12.01.08
Times they are a-changing
Wow. Obama announced his six national security advisers today, and white men were in the minority. Eric Holder and Susan Rice are not white; Hillary Clinton, Janet Napolitano, and Susan Rice are not men.
A few days ago, I read that Condoleeza Rice phoned Barak Obama twice during the Mumbai terrorist attacks and was profoundly moved by the mental image. It’s not that there haven’t been black people in positions of power before. I’m sure that Rice phoned General Powell more than once. (While I dislike almost everything about G. W. Bush, I do have to give him props for not being afraid to appoint people of colour to high positions.)
What struck me was that it was a very powerful black person in one administration phoning a very important black person in the next administration. This demonstrates that it is not tokenism, nor a fluke of one administration. It says that having people of colour in positions of high responsibility is not odd or unusual. And that’s the way it should be.
