Should our new governor give in to pressure and become a racist?

No.
He should continue to be color blind and choose based on the best most qualified person for the job. To choose someone based on their race would be racist and wrong.

Politics is about the appearance of things. With blacks representing 13.6% of the population of the U.S., including more than a million in Ohio, and with 24 Ohio cabinet positions, it would stand to reason that just representationally at least two of his cabinet members would be black.

True color blindness comes about through conscious decisionmaking by leaders such as the governor.

Appointing someone because of race is not racism. This word is thrown around so loosely.

And I find it so interesting that this new war on diversity (calling everyone a racist if they realize that opportunities in this country are very much divided along racial lines) is creating an America that is looking more and more like America before the civil rights movement. Call everyone a racist who values diversity and our government will be a bunch of old white men once again. How lucky for them.

This situation is a two edged sword as @josie intones, as to appoint simply based on color and pressure from the OBC would appear to abandoned a “color blind” status but to not appoint a racially diverse cabinet would make him appear to be blind to the fact that his state is in fact racially diverse. That could IMO, alienate a good number of his constituents and set the table for a rougher ride than if he acknowledged his racially divers constituents by appointing cabinet members to reflect his diverse state population.

Lurking. I heard about this on the news this morning and look forward to reading how this discussion goes.

I think that your governor should continue to be color blind, and kudos to him for stating his intention to do so.

To choose a person based solely on race is as bad as refusing a person based solely on race.

what black person would want to be known as “the person who got the job because of skin color”? It would take the stage way before any skills they might have for the position. It’s a bad place for anyone to defend.

There are many assumptions and simplifications here that make the outcome one that the OP deems either/or, a false dichotomy, and the irresponsible result is that we flame up the conversation with the word “racist.” I understand where it comes from, but it is poor form.

@Cruiser eloquently outlines the issue (and thank you for that). I want to go over some of the underlying causes.

(1) The assumption is that he is determining his appointments on solely quantitative data, as opposed to taking in some other qualitiative characteristics, such as ability to work with him, confidence, charm, connections, etc. Without information on this we can’t prove this is untrue – but to admit that it is not is naive.

(2) Colorblindness is a myth, and a dangerous one. It is self-delusion on the part of the person claiming it, and looks like an excuse for racism for those who see a discriminatory effect. It is, in essence, a form of willful blindness, and can contribute to prolonging the effects of past racism in the present day. Regardless of whether we claim that we are choosing people based on merit, the ability to achieve a certain level of merit is, factually, linked to race, as racism is far from dead. Therefore, merit-based decisions many times contain an element of unintended racism in them. Remember that there are people alive today who couldn’t go to certain schools, drink from certain water fountains, or have certain jobs because of their race. Further, there is an element of selection bias for the person – most of us end up associating for many reason with people who the majority of whom are from a similar racial background, for many reasons. There are most likely many people he knows that he’s selected – this doesn’t need to be nepotism, but may be properly based in the fact that he’s seen them work well personally. This automatically leads to a race-based bias – unintended, but inevitable.

(3) Because of that, the governor is actually ignoring an aspect of a person that, if he takes it into consideration, will help him govern all his constituents more effectively – the person’s race. To take this into account as part of his decision-making process is not problematic, but it is racism (and actionable discrimination) if he makes the decision because of a person’s race. He does need to consider the race of his constituency, and the fact that having someone as a close advisor who can represent not not only the objective issues faced by minority populations (which doesn’t require they be of any race) but also can more accurately bring an empathetic perspective to those issues (which does), is a dereliction in duty to a certain extent. It’s not racism that he tries to separate himself from it, but it is bad decision-making.

(4) On a specific level, it is an issue that he needs to deal with because of some breaking news in Ohio. A mother was recently convicted of a felony for sending her kid to a school district her father lived in, a couple of miles from her. It was a much better school – it was also, demographically, a white school. It was a good decision from a legal perspective – but as the executive he needs to recognize that things like this happening further divide racial demographics, and he has a hand in determining policy that can result in changing such laws which are facially neutral, but have a discriminatory effect.

I’ll leave it at that for now. The main take-away is that no one is colorblind. And no one should pretend to be so…the effects can be as damaging as actually racist tendencies.

This is politics, Gov. You have to pay to play; it’s not just about you and your buds. In politics, sure, you can shut everyone out that you don’t like, but there’s a cost to that. Even on a basic quid pro quo level, he should’ve made some arrangement with the OBC behind closed doors if he didn’t want this. I’m not talking about “being nice” or “caring” about his POC constituents. I’m talking realpolitik, where you do stuff so that you can go and do what you want unhindered. Because that’s how it works, unsavoury as it sounds.

