Wright... or wrong?

By now we've all heard about Obama's pastor, Pastor Wright, and his inflammatory sermons about America, white people and the world. I read his accusations, especially about America being run by rich white men. That upset Steve.

"Why?" I asked him, pausing a second, "it's true."

"No, it's not," he replied. I don't ever really "fight" with my sweet husband - he's just too darned cute, and we really agree on most things. Besides, it's not worth fighting, when you can just look it up.

"I think there's probably about 20% of all political offices held by women, and probably the same for top executive positions," I suggested.

"That's not true," he countered.

He's right - I probably should've said "19.8%" to make it sound like I had some REAL statistics.

I opened the discussion up to my brilliant 22 year old poli sci major daughter. She sent me the following e-mail (although we were sitting 2 feet from each other on the couch - ah the wonders of computer technology).

http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/Facts.html#elective

Taken together Blacks, Latinos, and Asian-American minorities
today represent approximately 12 percent of U.S. Congress, the vast proportion of whom serving
in the lower House.3 (pg 4 of the document attached)

Women occupy approximately 16.1% of elected offices. Women, however, are more than half of the population in the United States

Women : 151,886,332
Men: 147,512,152 (as of July 1, 2006 from the US Census Bureau)
Total: 299,398,484

Women: 50.7%
Men: 49.3%

Blacks in the United States: 38,342,549 (or 12.9% of total)
Asians in the United States: 13,159,343 (or 4.4% of total)
Hispanic or Lations in the United States: 44,321,038 (or 14.8%)

Minorities = 32.1% of total US population, yet only have 12% elected representation in Congress

Aren't you glad my political science major is useful? That stats and methodology class is a life saver.

love you
roo

Now, we can't get the TOTAL picture of the statistics, seeing as the possibilities could be women who are also Black, who would then decrease the total percentage (you can't add the women stats with the non-white stats), but if you look at it, I'm pretty right on the mark. Even though there are MORE women then men, they only hold 12% of all political offices, well, you can read the rest. Very interesting. I asked my daughter why she thought this was, and she ventured that it was our culture. How is our culture then different from other cultures? Do we prize wealth and males and whiteness above all else? I suggested that we also value our movie stars and give their opinions lofty status, as well, which really doesn't make ANY good sense.

So, while we may not agree with everything Pastor Wright says, I still maintain that there rings some truth in his words, even if they ARE borne out of anger. I think if we react with the same amount of anger, we lose the chance for dialogue, which is what Obama's most recent speech was all about. There ARE race issues, and if we don't address them, then we just delay the inevitable. So I'm going to keep thinking about Wright's words, and have them make some sense to me.