During the local government reorganization committee’s series of public hearings, the Reverend Adrian Brooks expressed concern about what effect government merger will have on minority representation on the new common council. I share Rev. Brooks’s concern.
Currently, there is one African-American lady on the city council, and one African-American lady on the county council. For the city, that is one in nine representation which fairly closely matches our 11% African American population. On the county side, when you add the 3 county commissioners to the 7 county council members, the single African-American representative again approximates the percentage of African-American population in our community.
To my knowledge, there are no Hispanic representatives on either the county or city councils, or on the board of county commissioners. Yet there is a growing Hispanic population in Evansville, which we also should address in terms of representation on our legislative boards.
Under the current merger plan, with 12 districts and 3 at-large representatives proposed, a common council of 15 members likely will have only one African-American representative under status quo politics. What I’m saying is that if African-Americans only run for office in the single district with a strong African-American voter base, there will be only one African-American representative likely on the 15-member common council. And while I cannot read his mind, maybe that is what concerns Rev. Brooks. It concerns me too because that would water down the political influence of an important cultural segment of our community.
If the merger plan passes the referendum with its current proposal for 12 districts and 3 at-large council members, both political parties each must recruit African-American candidates for more than one of the 12 districts, and at least one of the at-large seats. The Republican should select their African-American recruits from districts with a strong Republican voter base, such as those in Center and Scott townships. The Democrats must do the same by recruiting their African-American council candidates from within their voter strongholds.
If the local political parties fail to prepare for consolidation well in advance by launching searches for potential African-American candidates who reside in 12 council districts proposed by the reorganization plan, then both parties are failing a significant and historic cultural constituency of our community.
Bill Jeffers
Two words: Equal Opportunity
What about Islamic,Jewish,Czech,or Native American representation?
This must really be addressed!
What about outreach to the Eskimo population?
Are we going back to “No Irish Need Apply” ?
Come on people.
Don’t act so stupid.
We’re talking about 11 percent of our population having adequate representation. I’m assuming you’re Caucasian. You have your representation, and according to the reorganization plan, representation is something for which you won’t need worry.
Representation by race quota is not found in the Indiana Constitution, nor is it found in the U.S. Constitution.
End of controversy.
It’s not a controversy except in your small mind, and has only to do with representational government – an established principle.
Gosh,Im in good company now!
It’s the right and just thing to do. Are you a red neck?
Do you feel the same way about gender and that some jobs are for certain genders? Do you believe that women should get equal pay for comparable jobs that men do? Do you believe that women should get the same opportunity as men in the workplace? You probably are going to say that you do. However, women executives, on the average, still make 17 percent lower salaries than their male counterparts. So you know the same thing goes on concerning race. I think we should have race quotas in the areas of representative government and the workplace. Otherwise, we would be back in the mid-twentith century. In addition, do you know that the overall unemployment rate for Afican-Americans currently is 15.9 percent?
“I think we should have race quotas in the areas of representative government and the workplace. Otherwise, we would be back in the mid-twentith century. In addition, do you know that the overall unemployment rate for Afican-Americans currently is 15.9 percent?”
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Ok….so who gets to decide the quota and based on what criteria? and I guess in the workplace you know your saying that someone qualified for a job should not be considered because of race or gender, you can’t have it both ways.
The most current statistics show…
Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (8.9 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (25.4 percent), whites (8.0 percent), blacks (16.7 percent), and Hispanics (11.3 percent) showed little or no change in August. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.1 percent, not seasonally adjusted.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Race/gender quotas are a very slippery slope once enacted it opens the door for every ethnic group to cry foul, it also opens the door to quotas based on gender, religion, or sexual orientation.
If you want to live in a world where people are given opportunities based solely on their race or gender and not on the merits of the individuals abilities you are asking for the deck of cards to be stacked in a direction that is favorable to one class of people while discriminating against everyone else, we use to live that way, but we haven’t for many many years.
If you believe there is race or gender discrimination going on, report it, there are tons of government agencies that are in place to protect against all types of discrimination, but don’t ask us to go backwards it’s taken way too long to get to where we are today.
JMHO
I’m tired of people referring me to the bureaucracy to “fix” stuff that needs fixing. I want it fixed at the political level where I can deal directly with my elected representative. Then I don’t have to wait an eternity for the fixing to get fixed.
So rather than report it to some nanny state desk jocky in the Civic Center, why not just fix it like described in the submitted letter? Get the political parties who forever are making promises to various constituencies to put up or shut up.
Run for office…..it’s the solution, or guns, knives, and pitch forks, but not quotas based on an ethnic background, that gives no thought to the persons abilities or merits.
JMHO
Can you vouch for the “merit” of each and every candidate currently running for office? Do you base their “merit” on the fact that they are are are not of one or another race? Personally, I think the two parties can do a lot better job of recruiting highly qualified candidates from each ethnic background that merits a place on the council. I read nothing in the letter that suggested anything different than recruiting high quality candidates, rather just recruiting for balance as well as merit.
Clovis…
No I can not vouch for anyone but myself (and I’m unsure about that at times :)) and I do agree that we could use better candidates, better representation, and more truth in governing (transparency) across the board top to bottom, politics seems to draw the seedy side of humanity for some reason and if they are not corrupt when they take their oath of office within a few months most do seem to loose sight of what they were elected to do.
I read most of your posts you are an intelligent person, you know that what makes a person is not their race, gender or political affiliation, it is what is in a persons heart, their beliefs, their convictions, and what they fear is what makes a person who they are and really their worth to humanity.
We do need change, but all of us are in the same boat together and we can make much more of a difference working together than splintered off into ethnic groups which is what they want…divide and conquer as the old saying goes.