Anyway, it’s not as if every single person of colour in Ohio is so entirely stupid or utterly unqualified for a cabinet post. If he doesn’t believe or know that, then he’s an idiot.

I would recommend to your governor that he consider what advantages and perspectives he might be missing out on by having an all-white cabinet. That alone might suggest that diversity is in his own interests.

I would recommend to you that you seek a future in push polling, unless your “objective, intelligent and thus virtuous” comment was more than pure rhetoric. (Although I am quite interested in why you think being objective and intelligent entails being virtuous. Both objectivity and intelligence can be used for multiple ends, after all.)

Would they be satisfied with a token black guy?

The whole situation sucks. Welcome to politics.

EDIT TO ADD:

@iamthemob “having someone as a close advisor who can represent not not only the objective issues faced by minority populations (which doesn’t require they be of any race) but also can more accurately bring an empathetic perspective to those issues (which does)”

Wait, so only blacks can be empathetic to what happens to other blacks?

@bob_ – I feel “empathy” is the best way that I can put it. There’s an element to empathy that separates it from sympathy so that the person actually feels what it’s like to have certain feelings, or how people react to particular circumstances. This doesn’t mean they “speak for all their people,” but it’s a sense that is inaccessible to some. People can get close to it, but won’t ever reach it.

As always, I think South Park deals with it best with the episode With Apologies to Jesse Jackson. The full episode is here.

@iamthemob So is the color of the skin enough to “reach it”? I guess I’m not even close to understand the situation.

<—Mexican (and actually color blind)

So…I guess my thing here is this: appointing a black person seems a lot less racist than thinking that of 80 or so appointments made there wasn’t a single black person more qualified for the job. Also, your question sucks. Not the premise of it, that’s fair. But phrasing it in a way that applies the label of “racist” to anyone who disagrees with you? Yeah. That sucks.

@bob_ – Nope. It increases the probability of it, and one who is not of that skin color cannot experience true empathy when it comes to the particular issues facing those of the same color, etc.

Again, I never said anything about whether someone of any skin color cannot take into account particular issues unique to those of another. But the ability to access particular feelings universal to those of the same repressed or oppressed (to whatever level in whatever arena) minority group is a quality of particular value, and should be recognized as such to a political leader.

Color blindness, as much as you claim to have it, can’t exist – and really isn’t a practical thing to attempt to promote. Diversity is an important thing to recognize. Assuming a particular set of behaviors because of the color of someone’s skin, their sexual orientation, the fact that their disabled, etc. is dangerous – but assuming that these things have impacted their viewpoint somehow is not.

@iamthemob No, I meant I’m actually color blind.

But then you can’t feel empathy towards us color blinds because you’re not one of us :P ~

I still don’t believe that exists. I’m definitely not…so I can’t be empathetic to your situation. ;-)

Dude, I have a deer green I drew in elementary school to prove it. Your argument is therefore invalid, void and racist! ~

It’s about votes. Are there going to be more than a token few blacks who will support Republicans? Probably not. The Gov can write off blacks and it won’t affect his reelection chances one bit. Mores the pity. There is no reason he needs to hire someone black unless he likes someone black. I wonder if he even knows anyone who is black.

@lefteh How would I phrase it in a way that would please you?

@josie Maybe you could try “Should our governor continue to ignore black people as usual, or should he give in to pressure and appoint a token black guy, so it kinda looks like he cares?”

“Color-blindness” is a great cover for covert racism.

Or a condition that affects five to eight per cent of all men.

Yes, that too. :P

@josie I can’t speak for @lefteh, but I’d be fairly satisfied if you just changed “become a racist” to “appoint a black person.”

Given the requirements of the situation, I think the field of qualified politicians or qualified political appointees is very small not very large. He is trying to fend off the intrusion of an overreaching federal government and that requires someone that doesn’t support the current policies of the Democrats. That alone eliminates a substantial portion of the black community. Right or wrong, his selection is necessarily limited. I see no problem here. He has the right and the responsibility to appoint people that will follow through on the political objectives he was elected to achieve.

You get what you vote for. Ohio is an adjacent state so I am somewhat aware of what is happening there. They elected at least two terrible choices, a tea-bagger governor, and a speaker of the house that cares about large corporate interests, not his state.

Unfortunately Pennsylvania is no better. We actually a corporate lobbyist as governor rather than a retired Admiral as governor. Both of our states will pay for their bad choices. The only reason more of our citizens don’t move to the south is that their conditions and government is even worse.

The right wing specializes in catering to special interests and now fringe groups like teabaggers, christian rightists, and militia members looking for bigger and better firearms. Why should they care about black people, Hispanic people and any progressive? The certainly don’t owe their election to them. In fact I blame our side for the results of the last election. We didn’t come out to vote so we deserve what we get for pseudo-leadership.