Sunday, October 28, 2012

Blissfully Jackie

Jackie Clarkson, because she hits a perfect sweet spot being of precisely the right age and from precisely the right social circle, is kind of a living cartoon of genteel white privilege.

But it's important to remember that she represents a phenomenon that embeds deeply within the class of people our system approves for leadership roles. (After all Jackie herself currently holds a city-wide elected office.)  I hesitate to use the word "elites" to describe the people we elect to even the most modest local offices.  But, yes, even these people are the products of such empowered, privileged rarefied environments that, except for those few possessed of superhuman empathy, none of them have even the slightest conception of the obstacles most of us are faced with.

And yet we elect these people to represent us and somehow call that democracy.

No comments:

Post a Comment