Sexism, with a healthy dash or racism

Isn't that topic a fun one? Don't worry, I'm keeping this one brief.

Yesterday was election day in America and Albany elected it's first female Mayor, Kathy Sheehan, after having the same guy at the helm of the city for the last twenty or so years. I saw on facebook today a friend in Albany posting about her win and the historic nature of it. Of course sexism is alive and well in our country so somebody commented saying:

Now hopefully; she's competent. I find a lot of people are obsessed with this notion "its (sic) time for a woman ins ((x)position)) -- for what reason? Because we need a woman!" Sort of like what we did for presidencies. 

Now perhaps this white male isn't being sexist or racist. Maybe, when a white male wins an election he says something like:

Now hopefully; he's competent. I find a lot of people are obsessed with this notion "it's time to keep white men in ((x) position) -- for what reason? Because white men are better! Sort of like we've done for most of our history. 

Of course, that's almost completely unlikely. Considering he posted a second comment about how he was willing to concede that the other options against President Obama were awful choices but he adds the caveat that we've romanticized the notion of a minority leading America, or as he put it: 'murrica (yes, double r and all). After my friend posted a thing about everybody being equal he had to add on that comments like that stank of affirmative action which is a bad mindset because

being someone outside the norm of things doesn't make you more qualified for the sake of equality, it simply makes you different.

I didn't see that last comment by the time I responded to him. I was focused solely on the Albany Mayoral election. I did a quick fact check since he brought up how we've romanticized electing minorities I checked. And it turns out that women outnumber men by about five million people in this country. Looking more specifically I found that white women also outnumber white men by about three million people in America. In other words, electing Kathy Sheehan is a member of the majority of the majority. How crazy is that? Did you have any idea that women outnumber men both across the board and among whites? Or have white men been so steadfast in their (our) privilege that they've (we've) hoarded the power and influence so that we can think of women as being a minority group?

This is the heart of white male privilege. We are so privileged that if you're not one of us, you're a minority. Louis CK has made a joke about this. He says:

I read something in the paper that really confused me. It said that 80% of New Yorkers are minorities... Shouldn't you not call them minorities when they get to be 80% of the population? That's a very white attitude, don't you think? I mean, you could take a white guy to Africa and he'd be like "look at all the minorities around here! I'm the only majority!

It's time for true equality. We should ask whether Kathy Sheehan is competent to be mayor. But we should ask that of every person we vote for, not just women and minorities.

Also if you want an extra little helping of humor know that Kathy Sheehan got over 10,000 more votes than the other three people on the ballot combined. The second place candidate didn't even hit 1000 votes. It was known that whoever won the Democratic primary would win the general election. And Kathy's opponent in the primary? A black male who would've also made history if he had been elected. Turns out sometimes your options are making history, or making history. And some people just can't stand that.