The political reporter John King, writing in this week’s Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, recounts his childhood growing up in Boston and his experience witnessing racism and knowing at the time that electing a black president of the United States was unthinkable. And now, in 2024, he knows on election night he will be wondering “whether America is open to a black woman as president.”
This isn’t the question facing us, nor should it be, because the race and gender of the candidate shouldn’t be our top concern. If it were, then it would supersede the party they belong to or the policies they support.
I’m not writing here to express my political views or to reveal who I support in the election, although I suppose my political leanings are pretty obvious to anyone who has known me for any length of time.
What I care about when I look at a candidate for any political office is the content of their character—not the color of their skin or their sex or the race or even their religion. What I care about is whether they have steel in their spine, compassion in their heart, and wisdom in their mind. Do they represent the best of America? Can they protect America, advance her interests, bring about peace and prosperity in the world, and defend the innocent and weak? Do they have the values and principles to support good and oppose evil wherever they are found?
I suppose this is an old-fashioned way of thinking, made more difficult by the fact that so few politicians today have such character and so we must vote based on tribal alliances, party affiliations, ideological categories, and external factors.
For president, I’m not voting for the white man or black woman. I will be voting for the person who I think will do the best job, regardless of skin color or sex. I think everyone else should too.
A refreshing dose of sanity in the increasingly unhinged election discourse.
Very eloquently said!