San Francisco Chronicle: Damn Those WHAMs 

Although Paul Craig Roberts may complain in VDARE about the abuse of WHAMs (White Heterosexual Able-bodied Males), the august Editorial Board of the San Francisco Chronicle knows better. San Francisco's voters recently elected a Board of Supervisors in which WHAMs are only a minority. The Chronicle, however, is shocked that voters chose to make WHAMs too large of a minority. Here's the editorial - along with my enthusiastic addendums.

Loss of Diversity in City Hall
Editorial, San Francisco Chronicle
December 19, 2000

THE RETURN of district elections for San Francisco supervisors this year was filled with great expectations. One of them was that the board's diversity would be maintained, if not enhanced.

Well, guess what? That notion has been smashed -- unless you consider straight, white and mostly middle-age males to be a disadvantaged class.

The [11 member] incoming Board of Supervisors includes one woman. There are no Asian American women, no black males, no lesbians and not a single Latina.

S. Sailer: And not even a single lesbian Latina! (Would that be a "Lesbiana?")  

There are two Latinos (Matt Gonzalez and Gerardo Sandoval), one black woman (Sophie Maxwell) and an Asian American male (Leland Yee). The board does boast -- if that's the proper term -- of seven white males. Two, Tom Ammiano and Mark Leno, are openly gay.

S. Sailer: To fully appreciate the injustice of this state of affairs, I suggest readers construct a simple three-dimensional graphical data cube with San Francisco's four Ethnicities along the X-axis, three Genders along the Y-axis, and three Sexual Orientations along the Z-axis. You'll note that most of the 36 permutations do not have their very own Supervisor to represent them! How can, for example, the Asian American transgendered bisexual community feel affirmed without a Board Member? (Of course, San Francisco also needs a new word to replace "Member." That term is terribly insensitive to San Franciscans who have gone to great expense to have themselves dis-membered.)  

That leaves the 11-member board littered with enough straight, white males (five) to look like a sidewalk gathering in West Portal after a Rotary Club meeting.

S. Sailer: Personally, I wouldn't have pulled my punch. Instead of "littered with enough straight white males," I would have used a verb like "infested" or "contaminated."

Perhaps it shows that the city has moved beyond ethnic politics into a colorblind realm. But the composition of the board under district elections is hardly a reflection of the diversity of the city's population. And there was a moment less than four years ago -- under the old system -- when there was so much diversity that the appointment of Gavin Newsom was noteworthy because he was a straight, white male.

Unusual circumstances arose in this fall's elections. Candidates were judged less on their ethnic identity, or other attributes, than on their political distance from Mayor Willie Brown.

S. Sailer: Clearly, this new trend -- San Franciscan voters judging politicians on the basis of their politics rather than on the shape and color of their private parts and what they like to do with them -- must be stomped out.

Fortunately, the San Francisco Chronicle is on the job!

[Steve Sailer [email him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog.]

December 21, 2000