Minority Rules
I recently came to a revelation, a different perspective. (I might note that many others have probably come to this conclusion far before me.) My revelation was: We are ruled, for the most part, by a minority. By that, I mean white men. If we want to get specific, I mean middle- to upper-class, privately-educated, middle-aged white men. I speak of the swathes of these people found in government in the UK.
The reason that this is a revelation is because, on a general societal level, we refer to these leaders as the majority. Women, members of the LGBTQIA community, those from non-white ethnic backgrounds, and those from working class backgrounds are made to feel, and made to believe, that they are a small minority which has to fight if they want to be heard.
I came to this revelation in part because of the unveiling of Joe Biden’s diverse cabinet. Both this cabinet, and Vice President Kamala Harris, with Jamaican and Indian heritage, coming into positions of power is a historically significant event. Because even though George Washington spoke of the importance of diverse perspectives in government, he was surrounded by white men; and this legacy has been powerful.
The more diverse a cabinet of government is, the more the needs of many different types of people can be considered and, hopefully, met.
But when we talk about ‘minorities’, such as Kamala Harris, coming into positions of power, perhaps our language fails to acknowledge the ‘minority’ status of the people already at the table. Affluent white men as the holders and distributors of power is a notion that has been so normalised, so naturalised, that we see them as a majority.
Complaints about ‘political correctness’ in attempts at representation (whether in government or elsewhere) shows how much we as a society have been conditioned to imagine anyone who isn’t a white man as a deviation from the norm, as an optional add on.
With women representing only 24% of Boris Johnson’s cabinet, and with a history of poor representation for those from Black and other minority ethnic backgrounds, let alone from working class backgrounds, I feel we in the UK have a way to go with such matters, in representing the majority. And this is why we have a government who vote to make exceptions for hunting parties of 30 to gather during a pandemic, but who consistently vote against providing free school meals for children living in poverty.
If we do the maths, men (if we are to be rigid in our gender assignment) make up 50% of society. That’s already not a majority, but half is a pretty powerful number of people. But let’s now take off people of colour, immigrants, gender non-conforming and non-binary people, anyone who identifies as LGBTQIA, people with disabilities, people from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, people who received a state education. What’s left is who, for the most part, represents us in government.
And so, the people elected to represent society do not represent society. These men should have a seat at the table, of course, but not the majority of seats at everyone else’s expense. How can we expect everyone’s needs to be met when the people making decisions can’t imagine what it is like to live as the majority of the population does?
Let’s reframe our thinking around what the ‘majority’ is, because the majority is colourful and diverse and should be imagined as such. And the ‘majority’ we imagine currently is… well…
Originally published at https://ncdickinson4.wixsite.com on January 24, 2021.
