I am not suggesting forcing ratios on race and gender in congress that equal the civilian population.
However, I think it's beyond quite clear that our current government make-up is fvcking up and in need of a thorough flushing.
Having the country managed by 80-85% white males is NOT working.
Or are you suggesting you're happy with how things are right now?
Quite frankly, I'm not even convinced the particular white males in the government represent your average white male, let alone anyone else. But suggesting this is a problem of their skin tone is approaching this from entirely the wrong direction, and that direction is: "races are monolithic interest groups and they cannot work together towards the same goals because they don't have the same goals to begin with."
That is the implicit meaning behind pointing at the racial make-up of the government compared to the rest of the populace and saying that THAT is the reason our government is not representative. You're missing the point.
Race is imaginary. Here is the point.
There is a sociological gap. This gap affects people of all types, but disproportionately affects non-white people, because the financial/social destabilization that results from institutional racism takes time to correct itself (even poor whites often have more assets than somewhat better off minorities for this reason). But fundamentally, their interests are precisely the same as white people. This is a self-correcting problem if we try to provide opportunity for everyone.
But it won't self-correct immediately, and there is no way to make it a quick fix. Getting more black and brown people in office will not fix it. At this point, the black and brown people likely to get into office are even more divorced from the reality of the average black or brown person, than the white men likely to get into office are from the average white man. Social stability takes decades to accumulate. It is a cultural mindset and generational asset problem, not a how-many-brown-people-do-we-have-in-office problem. What we can and should do instead is make it so that everyone has the ability to move forward if they wish, and see ourselves as united in that goal.
This problem doesn't live in the government. It lives in the social and cultural mindset and organization of the populace.
Focusing on the superficial aspect of what color the people in office are does not help that goal at all. In fact, it moves us further away from it. We continue to compartmentalize ourselves, and see our interests as being in conflict with those of other races. They aren't. They're the same.
We need to focus on empowering the populace, not what color they are or what they have between their legs. That is a sloppy, ineffective attempt at a quick fix that we have tried before, and that will inevitably continue to fail. It perpetuates the very source of the problem; our perception of otherness when looking at our own countrymen.
