Blatant Political Speculation

There's an aura of foregone conclusion to the current American political race, in the sense that nobody gives two hoots about the Republicans. This year, it's all about Obama vs. Clinton and the Democrats. Not that I'm complaining, mind, but throughout the campagin coverage thus far, something has been niggling at me, and it is this: whoever wins through, their policies will have had almost nothing to do with it. Instead, the next leader of the Democrats (or America) will be elected almost exclusively on the basis of either their race or gender, and in such an overt fashion as to lay the whole concept of an intelligent democracy open to question. I am not deaf to the potential significance of the first black or female President, but the irony is enormous: neither milestone has been reached exactly because, historically, Western politicians have been elected on the basis of race (white) and gender (male). The fact that these elections are reversing the criterion hasn't removed the element discrimination, as so many people seem to believe: instead, it has merely reversed it.

As an active government policy, reverse descrimination has been tried in various parts of the world as an antidote to previous racism, notably in South Africa. Regardless of job experience or suitability, employers are encouraged, if not required, to hire black staff over white, and while the intention of the policy is equal opportunity, it is creating a wealth of problems, particularly in teaching and academia. Previous discrimination meant that many black children were denied education - a travesty, to be sure, but one compounded when those same uneducated children, now adults, are given teaching jobs in turn. Some are barely literate; others lack basic qualifications. This is not their fault, and it doesn't make them unintelligent, but it does mean their students will suffer, and where such teachers are attempting to educate a new generation of black students, it prolongs the ill-effects and negative consequences racism. It also breeds resentment: the fact that white people have had hundreds of years on the beneficial end of discrimination doesn't make the objection to being passed over solely on the basis of race less painful, or - more importantly - less valid.

Which brings us back to Clinton and Obama. Arguably, I'm not looking hard enough, but almost every scrap of commentary I've encountered on the Demoncratic primaries has, at some point, touched on the indecision all black women 'must' be feeling: whether to vote for their race, or their gender. This indecision is undoubtably true in many instances, but if it constitutes the whole of a voter's struggle over which candidate to support, as opposed to being one issue among many (or even a tie-break question), then the problem is bigger than we think. The idea that some black women might be Republican, a la Condoleezza Rice, hasn't been mentioned at all.

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which Barack Obama was contending, not against Hilary Clinton, but another black man. The milestone would remain, but the deciding factor in victory (one hopes) would be policy: at the very least, it physically couldn't be race. Similarly, if Hilary were to battle another white female candidate, the issue of gender - while lack of a precedent would see it mentioned - would not set one above the other. Of course, given that the Republicans have put forward the the traditional white male, these issues will still remain at the actual election, but that's (for now) a separate conundrum.

All of which raises the question: does policy matter at all? The cynical pragmatist in this writer already believes that the necessary evils of compromise, backtracking and deception render political policy as hawked at election-time a poor auger for what will actually happen: pure democracy, like all original ideology, changes in the transition from paper to real life. Nonetheless, we are still voting for something more relevant than biology, and even were my anarchistic half to argue that choice, in this respect, is an illusion generated by large amounts of conflicting information and media hype, it still leads to a complex decision-making process. In this instance, however, commentators are presenting us with a much more simplistic dilemma: do we want a black leader, or a woman?

Ultimately, I'll be content (though unsurprised) if the Democrats win the election. Were I an American citizen, I'd vote for Obama on the grounds of his policies, agnosticism (reading between the lines), intelligence and charisma; Hilary is too rightwards-leaning for my taste. But whoever gets in, I hope - perhaps unreasonably - that they are elected for the right reasons, and not the physicality they were born with. Because that's the point of democracy: an intelligent, thinking leader is all well and good, but nothing can beat an intelligent, thinking populace.