I was struck by the diversity of yesterday’s elective winners.
Hoboken, N.J.’s newly elected mayor is that city’s first Sikh American to serve in that office. A refugee from Liberia is Montana’s first black mayor. A woman is Seattle is the city’s first woman to be mayor since 1926, and New Hampshire’s largest city (Manchester), which has been around for 266 years, finally got around to electing its first female mayor.
In Virginia, it is two people. One is an openly transgender person who is a refugee from Vietnam–the first first Asian-American woman ever elected to their House of Delegates. Minneapolis elected an openly transgender person of color (the first ever elected in the U.S.) to their city council.
I approve of diversity in leadership positions, because I know that the more backgrounds that are represented, the better chance we have to enact just, fair laws.
What I don’t approve of is the fact that, today, the diversity of the election results is news rather than the norm and, therefore not even noticed. When will that finally be?