http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/08/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-congress.html
In this article, named "The Unbearable Whiteness of Congress", the demographical makeup of Congress is compared to the actual ethnic, gender, and religious makeup of the United States. Congress is almost completely made up of white, male Christians, which does not accurately represent America as a whole. America is split almost exactly in half between women and men (women have a one percent majority). Congress is about one-fifth women, but in the House, only one of the twenty committees is led by a woman. The U.S is, in fact, ranked 98th in the world for the percentage of women on the legislature. A little over half is white, almost 15 percent are African-American, and nearly one-fifth are Latino. While in the House ten percent of the members are African-American, in the Senate they make up only two percent. Latinos make up only 3 percent in the Senate and about 7 percent in the House, hardly the 17 percent they actually make up. Additionally, almost one-fifth of the nation are not Christian, but this Congress is more than ninety percent Christian.
There is clearly an issue with these demographics. It makes no sense that these percentages are not closer to the true makeup of the United States. These percentages reflect the percentages of the wealthy upper class, which they shouldn't. Other countries are clearly representing minority groups better than we are, so it's not impossible to do. And even though some people argue that our government works more efficiently and allows more freedoms than those governments, there is no reason why properly reflecting the demographics of the U.S would change that. I think this indicates not so much an issue with Congress as it does a serious flaw with our society as a whole. Whites tend to be higher in the economic bracket than people of color, and we tend to vote for them, especially if they are male and Christian. We need to adjust our thinking to accept America as it is and work to fix the prejudices that affect so many people's choices.
This is very interesting. I can see the major contrast between the demographics of our country versus the demographics of our legislature, but aren't the members of the legislature elected by the people? So technically the legislature is representing the majority of the people's views. Though we do need to take into account these minorities, putting them into power over the majority gives immense power to 'special interest groups' of a sort, and that wasn't the direction the founding fathers had in mind. I think most of the members of the legislature attempt to represent all of their constituents, including the minorities, but I agree that we need to be particularly aware of making sure our officials are representing minority interests, even if they may not be a minority themselves.
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