White Male Monopoly
Check out Automatic Preference for a great post on “Statistics, Power, and the 43-Term White Male Monopoly of the Presidency.”
If presidents were selected in a statistically unbiased way from the population, the chance of selecting 43 white men in a row would be less than 2 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That’s consistent with what we already know: the selection of U.S. presidents is far from fair.
We calculated a rough numerical measure of white supremacy and male supremacy in the U.S. presidency. White males have been chosen for the presidency as if they constituted 98% of the population.
This is why the Esquire cover with John Edwards that said “Can a white man still be elected president?” made me so mad. As if all of the sudden white men are the ones with the unfair disadvantage. As if they expect to not have to compete with anyone else.
judgesnineteen
11 Aug 07 at 9:59 pm
I haven’t seen that Esquire thing. Elizabeth Edwards has openly played that card. It’s plainly intended to generate a backlash.
Tom Autopref
12 Aug 07 at 7:09 am
Here’s a post at Racialicious about the Esquire cover/article:
Esquire asks: Can a white man still be elected president?
Eric Stoller
12 Aug 07 at 8:15 am