Too Big for the Job?

Too Big for the Job? for urban faithA friend called me the other day and challenged me to use my powers for good. I’m a writer; it’s what I do. He asked me to say something about the chatter in the blogoshpere and around the Web suggesting that Dr. Regina Benjamin, President Obama’s choice to become the next U.S. surgeon general, is too overweight for the job. In other words, her size or appearance might send the wrong message to the country.

Dr. Benjamin is a doctor — a very good one. She is a MacArthur Grant fellow and the president of the Medical Association of the state of Alabama, where she launched a clinic to serve poor residents affected by Hurricane Katrina. She was the first African American woman to sit on the board of trustees for the American Medical Association, and the U.S. recepient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

Oh, and she’s a doctor — a very good one.

The criticisms being leveled against Dr. Benjamin should probably not come as a surprise in our current political climate, where every move President Obama makes is found suspect by some group of haters. At times, the opposition has been rooted in suspicions about Obama’s racial loyalties. So, when he nominates an eminently qualified judge like Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, questions arise about whether she’ll favor Latinos and other minorities over white males. And when he speaks out (yeah, perhaps too honestly) about the Henry Louis Gates incident, according to some, it proves that he’s a racist. Then there are those who worry that Dr. Francis Collins, Obama’s choice as director of the National Institutes of Health, is “too Christian” to head the nation’s premier medical research agency.

This latest drama seems to be subtly fueled by biases on various fronts. First, though it may be a fair question to ask whether Dr. Benjamin, as the nation’s principal champion of good health, should look the part, it’s also fair to ask whether our culture’s perception of what “healthy” looks like is a bit skewed. For instance, does the American standard of beauty look more like a size 2 runway model or the size 14 of the average American woman? Popular culture would have us believe that any woman who has a little meat on her bones is unattractive.

A better question would be, is Dr. Benjamin healthy? Yes, obesity is a problem in our nation. But unrealistic notions of the ideal female body may be an even bigger problem. If a woman is eating right and getting the proper daily exercise, that is the most important thing, not whether she looks stick thin.

A second bias in play regarding the criticism of Dr. Benjamin’s weight involves the racial and gender stereotypes that have long circulated about African American women — that they are large and loud. Whether intentional or not (and I’m betting some of the critics know exactly what they’re doing), questioning Dr. Benjamin’s qualifications based on her size conjures the old sexist fears of the “too-aggressive, unfeminine black woman.” That kind of prejudice must stop.

If we judged all potential leaders primarily by their physical appearance, rather than their character, talent, and credentials, many exceptional individuals would never be given a chance to lead. In fact, the denial of opportunity to qualified individuals because of race, gender, or physical difference has been one of the shameful tragedies of American history. By now, we should know better.

By all accounts, Regina Benjamin is an excellent doctor who will bring vision, wisdom, and compassion to the role of surgeon general. We should all be outraged that some people would want to deny a highly educated African American woman this opportunity not because she isn’t smart enough, but because she isn’t skinny enough.

The Necessary Future of the NAACP

NAACPThis week marked the centennial celebration of the nation’s oldest and most respected civil rights organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Hundreds gathered in New York City, the birthplace of the organization, to reflect on history and cast a vision for the future.

What began as a small meeting of the minds, including Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Dubois, is now a multi-faceted organization with multiple outreach campaigns and a multi-million dollar budget. As of late, the NAACP has taken up causes like health care, economic empowerment, and education — without ceasing to support the social justice platform upon which the organization was founded.

Despite the NAACP’s victories, there are those who believe that the NAACP is a “graying” organization. Moreover, there are those who believe that civil rights organizations of its kind are no longer necessary. With regard to the necessity of the NAACP today, it was the NAACP’s New York chapter president, Hazel Dukes, who led the fight for justice in the case of Sean Bell, an unarmed African American man gunned down in Queens, New York (by New York City police officers). As Reggie Clemmons (a man on death row believed to have been wrongfully convicted) sits in a Missouri prison two weeks away from legal injection, it is the NAACP that continues to fight for his release. These are key examples of why the NAACP is still necessary.

“I understand there may be a temptation among some to think that discrimination is no longer a problem in 2009,” said President Barack Obama on the closing night of the NAACP convention. “But make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America.”

President Obama is right. Though we’ve come the proverbial “long way” since 1909, for many people of color — and therefore for all of us — the struggle continues.

In the hearts and minds of African Americans across the country, there’s often a slight reminder (no matter how subtle) — that freedom was never free for us. Organizations like the NAACP, National Council of Negro Women, and the National Urban League should continue to do the work that rids this country of inequitable practices and disparaging behaviors. We should keep these organizations alive and support them by becoming active and involved. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said that “silence is betrayal.”

If organizations like the NAACP had been silent long ago, African Americans may not have enjoyed the pride that all of America experienced on January 20, 2009, when Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States. We must continue to challenge one another to become more involved in organizations that promote change and equality for all people.