True diversity involves a diversity of thought and professional backgrounds, not a quota system for blacks, Hispanics, and women.
President-Elect Biden made his first cabinet appointments this week. These new officials will have vast legal authority to establish new policies on such contentious issues as immigration, trade, foreign policy, the budget, energy, et al.
Yet, to the media, what is most important about these new officials is not the policies that they espouse, but rather their racial, ethnic, and gender identity.
“Biden Will Nominate First Women to Lead Treasury and Intelligence, and First Latino to Run Homeland Security,” declares a headline in the New York Times.
“The racial and gender mix of the expected nominees also reflects Mr. Biden’s stated commitment to diversity, which has lagged notoriously in the worlds of foreign policy and national security,” says the Times.
Progressive Dog Whistles. Of course, “diversity” is a code word—or dog whistle, if you will—for racial, ethnic, and gender preferences.
The idea is that supposedly disadvantaged minority groups—principally blacks, Hispanics, and women—need to be favored in the hiring or selection process because they have been historically excluded or discriminated against.
These supposedly disadvantaged minorities, moreover, are said to bring a fresh or unique perspective, which needs to be heard in the workplace and in the corridors of power.
Of course, no one would dispute the importance of affirmative efforts to be inclusive and considerate of all Americans regardless of their race, ethnicity, or gender. However, it is unfair (and bigoted, quite frankly) to favor certain groups of people because of their race, ethnicity, and gender.
We ought to be color-blind and racially indifferent—as well as blind and indifferent to a person’s ethnicity and gender. These are, or at least ought to be, largely meaningless categorizations in the workplace and in the corridors of power.
After all: blacks, Hispanics, and women do not all think alike. Their views are as varied and multifaceted as any other group’s. So to speak of a “black perspective,” an “Hispanic perspective,” or a “woman’s perspective” is typically wrong and misguided.
And yet, the left has infused our culture and our politics with an unhealthy obsession over racial, ethnic, and gender identity—as if these categorizations are what matter most.
This obsession is also a disservice to the officials so categorized. It reduces them to cardboard cutout representatives of a group rather than individuals with minds of their own.
Indeed, as the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board points out in an editorial about “Mr. Biden’s nominee for Homeland Security Secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, [and] Avril Haines, who will be director of national intelligence”:
Both deserve better than to be described as “the first Latino” to run DHS, or the “first woman” at DNI, as the press insisted on describing them. The media’s insipid preoccupation with identity politics obscures what’s important. How about what they think?
Exactly. True diversity involves a diversity of thought. Different policy views and professional backgrounds are what matter, not whether a cabinet official is black, Hispanic, or a woman.
Let’s put the focus where it belongs: on what Biden’s cabinet officials think and the policies they espouse. That’s the discussion our nation needs and the debate the American people deserve.
Anything less is a disservice to those who serve.
Feature photo credit: Biden cabinet picks Alejandro Mayorkas (L), Janet Yellen (C), and Avril Haines (R) (Getty Images/Alamy, courtesy of the BBC).