Symbolic gestures
Rear Admiral Barry Black makes historyBy David Person
Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
While President Bush, the compassionate conservative, was on the African continent dodging the heat from misleading Americans about Iraq�s efforts to buy uranium for weapons of mass destruction, one of Africa�s sons was making history the right way in the U.S. Senate.
Rear Admiral Barry Black officially became the first African-American in history to serve the U.S. Senate as its chaplain last week. He will probably be the black with the highest profile in the Senate chambers on any given day.
Some days, he may be the only black person there.
The bad news is that the U.S. Senate is the most white, patrician body in our government. Eighty-five of its 100 members are white men (Make that 86 and 101 if you count Vice President Dick Cheney), two members are Hawaiian and one is Native American.
Black will be bringing some much-needed color to this very vanilla body.
There's a big difference between "bring color to this… body" and bringing color to the
support staff of this body. I understand wanting to give the good admiral props, and I'm not trying to take anything from him. But let's not get carried away.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/15/2003 08:18:55 AM |
Posted by P6 at July 15, 2003 08:18 AM
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