A new American Minority - and the LARGEST!
This is not a "tongue-in-cheek" posting. I'm being perfectly serious.
Over the weekend, I discovered a minority population in America that has little or no representation in the judicial or executive branches of government. In fact, my discovery makes me feel a little like Christopher Columbus or Ponce de Leon.
The thought came to me as President Obama extolled his selection of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Being of Hispanic descent, she would be the first Latina on the nation's highest bench. Great! After all, Hispanics now represent 15% of the US population. And Obama stated that Sotomayor's background of growing up in relative poverty was also a critical representation to have.
Administrations are always careful to fill their cabinet positions with a cross section of American culture. New Presidents try to make sure all groups are represented along ethnic, faith and gender lines. But, I've discovered a LARGE minority that has virtually no representation. The group is larger than the African American and Hispanic populations......COMBINED.
What is the group? It's that group of American's who've been raised in non-metropolitan areas! That's right, a class of citizens who grew up in towns of less than 100,000, are almost non-existent in the halls of power. And yet, they represent nearly 40% of the US population. Some evidence.....
Name (Position) Hometown
Obama (President) Honolulu
Biden (VP) Scranton, PA
Emanuel (Chief of Staff) Chicago, IL
Clinton (Secretary of State) Chicago, IL
Geithner (Treasury) Brooklyn NY & Overseas
Napolitano (Homeland Security) NY & Pittsburgh
Holder (Attorney Genera) Bronx, NY
LaHood (Transportation) Peoria/Chicago
Duncan (Education) Chicago
AND A REAL SHOCKER - Tom Vilsack - US Secretary of AGRICULTURE - Grew up in Pittsburgh, PA!
But the discrimination doesn't just end with the Executive Branch
Supreme Court
Alito - Trenton NJ
Breyer - San Francisco, CA
Ginsburg - Brooklyn, NY
Scalia - Trenton, NJ
Roberts - Buffalo, NY
Kennedy - Sacramento, CA
Stevens - Chicago, IL
Thomas - Savanah, GA (a possible exception)
Souter - Melrose, MASS (Okay, this one is a small town)
Oh, and Judge Sotomayor? She grew up in...........the Bronx, NY!
Okay, so maybe it's just a problem in Federal Government. Don't be so quick. Let's look at where our Illinois Leaders were born and raised.......
Governor Quinn - Chicago
Secretary of State White - Chicago
Treasurer Ginoulias - Chicago
Speaker of the House Madigan - Chicago
Senate President Cullerton - Chicago
Attorney General Madigan - Chicago
Senator Dick Durbin - East St. Louis
Senator Burris - Centralia (okay, at last, here's someone with a short rural background. God Help Us!)
It's time to unite and demand representation of non-metropolitan interests in the executive and legislative branches. After all, we are the largest minority in America.
Definitely an interesting trend/statistic. The most troubling for me is that all three "leadership" positions in our state government are from Chicago. Can someone on here tell me how the needs of downstate are being addressed? We need to have something like the Virginia Plan that created the House of Representatives. Called the Effingham Plan, it would require that one of the leadership positions should be held by someone south of a line from I-72 from Hannibal, Mo. area to Decatur then US 36 to the Indiana border. At least downstate would have some say and we could wrestle back influence from Chicago - and then there's the less corruption thing with Chicago not being in total control....
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Very interesting insight. Thanks for bringing to light. Looks like they could use a guy like Bob Schultz.
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