongs to the same church I do."