Courtland Milloy did an interesting piece on D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. In it he talks about how Fenty is not bowing to the pressure of having to make his appointees fully reflect the demographic of the city that he represents. I come from the school that says if I feel that a person makes the right fit in my organization (mind you, this goes beyond what is on the resume. Back in my IT days, I interviewed many people with great resumes but just did not show the potential to gel with the rest of the team) regardless of race, that person should be hired. I only wish that other mayors operated the same way as many areas with a high concentration of Black folks have been paying the price of “cultural diversity” for years. Need an example? Martin Luther King Jr. Harbor Hospital in Los Angeles.
From Milloy’s article:
“When I’m out in the community, like I was out in the Bloomingdale neighborhood last night, people don’t ask me about the race or gender of the people I appoint,” Fenty (D) told me yesterday. “Most people are telling me that they want officers walking the beat, more aggressive community policing and reductions in crime. Nine out of 10 people I meet want the schools fixed. They are not asking for one type of person for the job — the issue is getting the job done.”
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Nevertheless, some of the new mayor’s moves can be downright bewildering. In a city overflowing with first-rate black lawyers, Fenty — himself a graduate of Howard law — appoints a white man and a white woman to the city’s top two legal posts — legal counsel and attorney general, the latter of whom is neither an experienced litigator or even a member of the D.C. Bar Association. Surely, I suggested to him, some of his more qualified classmates were wondering whether he’d forgotten where he came from. Howard University, after all, had once been the national center for legal action on civil rights, and the civil rights struggle is not over.
“I’m not saying that no one in the world thinks those thoughts, but maybe because I’m mayor, people will not come up and say those words to me,” Fenty said. “A lot of guys I went to Howard law school with are working on a lot of different things, and we’ve got a ton of Howard graduates in my administration, African American men in their 30s and 40s — my chief of staff among them.”
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“I’m not naive,” he said. “But having grown up in the city, having seen years of a school system not working and a police department being inconsistent and the budget unbalanced, I believe that the average citizen is concerned foremost with getting the services they deserve.” (more)
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