EDITORIAL: 50 years later, it’s still a white man’s world
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President Donald Trump’s cabinet is emblematic of his disregard for minorities and women in America and is representative of the issue at large: The idea that white men matter more.
October 11, 2017
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America is too far removed from its most shameful, racist and sexist days to still be almost unilaterally run by, on average, white men.
Almost 50 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. came to Sacramento State and said that no country could be truly integrated without a “radical redistribution of political and economic power” taking place.
In this regard, the United States is woefully failing.
White men make up 31 percent of the country in population, so remember that number when comparing it to the following.
Economically, Fortune reported this summer that, though only 16 of the Fortune 500 companies reported their diversity statistics, white men held nearly 72 percent of all corporate leader positions in those companies. 93.6 percent of CEOs are white men.
Only 3.2 percent of those companies reported data fully. Three out of four of the companies that did report belonged to the tech sector, prompting the question: how much more antiquated would the statistics be for less modern companies?
Though it’s true the 115th Congress elected last year is the most diverse in history, it is a blatant misunderstanding to claim it accurately represents America’s diversity.
Seventy four percent of Senate members are white, and 66 percent of House members are white men. The numbers are more skewed to white men when considering religious belief and party as well; by far, the average member of Congress at the moment is also a Christian, white member of the GOP.
And now, we get to the eye of the white man storm: President Donald Trump.
Compared to former President Barack Obama’s, President Trump’s cabinet is white-man central. All of the the members of the traditional inner-cabinet positions are white men, and 18 of the total 24 are white men.
Ben Carson, who, under his own admission, isn’t experienced enough to hold a Cabinet position, now serves as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He’s also one of the six Cabinet members who isn’t a white man, and the only black member overall.
This, along with his policies and use of language, further confirm President Trump is truly the first white president.
In a story for The Atlantic, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates makes the case that, though every other president besides Obama benefitted from the passive advantage of being a white man, President Trump was the first to have the opportunity to appeal to Americans specifically because he wasn’t black (like Obama) or a woman (like his main opponent, Hillary Clinton).
Xenophobia, outright racism, sexism; all were represented in the Trump campaign, and all helped. He won the outright votes of men overall, white voters overall and white men specifically.
All because he could point at two Democratic Party figures in Obama and Clinton that represented a change in America’s traditional power structure, all while claiming to be the real symbol for change because he wasn’t a politician.
It is sad and tiring to continue to fight about civil rights in this country, as it should be in every country. But it is still a problem, even at the base level of representation. America needs true representation, or as close as it can ever get, before real progress can be made that might make MLK proud.
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