Michael Atherton
> I think that it maybe impossible to find exactly > the right candidate. How many bisexual, female, > Black, Hispanic, Asian, and politically liberal > police officers are there in the United States? To clarify a point I made in an earlier post. I argued that hiring a woman as a police chief would be something different because women approach the world from a different viewpoint then men. I didn't say that it was superior - just different. I have literally sat with this mayor at a table where he talked repeatedly about needing to think about thinking outside the box. My point was simply that by hiring someone that was different from all the people that were hired in the past, we might get different results. There are a lot of ways that people can be different - race and gender are two ways but surely not the only two ways. I do believe that if the debate about the police chief should be about a whole host of issues beyond these labels. Having said that, we do need to look at the cumulative effects of decisions. One of the values that this community values is diversity. It seems like a simple dream that someday, half of the important jobs in the city are held by women, given that women half of the people in this city. But remember that women have been an oppressed class for a long time in this country (we just got the vote in 1920) and we still see the effects of attitudes that women are second class citizens (women's pay is still on average 80% of men) And diversity doesn't happen just by itself. It has to be a conscious choice. Because on a micro level, decisions get made for a lot of factors beyond things like gender but taken together, they have a cumulative effect. We have a Mayor who hired the first female Public Works Director, which is quite amazing when you see the long line of pictures of previous Public Works Directors and know the number of women in public engineering. But he also hired a male City Coordinator, MCDA/Planning head, Health Department director (I think this position is still interim...correct me if I am wrong), and Chief Information Officer. Factors like race and gender should not be determining factors but neither should we be blind to the cumulative effects of decisions if we want a bureaucracy that is representative of our city. Carol Becker Longfellow REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
