The Myth of Colorblindness Revisited

Wouldn't it be great if race weren't the first characteristic we checked off upon meeting a new person! But it still is, no matter who we are. It's about clan, it's about tribe, and the negative aspects of this way we identify ourselves gets exacerbated when there are hierarchies: when one race predominates over another.

In America there is no meritocracy, not yet, not even close, so let's not pretend that race doesn't play an enormous role in decisionmaking, both public and private.

And as the Judiciary hearings begin today into the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, think about all of the code words that will be used, both brazen and more subtle, to distinguish her being Puerto Rican as either a plus or a minus.

Listen. Listen carefully.

And then read the New York Times this morning. In a front page story, a reporter disingenuously wonders why unemployment has hit African Americans so much worse in New York than people without color.

By the end of March, there were about 80,000 more unemployed blacks than whites, according to the report, even though there are roughly 1.5 million more whites than blacks here.

It was that question from an African American reporter at a news conference last month, asking what the President was doing for men and women of color, when President Obama, who likes to ignore the issues of race, stumbled for the first time, claiming that the stimulus package was helping everyone. Well, it isn't. It doesn't seem to be helping anyone except for the bankers, frankly. And it isn't helping people of color because African Americans have the least job seniority, security, and are often employed in marginal industries that are heavily dependent upon a soaring economy.

If we all listen, we might learn about the hidden advantages that skin color offers or withholds, and find some room to grow inside ourselves.

Gender Bender

There is a profound change happening in America. For the first time in our history, women are better educated than men and women are more likely to be the breadwinners in families.

In 2006, female science, health and engineering graduates outnumbered males 56% to 44%. The bachelor's degree-level fields of study with the highest percentage of female graduates were health (86%) and psychology (77%). The recent bachelor's degree fields of study with the highest percentage of male graduates were engineering (78%) and computer and information sciences (77%).

Overall, women earned 58% of all bachelors degrees and 60% of all masters degrees in 2006. The reason: Women appear to have much lower drop out rates than men, in both high school and in college. Among whites, women outnumbered men in college by 1995-1996. Although the number of men entering and graduating from college is rising slightly, the recruitment of women has resulted in steady increases in both the numbers and the percentages.

The disparity between women and men seeking college degrees is greatest among African Americans--60% of African American college students are women, only 40% are men. Among Hispanics, the gap is only slightly smaller--57% are women, 43% are men.

Yet despite the fact that more women are graduating from college than men, male recent graduates still make more money than women: $2.92 less an hour on average.

That wage differential makes sense only if engineering and information sciences are the highest paid areas.

This gender gap extends to unemployment during this economic downturn. According to the Center for American Progress, women are now the breadwinners because more men are losing their jobs than women. Male-dominated job areas are the places where jobs are disappearing: manufacturing, construction, and transportation.

What does this mean? In the area of legal education, there is a move to end tenure, or at least make job security issues more flexible while we are in this economic mess. But this move to end a practice that has established independent scholarship and academic freedom within law schools comes when despite the fact that about half of the students in law school are women, 60% of tenured law faculty are men, white men at that. Law is power, and white men still control.

Minnesota Senate Race--Al Franken--Unemployment and Hope

Last evening my husband and I were waiting for a friend to arrive for a late dinner when the phone rang. It was a solicitor asking for money to help Al Franken pay the legal costs for the recount in Minnesota.

Loosened a bit from a glass of wine to mark the end of a busy work week, I immediately said: YES! We will contribute.

And our solicitor began to laugh with joy.

Let's face it: any job currently is better than being unemployed. I don't know if the solicitor was getting a commission. I didn't care. I wanted to share this moment of finding a "hot" prospect to support Al Franken for Senate with this stranger, even if the hot prospect was me.

Our contribution, by the way, was only $50. That's really all we could afford, because like everyone else we know, money is tight. But despite all of the dismal news from the Labor Department on unemployment (it's not 6.7% but really 12.5% when we factor in the parttime workers and those who have just given up, according to NPR. ), there is this sense of optimism, and it originates from the Office of the President Elect.

I just watched Barack Obama's Saturday morning YouTube speech in which he laid out his plans to jump start the economy by rebuilding infrastructure, refurbishing public schools, and reducing the cost of government by incorporating energy-saving features into all public buildings.

Compare Obama with Bush's Charlie Gibson interview this week in which he inarticulately divided his eight years in office into "happy days" and "not so happy days."

Are we all drawn up into unrealistic expectations for the incoming president because he is calm, articulate, and he isn't afraid to speak about the really frightening issues facing us as a nation, as families and individuals, and as a planet: economic collapse, entire countries and continents falling into anarchy, pirates cruising the Suez Canal, and isolated rebel groups trying to ascent to international prominence through the torture of a rabbi and his family in Mumbia to catapault a local organization into solidarity with an international fundamentalism Islamic anti-Zionist movement?

We are all looking to this calm man with hope. We better get fully engaged, because guess what: no one person has the answers. This is a group endeavor and we all have to participate in order for it to work. Let's put our cynicism down for a few months, at least. We should be meeting on December 13 and 14, along with other Obama supporters, to articulate what we need and send that to the new administration.

Because this is my issue: I'm not a centrist. I believe that we need radical change. Attend an Obama event in your area. We need to speak what we believe and feel, too.