You have a key sales job open.  One of the applicants you interview says, “I need to be in a white territory.  The territory I have right now with my current employer has too many black people in it.  I’m someone who appeals to whites.  If you give me a white territory, I’ll make you a lot of money.”

Given our country’s quickly changing demographics and the intensely competitive sales environment that pervades every business, smart employers have no room for a sales employee who can only sell to one race–one ethnic group.  Plus, from an employment law standpoint, it’s legally dangerous to have a person who thinks this way in your workforce.  He/she is a discrimination complaint in the making.  What does this have to do with Hillary?

In an interview with USA Today reporters a day after the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Senator Clinton said:  “Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again . . . . [W]hites in both states (North Carolina and Indiana) who had not completed college were supporting me.  There’s a pattern emerging here.”  Hillary can sell herself to whites, but not to blacks.  It’s the other way around for Obama, she says.  The implication?  Come November, whites will vote for McCain, and the Democratic ticket will lose–if Obama is the nominee.

Well, it is politics.  Things are getting a bit desperate.  It’s no secret that some white Americans won’t vote for Obama because he’s black.  But for Hillary, who claims to have spent her entire career supporting civil rights and who has undoubtedly felt the cut of gender discrimination, to be so blatant about the race issue is extraordinary. 

Maybe you can get away with that in the world of politics.  But, in the employment world, such a statement would be evidence of a discriminatory, unlawful attitude.  Imagine for a moment if Hillary were a finalist for the top job at Wal-Mart and told USA Today that she should get the job because she has more appeal to whites and, thus, would be able to get more white people to become Wal-Mart shoppers.  Any doubt about her fate?

Before we’re too hard on Hillary, let’s remember what’s happening on the other side of the Democratic campaign.  Obama is getting at least eighty to ninety per cent of the black vote in every primary.  As someone who has been a champion of civil rights and who, with the help of her husband, was the darling of the black electorate several months ago, Hillary has to be smarting from this turn of events.  How many white employees who see black employees receive a promotion instead of them don’t resent it if the white employees have more experience?  They’ve paid their dues only to be upstaged on account of the company’s need to have more black people in leadership positions.

Race has been a deleterious issue in our society and in the workplace for a long, long time.  It’s becoming one in this historic presidential election.  I’ve been saying for months that this election gives employers the chance to engage their employees in a difficult, but reasonable, discussion about race.  I still think it’s possible. 

Maybe you could start tomorrow.  West Virginia’s primary is today.  West Virginia is predominantly white.  It’s people work hard.  It has the lowest percentage of college educated citizens in the U.S.  According to Hillary’s point of view, her sales should be way up.  That’ll give you plenty to talk about.