The Bush Minorities: Diverse From Who?

• A black woman vouches for an unjust war, a black man defends it, a Hispanic supervises the slaughter of civilians while another justifies the use of torture, and a Vietnamese refugee writes the law to maim civil liberties in America.

The Bush administration is making history in hiring minorities to perform high-profile jobs. Colin Powell is the first black man to head the State Department, Condoleezza Rice the first black woman to be the National Security Advisor. Alberto Gonzales, if confirmed by the Senate, would be the first Hispanic to be crowned as the United States Attorney General. The induction of these and other minorities into what has been a game of white monopoly is bewitching in that it tells the world that President Bush values both equality and diversity and that racial prejudices, actively wired in American power grids, are falling apart. No longer are Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians confined to dirty jobs, such as cleaning private quarters of the white establishment. See, says theAdministration, how sons and daughters of the people of color are being actively recruited for leading the world. Cynicism aside, however, the Thanksgiving dinner for this great achievement is infested with flies. The willing coalition of black, brown, and other faces of color appears to have been summoned to whitewash foreign invasions, occupations, deportations, detentions, disappearances, and even commission of war crimes such as torture and extra-judicial executions. Minorities are cast as big-headed puppets to speak daggers on behalf of a producer/director who, we are told, believes in God, democracy, and liberation.[more]