Jack & Jill Politics

Cause according to the tally below, the Attorney General is the only Brother in the place.

Obama’s initial cabinet:

white woman
white man
white man
black man
Hispanic man
white man
initially Hispanic man but withdrawn; Asian American man (for Commerce Secretary) (my addition)
Hispanic woman
white man
white man
white man
Asian American man
white man
Asian American man
white woman

78.6% men
64.2% white
21.4% women
20.0% Asian American
14.3% Hispanic
7.1% black

More, from the researcher, Jeremy Pierce (hat tip Rikyrah):

It’s whiter, less black, and less Hispanic than Bush’s initial cabinet. There are no Arab Americans. The other numbers are the same (as Bush’s Cabinet). The center of gravity of women seems lower. There is a woman at the top, but then you don’t see any others until you get to the bottom half. But then in Bush’s initial cabinet his highest women were positions five and six. It wasn’t until his second term than he had a woman in the top spot. But with non-whites, it seems much more clear. In Bush’s top half, only one was black, but he was at the top. In Obama’s, only one is black (and, to be fair, one is empty). But the black one in the top half for Obama is spot #4. I think Obama’s initial cabinet is more bottom-heavy for non-whites than Bush’s initial one, especially given than Obama’s is a whiter cabinet to begin with.

Now, you can go to the link and compare the compositions of Bush, Sr.’s Cabinet, Bush, Jr.’s, Bill Clinton’s, and before him, Reagan, Carter and Ford’s cabinets.  What does this indicate about President Obama’s willingness to appoint more than one African-American in his Administration?

It could say a lot of things, such as:  Is the President afraid of being seen as “too friendly” towards African-Americans?

Or, it could say that: The President wants to surround himself with the best and brightest; the most capable, the most qualified individuals for the job.

The trouble with the reasoning of the above sentence (most qualified) facilitates another question regarding Mr. Obama’s Cabinet choices – the question of: Is he saying he can’t find any additional qualified African-Americans to occupy the slots that are more “high-profile” Cabinet positions, such as Defense, State and Treasury?

Some, if not most, would say “Get.The.Hell.Out.Of.Here.With.That.Shyt.”  Why?

Because, in Washington, DC, anywhere in a 50-mile or more radius, qualified African-Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans live just outside the Beltway, in Virginia and Maryland; as far away as West Virginia, Delaware and Philadelphia; all of where people commute into Washington DC on the regular to earn their living.  There are many qualified African-Americans who could pass a security clearance, have their income taxes up to date, and virtually no skeletons in their closets.  Comparing the statistics of the Obama Administration to previous Administrations should create curiosity; then questioning of these choices.  Especially Tim Geithner at Treasury (fooling around with his income taxes – yet he gets to run the Agency that houses the Internal Revenue Service) or Arne Duncan at Education (he has a Master’s Degree – never taught anywhere and led the effort to shut down many schools in Chicago).

And, please do not get me started on rewarding your enemies with Cabinet Positions, either (cough, Hillary Clinton at State, cough).  If Gee Dubya could put not one, but TWO African-Americans in the high profile position of Secretary of State, what is Mr. Obama’s difficulty in giving the State Department to either Bill Richardson (save the drama of his “zipper” problem because there isn’t a pol alive on the Hill that doesn’t have one {men and women, y’all}) or Federico Pena?  Under Bill Clinton, Rodney Slater (a brotha) successfully ran the Transportation Department for the 2nd half of Clinton’s term after spending the first term as Federal Highway Administrator, and I can personally tell you, I saw a lot of inclusion of African-Americans on national task forces at the DOT because Mr. Slater made a point of indicating to his staff to include African-Americans on those task forces.  I came to DC on the regular in 1995 and 1996, because I worked on one of those task forces.

So, it’s not like Mr. O didn’t know about Rodney Slater – he’s a partner at Patton-Boggs, (one of the largest law firms in DC) and almost became part owner of the Nationals baseball team.  Not to mention he pays his taxes, and has been married to the same sista for over 20 years with no outside-the-marriage kids (he has a teen-aged daughter a little older than Malia Obama), and no scandal attached to him, either.

