Rice: I See White People

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice opines, "I have lamented that I can go into a meeting at the Department of State - and as a matter fact I can go into a whole day of meetings at the Department of State - and actually rarely see somebody who looks like me. And that is just not acceptable.  I want to see a Foreign Service that looks as if black Americans are part of this great country." 

Like African Americans were represented at the GOP Convention?  Is that what you mean, Condi?  From AJC:  "One nonpartisan group, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, counted 36 black delegates this year, which would be 1.5 percent of the GOP delegates.  David Bositis, who oversaw the study, said the party was not very cooperative in helping with numbers.  But 36 would be the fewest black delegates at a GOP convention since 1964." 

Condi, when you aligned yourself with a party controlled by rich old white men what did you expect?  For all their self-preening talk of inclusiveness, Republicans can't seem to get their heads around racial diversity.  Or any diversity, for that matter.

Comments

[Lisa]

I know Connie doesn't see alot of blacks in the whitehouse, but I don't see alot of whites in the NFL or NBA.

[Carlton Hurdle Jr]

Nice!
I hear the DNC counted that 25% of their delegates were "black Americans."

[Luis]

Secretary Rice makes a great point but even when talking about bettering the position of blacks in government some liberal has to get angry with her. By the way, For all of you libs that go on and on about how the Republican party is racist, who had the first black Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and the first black female Secretary of State? I'll give you a clue, not the DEMOCRAT party.

[David]

What a blatantly racist comment from one of our top officials. I'm glad our government officials are priding themselves on being progressive and "race-blind" these days.

I'll tell you what types of Americans I would like to see in the Department of State - competent Americans. I don't care what color they are, as long as they know how to do their jobs well and pay attention to what their doing - and neither should Condi.

[barbara]

I also agree that it does not matter what color /race a person is, as long as they are competent, qualified and educated. it would be very nice to see more diversity in the state dept and other federal agencies but you cant put someone in a job simply because they are black. who does that benefit? no one. i was taught that if i want a good life i have to work for it and if i want a better life then i better get an education. all people can have abetter life than they think they have now if they simply get a college education. that is what opens doors and opportunities. if there arent hardly any blacks in the state dept then it is only because there are not any that qualify.

[Karen]

"if there arent hardly any blacks in the state dept then it is only because there are not any that qualify."

That's one of the stupidest things I've read all week.

[Terry]

I agree. There's a lot a thinly veiled racism in those comments.

[David]

Oh yes, I agree - wanting the same employment standards for all types of people is the epitome of racism. Oh no, wait, that sounds a little more like equality to me. People like Condoleezza, Colin Powell, and Barack Obama worked extremely hard to get where they are and defied a lot of convention, and it would be downplaying their accomplishments for Condi to try to use her influence to force through more blacks just to even up the numbers.

Incidentally, anybody ever heard of divide-and-conquer? Let me spell it out. Many, many Americans read this post because it was linked on CNN. How many of you reading this know what bills passed the Senate today? And if you don't, why not? That's YOUR money they're spending. The government didn't invent the race card, or the sexism card, or any other card out there, but they sure use them to spend YOUR MONEY while answering the minimum amount of questions possible.

And people wonder how corruption exists in our government...