Diversity Training

Then again, his work is done—a woman is a front runner for the White House. It will be interesting to see how that scenario affects the next generation of fictional presidents, starting with this season on "24." The producers have installed their own cone of silence over the new season (they declined to comment during the writers' strike), but chances are, President Taylor, like President Allen, will be stereotypically feminine, pretty, empathic and family-oriented, but also extremely knowledgeable and tough on defense issues, just as President Palmer was pristine, eloquent and polite. In other words, Taylor will be yet another idealized version of a nonwhite-male president, the kind we'd hope would take office and vanquish the remaining vestiges of racial and gender prejudice. But we don't live in these small-screen utopias. Our candidates, regardless of race and gender, have skeletons. Real politicians screw up. They contradict themselves. Hollywood is building unreasonable expectations for our real-life candidates—as well as reserving the juiciest parts for white actors. When we have fictional black and female presidents who are incompetent and evil and make great big messes, it'll be proof that we've arrived at a place where we can judge individuals on their merits. Then the answer to the question "Can a white man still be elected president?" will be "Of course, but so can anybody else."

© 2008