JMHO
Look guys, I did not write this letter to cause controversy or express opinions that run counter to the U.S. Constitution, the Indianna State Constitution, or customary American democratic principles.
First of all, the reason I specifically mentioned African-American representation on the council is because the African-American constituency has been an integral and influencial part of the Evansville cultural and political community for well over 150 years. And the Hispanic constituency is growing rapidly in numbers and influence. Obviously, if I feel as I expressed regarding African-American and Hispanic representation, you may expect correctly that I feel the same regarding Islamic, Jewish, Czech, Native American, Eskimo, or other ethnic representation (keeping in mind, of course, that Jewish and Islamic are religious adjectives rather than racial entities).
And with regard to whether “racial quotas” (which was not my intended suggestion) are achieved on the municipal council in accordance with U.S. or Indiana State Constitutional mandates (which I agree do not exist in writing), keep in mind that neither the U.S. nor the state constitution mandate city government at all. City government is only found and established in state statute.
Nor does the U.S. or state constitution mandate local governments to maintain levees, operate sewer treatment plants, fund water purification operations, mow grass in city parks, obtain properties by eminent domaine on behalf of profit-making utilities, or remove hypodermic needles from sandboxes.
But city government does all those things. And city government taxes the people in order to do all those things. So long as city goverment taxes people, those people in all their colors, ethnic constituents, and economic levels deserve representation on the legislative bodies that approve budgets and operate facilities and functions that require tax collections to exist. Where does that concept (no taxation without representation) come from, Dr. John? Seems to me it originates with the men who wrote the U.S. Constitution.
I am still a little confused as to why you submitted this letter. I believe that equal opportunity under the law guarantees that those who meet the legal requirements to run for office may do so. That would cover a person of ANY race running from any “district” in the new system, or for at-large seats.
In a one-man one-vote system, I see no way to shuffle the vote to give an advantage to any minority race. You could gerrymander the voting districts any way you like, it will not make a difference in the “number” of minority votes cast.
Beyond that, I have no idea what Rev. Brooks is talking about.
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The new districts are already gerrymandered. Evidently, you don’t know much about politics. If you refer back to Jeffers’ letter, he referred to strongholds by both parties. Think about it!
Thanks for the clarification…..the problem is that folks wrongly believe that the only way they can get true representation is by one of their own (be it whatever the ethnicity is) a truly concern/honest representative elected has the thoughts and concerns of everyone that they represent not an individual ethnic group….that kind of thinking is where we get race quotas which gives an unfair advantage to a particular group of people over another and rewards people simply because they are of a specific group instead of on the merits of the individual/group.
What we need is fair and honest representation that isn’t bound by race, ethnic quota, or any other tag or label….based on the individuals merits not because they just happen to belong to a certain group and we need that group to look balanced, when you look at color or a ethnic background as a criteria to elect someone that is all you will ever see, not the merits of the individual.
JMHO
Exactly. Very well written.
“… the problem is that folks wrongly believe that the only way they can get true representation is by one of their own … that kind of thinking is where we get race quotas which gives an unfair advantage to a particular group of people over another and rewards people simply because they are of a specific group”
Yes, that’s apparently how the Boston Tea Party and the original American patriots felt … that they could only achieve true representation when the American colonies were governed by those of their own kind.
Of course they were all white, Anglo-American merchant class men. And the original government they created was comprised of, served, and granted voting rights only to “their own kind.” You’ll remember that way back then only land-owning, white, Anglo-Americans comprised the government, women couldn’t vote, Native Americans and non-whites couldn’t vote, and poor white folk couldn’t vote, and each African-American was counted as 3/5ths of a constituent only for purposes of determining how many land-owning, white men would represent slaveholding states in Congress.
The only reason we have more “concerned, honest representatives (as you call them)” now is because the original Constitution has evolved by amendment and legal interpretation. And may God save us from going backward rather than forward.
Agreed….we as a people have evolved, adapted, and changed in every possible way conceivable, bad practices and policies are weeded out and replaced with practices that are more fitting for the times we live in. Comparing the world we live in today to the colonies or even the turn of the century isn’t really a just comparison and is trying to equate modern social issues to the past injustices that no longer exist.
We are human…far from perfect, we learn by our mistakes and sometimes it’s a hard lesson to learn, but this is 2011 not 1968 or even 1768 most of the old ways have gone by the wayside, discrimination based on a persons race or creed is now a crime, and ethnic groups that were once oppressed have been given advantages for more than 40 years, everyone who wanted to help themselves has done so.
To continue to divide the population of the US based on a persons ethnic background is wrong we are all US citizens and are equal in every aspect, we are all given choices and opportunities in life unfortunately our ethnic background isn’t a choice we get to make, we should not be penalized or rewarded because of being who we are.
JMHO
You’re dreamin’!
So, I guess, since the President is black he doesn’t represent me as a white person.
By your premise.
Oh, and our founders should have realized all their mistakes.
The issue I address in my letter is representative government on municipal legislative boards.
Many of the founders did realize the mistakes and omissions in the Constitution at the onset. Witness the first 10 amendments.
I appears that you have never heard of the fact that the only way the Constitution was ratified in the first place is that our Founding Fathers agreed, as a condition for their votes was to add the Bill of Rights.
The Bill of Rights did not add to the basic obligations of government. No, It deleniated certain rights protected for the benefit of the voters.
Yes, many of these rights have been ignored by the Congress, the President and the Courts, nonetheless, they are there. Look at the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
Equality of outcome is not part of our Constitution, but people like Jeffers act as if it is.
Never again will I cast a vote for Jeffers.
It sounds as if you don’t believe in a person’s right to express his/her opinion in public. At the time the US Constitution was written, it was not intended for all people. Remember?
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