Link 1
Link 2
When a person looks at a new Congress for the first time, a person will first look at the party balance. After that, a person should at the backgrounds of the members themselves. The articles "Most Diverse Congress in History Poised to Take Power" and "The New Congress is 80 Percent White, 80 Percent Male and 92 Percent Christian" outline the demographics of the 114th Congress. The latter headline does not make this new Congress seem that diverse, however, this Congress is, as the first headline stated, the "Most Diverse Congress in History". The highest number of female members in Congressional history will be in the 114th Congress. Another landmark can be found in the election the first African-American Republican woman, Mia Love (Utah). Concerning race, the Congress is mostly White (442) with minorities of African-Americans (46), Hispanics (33), Asian-Americans (12), and Native-Americans (2). As for the aspect of religion, the Congress is, once again, overwhelmingly Christian. There are, however, some other religions represented including 28 Jews, 2 Buddhists, 2 Muslims, and 1 Hindu.
In my opinion, increased diversity in Congress is a good thing. It shows the reflection on modern times and advancing society. Increased presence of minorities in Congress will hopefully strike a blow to the systemic racism in America (which does exist Vlogbrothers Link). I also like the new ratios between certain demographics as I feel that they proportionally represent the population as a whole in these demographics. All in all, let us all, as citizens, hope that this new, diverse Congress can help advance America and keep Her great.
Hey our articles are really similar! Except mine is about how this 'diverse' Congress still doesn't come close to representing America. For one thing, Hispanics are shockingly underrepresented. For another, we were rated 98th in the world for properly representing women in the legislature, which is depressing. And although there's more religious diversity, there is still only one 'non-religious' member of Congress, which doesn't match the actual proportion at all. I agree, though, that diversity is definitely a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alexa. We're getting closer to having a more representative Congress that actually reflects the diversity of our nation, but we still have a long way to go. Like Alexa said in her blog post, right now Congress really is "a bunch of white dudes fighting." I don't know what it's going to take to fix this, but it's probably going to involve getting rid of the systemic racism in our society, and that's going to take some time.
ReplyDeleteI think that congress will only continue to diversify as the country becomes more diverse. This record breaking Congress seems like the first of many!
ReplyDelete