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Editorial: Barack Obama, Diversity and the New Real America
November 5, 2008 - On this day after an election that has seen every form description -- "historic", "epic", "unprecedented", "seachange", etc. -- punditry and surveys and Twitters and number-crunching will abound. Analyses will be piled atop analyses for days, weeks, or months to come -- maybe longer. And this prolonged social moment we've been through is all those things -- unprecedented, historic, and indubitably worthy of very careful counting, parsing, and reflection upon what we've just seen. That said, one immediate implication of this election's final days and result goes to the very heart of this publication's meaning and mission -- the recognition and championing of diversity as the strength of America. Obama's victory is a clear vindication of the argument for diversity, and not only in the relatively limited sense of representational politics. Yes, that he "happens to be" Black, or half-Black, and as such fulfills the once-unimaginable aspirations of a country haunted by a racist past, is momentous. However, it is probably of more psychological importance to us -- to the electorate -- than it will be for Obama in leading us. To call Obama the first Black president is something of a misnomer, and it is tokenizing. It would be tokenizing to assume that he will, by himself, "part the seas" and correct all the uglier aspects of race relations in America. The hopes and expectations Obama's supporters have laid on him are hefty. And while his accomplishment is inspiring, he will have weightier items on his agenda on Day One than to sit basking in the fact of being the first half-Black president. On the other side, already, anti-Affirmative Action pundits have also been tokenizing Obama, using his ascent to deny racial disparities and inequities throughout American society, from schools to healthcare coverage to the work place. As Al Sharpton recently observed on CNN's D.L. Hughley show, the particular alchemy of Obama's mixed background is what makes him a well-suited figurehead for our times and our diverse country. He will be the White President and the Black president and the Brown president, Sharpton said, and he will have to perform to lead us out of the crises, domestic and foreign, our still largely divided nation faces. But the importance of Obama's background and feat is more symbolic, subtle and complex than it is literal. It's in how he won and in the movement he inspired. First, he ran a campaign that attempted to sidestep, and to "transcend" race, and that succeeded insofar as he did not "play the race card," even when the opposition attempted to wield voters' race fear against them -- a tactic that thankfully failed, for once and at last, to win the day. Second, he never allowed himself to be "the Black candidate" -- initially to the dismay of some Black voters and commentators. He always presented himself as multiracial, product of a multicultural family, a global-era family, raised as a "hapa" in the most multicultural of states, and routinely pictured against the backdrop of his white mother and grandparents, his Asian siblings, with his Midwestern constituents. Third, his election was possible only through creation of an effective multicultural, multiracial coalition of supporters that reflected the emergent "New America Majority" predicted since the 2000 Census, but slow to represent itself it at the ballot box. He built a campaign that was as diverse as this country, and where everyone could "claim" a piece of the candidate and the future. He led a largely transformed Democratic Party, marked and revitalized by unprecedented diversity. This was evidenced in its 50-state strategy, its slate of presidential and state candidates this year, its investment in minority outreach, and even more obviously at the convention. In Denver this year, and on the campaign trail with Obama, we saw a picture of us as we are -- the real America, which was very different from the one that the likes of defeated Virginia senator George Allen, and Sarah Palin, tried to sell us. Not everyone liked what they saw, and this election showed us that with great change comes great anxiety. The uglier threads in this campaign season -- from the primaries right up to the booing at john McCain's concession speech -- showed that race, gender, religious and class tensions among us are real and palpable, even as they are becoming more difficult to discuss explicitly. For many Americans, Obama's victory symbolizes that we are living in a "new" country whose rules may not be seem familiar. Some opponents have worried aloud about political suppression, a concern over being able to criticize Obama for fear of "political correctness" or being branded "racist". This day after the history-making election of Barack Obama as our first not-wholly-white president leaves us to face an overwhelming question: Now what? Some Americans accustomed to -- and expecting to -- always and only seeing themselves at the head of the table may find it difficult for a while coming back into the room and figuring out where to sit. But what sober Obama's acceptance speech underscored last night is that at his table, everyone will be welcome -- and needed. And it is up to those hesitant Americans to find the resolve and purpose to overcome their natural apprehension and take a seat. This is a similar phenomenon to one that we've observed over the years of publishing this site, where occasionally -- not often, but a few times a year, perhaps -- the editors will receive a flame message raging against the audience structure of this site network, condemning us for "excluding whites," charging a "reverse-racism," demanding "where's the White Village"? This is a false position that sees "diversity" as oppositional to "whiteness"; it sees work opportunity as a zero-sum game, and equal opportunity as oppositional to white-opportunity. Because it does not adhere to the old rules, positioning whiteness as the default center of the experience, it is presumed to be exclusive. It too seems to say, If I can't be at the head of the table, I'm not sitting. The editors take these concerns seriously, and for many years attempted to address them both through our content and direct correspondence when possible (they are almost always anonymous). We try to explain that the founding purpose of this site was to represent the concerns and interests of under-represented minorities in the U.S. workforce, including women, those who faced specific discriminations and protections. We also seek to help employers interested in providing equal opportunity and building a diverse workforce to present open opportunities to these groups. We stress that the opportunities presented here are not jobs set aside for or open exclusively to these groups, and that we encourage any qualified candidate to apply to the jobs. We also point out that whites are well-represented in our staff, leadership teams, prominent contributors and business partners, article subjects and readers. We observe that among those who do make use of our free, open job seeker tools and apply for jobs are users of all backgrounds, regions and abilities, including high numbers of users who choose to self-identify (ethnic self-identification is encouraged but strictly optional on our site) as "Caucasian/white". We argue that "diversity" is not code for "non-whites-only"; "diversity" means "diversity". Those who have ears to hear sometimes engage with us appreciatively, write us back and participate as users in the site, but it's not satisfactory for everyone. Some must come around to it on their own. Barack Obama's huge victory illustrates what the most progressive employers and users of this site have known for some time, but writ large: that investing in diversity is not a matter of parsing, tokenizing and dividing for any "politically correct" purpose, but a competitive imperative in the "new America" and the shrinking global village. It makes sense and it works. It is to the credit of both presidential candidates that on election eve, they attempted to deliver a message of conciliation, unity and seriousness of purpose in moving forward to tackle the country's problems. But unlike the past eight years, in which "unity" served as code for homogeneity and towing a party line, in the Obama era, unity will be achieved through our variety and the strength of our differences. Out of many, one. e Pluribus Unum. That is diversity.
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