As the kids would say, “What’s REALLY GOIN’ ON?”

I have said (and got shot down for my efforts) that who Mr. Obama chooses for his Administration would indicate how he intends to run the country, and who he thinks are the best people to help him govern.  I stand by that statement, because I would hate to see the first African-American President be no better than his predecessors in terms of pulling the wool over our eyes and we not see the devastation of their policies until years after they have vacated the White House, and earning fat paychecks on the speaking circuit and writing memoirs.

I am well aware that MRS. Obama is surrounded by some quality sistas IN THE WHITE HOUSE – so don’t throw Desiree Rogers’ or Mona Sutphen’s names at me, please, when we have this discussion about the lack of African-American nominees in the Obama Administration. I don’t care to have second-in-command people pointed out to me, either; all that means is that if something happens to the Head Person-In-Charge, the Second-In-Command just assumes the position and hopes he gets invited back to finish out the term (someone should ask New York Governor David Paterson how’s that working out for him these days).

The POTUS couldn’t find a brotha to run the Defense Department?  You mean that Charles Bolden, who is one of the people possibly nominated to run NASA, couldn’t have as easily been named to replace Robert Gates, who helped orchestrate the clusterf*ck” that is STILL the IRAQ WAR?  Better, still, Bill Clinton actually had a brotha, Togo West, who used to run the Army Department for most of the Clinton Administration, so that’s not an excuse, either.

And while I’m pleased as punch that this Administration is finally recognizing the efforts of former DNC Chair Howard Dean by nominating him for Surgeon General, I was all for Mr. O to call up Joycelyn Elders and offer the job to her again, since Bill Clinton flung her so far under the bus after she said it was safer and healthier for people to masturbate until they got into committed relationships, she still has the tire marks on her back.

Let’s face it, I wasn’t crazy about Sanjay Gupta as Surgeon General because if you set yourself up to have activist Michael Moore take you out in World-Class fashion by factually rebutting your attempts to publicly embarass him, because he exposed America’s unwillingness to provide Universal Healthcare, you sure as hell ain’t ready for Prime Time as Surgeon General.  I didn’t want another celebrity from CNN giving me health advice, either.

Yeah, it’s good that Eric Holder got the Attorney General nod, but it’s also like Mr. O’s saying he don’t trust anymore African-Americans in high profile positions, and if true, he might be sending a message that like most elected African-Americans, “Thanks for bringing me to the dance; now get the hell out of my face” until election time rolls around again.  But then, again, what could we really expect from the brotha that said “There is no BLACK AMERICA; there is no Latino America; there is no Asian America – there is only the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”?

I’m sorry, as positive as that may have sounded, that statement effectively asked ethnic Americans to discount their culture, their heritage – their VERY ETHNICITY, in exchange, as my friend Gina McCauley would say, for a two-piece and a biscuit to make non-ethnic Americans feel better, if not less guilty.

Let us not forget, America became AMERICA precisely because of the advocacy of freedom, and the willingness to embrace anyone regardless of race, color, creed or religion.  It’s written in the United States Constitution, complete with amendments to fully honor those promises through the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments.  By no means am I asking Mr. O to fill his Cabinet with all African-Americans, but that 7.1% statistic (which is 1/14th  of the Cabinet) is looking mighty poor on the part of the first African-American POTUS.

This promise is also written at the base of the Statue of Liberty, in part:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

To quote DL Hughley from a comedy concert here in DC when he quoted the above stanza, he also said this:

“Now if we don’t mean that, then we need to add something to that which says, ‘except Mexican (any ethnicity – fill in the ______)’.

This topic needs to be mentioned because it’s still early in the game for our POTUS to correct what is fast becoming in the Black Community, a glaring error. How long are we going to CELEBRATE before we start to EVALUATE?  While it’s too soon to be grading his performance (Thank You, AOL Bastards), it is not too soon to ask him in Clevon Little-style (from “Blazing Saddles”)

“Where All the Brothas and Sistas in Yo’ Cabinet, Mr. President?”