mekka okereke :verified:
A Black woman has just been appointed to something. You know the drill:
GOP:
Why appoint based on race?! Just appoint the best person for the job, which is never a Black woman!🤡
Dems:
Black women will save us! Can I call you auntie? (No). I love Black women! Just... NTBW (Not That Black Woman).🤡
Finley Ⓥ
@mekkaokereke @FeralRobots @breiter The only thing that will make racists happy is nominating a white person.
Why is it that whenever a white guy gets the job, nobody says "Oh, he's clearly just getting that job because of his race and gender"?
mekka okereke :verified:
There is no phrasing that will make racists happy. It's a fool's errand to try.
Martin Luther King couldn't find it. "Nonviolent protest" and "civil disobedience" were hated terms in their time.
"Black Lives Matter" is apparently a bad term. "Hands up, don't shoot" is also bad. "Defund the police" is terrible.
When you find a framing that works for racists, let me know. Might win you a Nobel peace prize! Because even the peace prize winners couldn't figure it out.🤷🏿♂️
FeralRobots
@mekkaokereke
There is a difference, yes, but Newsom is gonna know that the vast, vast majority of people will not PARSE the difference. If we're gonna assume there's a pre-announcement there are phrasings that will address that without tripping the 'make racists feel better' switch, & ones that a clever operator like him should've thought of. E.g. 'I have a list of top candidates for any appointment, and they are all black women.'
He set her up for a rough go & could've done better.
@breiter
mekka okereke :verified:
And I haven't read Newsom say anywhere that only Black women were eligible. I've read him say that the appointee will be a Black woman.
There's a significant difference between those two statements.
mekka okereke :verified:
Because that makes racists feel better? If Newsom looked at his list of qualified candidates and saw that his top 3 candidate finalists were all Black women, he can pre-announce that the finalist will be a Black woman.
Similarly, the US is very comfortable with less than 1% of all VC funding going to Black women. We all just pretend that racist exclusion isn't happening. But the minute 1 tiny fund says that it's going to give < .01% to Black women? Lawsuits! Claims of unfairness!🤡
Brian Reiter
@mekkaokereke Newsom should not have pre-announced he was going to appoint a black woman. He should have announced he was going to select the most qualified candidate. Then he when he apppinted Ms Butler he should say she was the most qualified candidate.
The pre-announcement that only a black woman is eligible undermines the ultimate choice no matter how qualified.
novatorine 🏴🏳️⚧️
@breiter @mekkaokereke even if he announced he would appoint a black woman before even seeing any of the candidates, from the outset of trying to find someone, that wouldn't imply that whoever he appointed would be unqualified or underqualified at all, that makes no sense unless you believe "I'm going to appoint a [well qualified] black woman" is just inherently self contradictory. Of course she'd still be qualified. Like, it's just a criteria narrowing down from the overall list of qualified candidates.
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