One rule for us, another for them

Democrats, if you didn't already know, dear reader, are an interesting breed of people.
Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina are both vying for the minority House whip position. Nancy Pelosi, the outgoing Speaker, is trying to smooth the way for both men to keep a position of leadership within the Party. Clyburn is apparently being offered the chairmanship of the Democratic caucus while Pelosi's intentions are to move Hoyer from majority leader to minority whip.
The only problem is, Clyburn wants the No. 2 job as minority whip—and, having been the majority whip, it's a job he's quite good at. Rep. Clyburn is also black.
It's intriguing enough that Pelosi held a "victory party" after midterm election results severely curtailed her length of time as Speaker. "I understand the American people better than they do themselves," she claimed, after the American people voted to have Republicans take back the House. But she wants to hand the African-American contestant a no. 3 position, and have Hoyer, who's white, take over as second-in-command.
Aren't these people for diversity? Aren't they for affirmative action? Why does Pelosi and a sizeable chunk of Democratic lawmakers want to push the black guy to the back of the bus? (I suppose, as Clyburn's proven to be more than competent in his position as whip, he doesn't technically qualify for affirmative action.)
This comes just a couple of weeks after Bill Clinton urged Representative Kendrick Meek to drop out of the Senate race in Florida so that minorities could rally behind Charlie Crist, another white guy, wouldn't you just know it. The Republican candidate, Marco Rubio, was considered a threat. So, the black guy must drop out so the white guy has a chance of beating the Latino, according to the Democrats' thought process.
If this sort of power struggle took place in a company boardroom, Democrats would be filing legislation to cripple that business. If a college demoted a black man in order to elect a white provost, the resutling protests, spearheaded by Democrats, would put that school in a negative light for years to come. Can't the Democrats live by the same rules they expect the rest of society to follow? Or do they deem their own prescription for a fairer society too inconvenient?
Speaker Pelosi, if you can stop celebrating your "victory" long enough to answer the following question: How come one American of African descent is told by the Party's chief gigilo to drop out of a Senate race to increase a white man's chance of winning while efforts are continuing to delegate another—who, I repeat, is good at the job he's applying for—to a third-ranked position?
Inquiring minds would love to know.