The White House said late Tuesday that it will add a senior-level Asian American Pacific Islander liaison after an ultimatum from Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) who vowed to vote no on nominees due to a lack of AAPI representation in President Biden’s Cabinet.
Although ineligible, the most recent person in the presidential line of succession endangered by COVID-19 racism is Elaine Chao.
Wrong thing to do if it was in response to Duckworths ultimatum. Biden has assembled the most diverse Administration in history but that doesn’t stop dumb ass Democrats on high horses from taking a play out of Atwater’s playbook and attacking that on its strength. It is unbelievable how obtuse Duckwoths “ultimatum” was and how destructive. Here we have a surprisingly progressive administration but a nascent one also and along comes Tammy to bowl it over. Her “ultimatum” must bring joy to GOP’er operatives from coast to coast.
Duckworth and Hirono.
Manchin and Sinema.
At some level it’s the same thing?
Can you please elaborate? (Thanks.)
… never mind. I must learn to read better.
IMO a “Senior-Level Liaison” doesn’t really count. That’s a dodge like a “Blue Ribbon Commission.”
Actual people in actual jobs creating and implementing actual policies - that’s what counts.
Yes, and we have to watch what actually happens.
“Trust but verify!”
I was wondering if she’ll hold up everything because there aren’t enough Asian double amputee helicopter pilot vets on staff.
She could have been a bit more discreet, rather than throwing a public tantrum.
Which managed to be the first one this century that doesn’t have AAPI representation in the Cabinet1 and which managed—according to the only accounts we have of the conversation—to be directly insulting and dismissive on this particular issue only days after a racist attack targeting the AAPI community…
But hey, it’s totally ok for the Deputy Chief of Staff to go insulting Senate Democrats, right? You have no outrage or issue over that. Just don’t let those Senators remind the White House that the administration needs them, too. God forbid there be some checks and balances.
1. And no, central Asian and subcontinent representation is not the same thing, any more than it’d be the same thing to have European interests at the UN represented by Turkey.
At first I was somewhat surprised by the senators’ actions, but now I see where they are coming from. Asian Americans have seen the risks of being seen at the quiet ’ model minority’ and have learned that you have to speak up or be ignored. Somewhat clumsily handled, but probably a positive step in the long run.
This I am not sure of. As with people on every other continent, Asians are biologically and culturally a continuum, not simply a collection of totally discrete interest groups.
There’s about a dozen buckets of standard American bigotry. One basic way to fight that bigotry is representation, especially at the highest levels.
I’m not saying that every administration has to “check every box” in a simplistic quota, but that is a consideration. You’ll never have a Cabinet without women again. You’ll almost certainly have someone Black.
One bucket of bigotry affects East Asians specifically. And there’s no one currently.
I kinda hope she does!
I’m sorry. Are you suggesting that people from other regions of Asia OTHER THAN EAST and SOUTHEAST ASIA are not “Asian” within the scope of “Asian-American & Pacific Islander”? So people from South Asia are not “Asian-American”? China & India share a land border of over 1000 miles, but only one side of that border is “Asia”?
So far, the following nominees of Asian-American descent were made, BEFORE the Duckworth/Hirono ultimatum:
So destructive it’ll likely be forgotten by next week.
It’s not the same thing.
His Vice President is half Asian. His Surgeon General is Asian. His top trade envoy (A Cabinet level position), is Asian. There are numerous Asians Deputies in the various Cabinet departments.
The whole thing blows over in a week, but IMO, launching this ultimatum while Biden is still trying to fill his Cabinet, and the media is looking for ANYTHING to pin a “gotcha” outrage against this Administration, was poorly thought out.
I hope that was meant as sarcasm.
Sens Duckworth & Hirono are taking advantage of that brief window of focused, national conversation about the realities of AAPI life in the U.S. to highlight a deficiency of inclusion to date in Biden’s cabinet nominations.
I’m not sure which historically-discriminated-against groups Manchin & Synema represent with whatever it is they’re doing.
I don’t know. It looks like the President made a mistake, then acknowledged and and moved to correct it.
It’s refreshing.