Ohio cabinet all-white for the first time since 1962!

[Brittain33]

I very much doubt Kasich intended to exclude minorities from his Cabinet and any argument about whether he is racist is a cul-de-sac to be avoided. He just didn't notice he hadn't chosen any non-whites (and few women), which means he likely doesn't have any minorities he works with or is friendly with on a professional level, because then he would have named them. This is a hazard of being a Republican, but one would think that even if it was unintentional, he would have identified this as a problem and should have noticed, and now it's too late to fix so he can't be open about it... I don't tend to buy the argument that "I looked for the best people, and they all happened to be white," loads of people are qualified to do these jobs in different ways and that's a justification for a situation which emerged for different reasons. As soon as there's a vacancy, I'm sure he'll appoint a qualified candidate who isn't white.

[Brittain33]

I think it's a sign of racism on the parts of people that criticize Kasich that they pay attention to race enough to complain about this.

That's a cop-out. Politics isn't color-blind; it's still hard for minorities to get elected or achieve prominent positions in statewide politics. Obama and Patrick are the exceptions that prove the rule. As long as the majority can blithely pretend race doesn't matter when they benefit, and that it does matter when they are threatened, it's not the obligation of the minority to unilaterally disarm. Also, I'm totally convinced that the people who think Kasich is doing the right thing here would not see anything wrong if Obama had appointed a cabinet entirely composed of African-American men and said they were each one the best and only possible candidate for each post.

I was worried that when this happened, some people would see it as a good thing and a sign of meritocracy, when it's a sign of many other factors, some neutral, some with bad consequences.

[Brittain33]

You appoint those you feel are most qualified. If Kasich feels that all his positions are filled by the most competent individuals that's all that matters.

Cabinet positions aren't filled by people taking a test of their competency and the person with the highest score getting the position. They're filled based on who the executive knows, is comfortable with, and feels can do the job; also, who is popular among constituencies he has to please. I am certain that for any cabinet member in any state, there are always plenty of other people at or above their level of competence who could have done the job better but who didn't network with the right people, maybe is too unattractive, or in some cases, hasn't been taken seriously at a crucial stage in their career because of their gender or race.

[Brittain33]

I don't think it's racist per se, it just goes to show Kasich's insensitive to the whole race issue.

In other words, he isn't trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

How many African-Americans serve in the U.S. Senate right now, Franzl?

[Brittain33]

Who cares?  He should pick the best people who can do the job...

Why should we presume he has picked the best people who can do the job, though?

[Brittain33]

Who cares?  He should pick the best people who can do the job...

Why should we presume he has picked the best people who can do the job, though?

Because that's his job.  What evidence is there that he hasn't?

I'm prodding on this because I think it's too easy to take a marketing line like "I picked the best people possible" as truth, and that's dangerous, because it implies that having a diverse Cabinet would have meant that more qualified white people would have been excluded and the quality of administration would have suffered. I am not insulting Kasich, but I doubt any executive at a state level truly finds the best possible people for all positions. Instead, they look to people they are friends with, people they're comfortable with, and leaders within their party, most of whom can do their jobs well enough. The "best possible people" is a piece of propaganda that people say to sound good, it's not accurate. I don't think it's a crime not to have any minorities in his Cabinet, but I very strongly push back at the implication that this is what results if you pick the best possible people and push all that affirmative action stuff aside. That's incorrect and unfair.

I don't doubt his people will be competent enough, with the usual rotten eggs that always slip through, but that's not the point. What this shows is that the circles he works in, are almost entirely white. No, I'm not calling him a racist, I don't think that's what this shows or that it's a fruitful discussion to have. But I do think that having a Cabinet that inadvertently excludes people who were excluded from government until recently and still have to leap higher hurdles than comparable white men to get elected shows less of a meritocracy than an old boys' club. And that is not a good thing for the country, and certainly shouldn't be praised.

Is Ken Blackwell the only African-American in the Republican Party in Ohio?

[Brittain33]

No.

Someone should have sent that link to Kasich.

[Brittain33]

So?

Seriously, Ohio is like 85% White, and most of the other 15% are highly-democratic blacks.  If you picked 20 Registered Republicans at random in Ohio, it's likely that you'd get 20 White people. 

Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama each included at least one Democrat in their cabinet. In addition, there are black Republicans in Ohio, presumably some of them have risen through the ranks and met the governor other than Ken Blackwell....

[Brittain33]

No.

Someone should have sent that link to Kasich.

Guilty til proven innocent seems to be your position on Kasich throughout the thread.  That's unusual for you......or am I misreading your posts?

What do you think I am finding Kasich guilty of? That, to me, is the big disagreement in this thread... whether this event has meaning, and then what that meaning is. I don't think this demonstrates Kasich is a racist, and I am sure this was not a deliberate decision, nor do I think he is a racist or presume I can get into his head to find out. I'm making a big deal out of this because I think this is how race matters today: in power relationships that evolve a certain way without any intent to cause harm, but which results in excluding people informally who were, until recently, excluded formally.

I think the issue of party is a real one and helps explain why Kasich has little or no professional contact with black people, but that elides the question as to why we have one political party, many of whose members identify with it because it is full of people just like them and not others. This is less of an issue in Ohio than it is in other places, but I think people are too quick to see racial divisions by party as a one-sided case of self-segregation without acknowledging the powerful dynamic at play when a majority behaves a certain way vs. the minority, or the appeal of being in an exclusive party.

This isn't about Kasich, to me, beyond a smaller point I'll identify below. He's not someone I have a problem with or has shown he'd deliberately seek to exclude people. It's about bigger social issues, and that's what I'm here to talk about. I think this situation is a sign of something unfortunate, and I think people saying "you're looking at race when I choose to see it" are being disingenuous given how much ink flies on the demographics board where we all carve up states according to race and everyone can see how informally segregated the lives of millions of Ohioans, and Massachusettsians, and Floridians, and everyone else are. I think Kasich has demonstrated with his Cabinet that he's not concerned with this as a problem, either because he doesn't think about it or because he actively disagrees that it's a problem to be acknowledged. I don't know which it is. But it's not the same as being actively racist.