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"Sotomayor, racism and ethnic pride in America"

Editorial by Arturo Mora, at Kansascity.com here.

Regarding comments taken out of context from a Sotomayor speech, "Your take on this might depend on your own life experiences. Those who are not minorities, and have not known any kind of discrimination, might find it hard to understand the mix of alienation and ethnic pride behind such statements."

also,
"Ethnic pride is nothing new to American society. African-Americans, Italians, Greeks, Jews, many other groups have had excitement about their “firsts....”

I would like to think that, some day, everyone would just recognize that Americans come from all places, have a variety of experiences and talents, all have something to contribute, and all deserve representation, fairness, and opportunity. Those pundits and discredited politicians who are trying to tap into ethnic resentments would benefit more by finding something positive to say. They continue to marginalize themselves with their backward attempts to divide the country into warring factions.

Tags: ethnicity, racism

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by sophia on May 31, 2009 at 9:18am

Being wishful for something positive is nice in its own place. But it is another thing to achieve it practically. For that we have to look for the factors producing racist emotions and find if they can be eliminated. For a country like ours with such an ethnic diversity it would be a hard task.

Permalink Reply by Ralph Dumain on May 31, 2009 at 12:21pm

Mora's entire article, though not particularly deep, has a bit more to it than your excerpts here. In any case, it's important not to take all this playacting seriously, as if there's a serious discussion to be had. The Republicans' entire appeal to those not already basking in the glow of wealth and privilege is ignorance, hate, fear, and racism. Without racism, the Republicans would be out of business. Hence their constant lying and preposterous accusations.

As for Sotomayor, I can only hope that her experience as a disempowered minority would inform her decisions, since justice in this country only exists for the rich and white. But if what she claimed were true, we wouldn't be suffering with Uncle Clarence Thomas on the bench, the worst Supreme Court justice in American history.

The news media lives in and imposes upon us a world of make-believe, a world of play-acting where we're always supposed to play innocent and pretend that reality really isn't what it is.

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on June 2, 2009 at 11:09pm

Ralph,

Not that I want to support Clarence Thomas (I don't), but the worst justice in American History? I'm no legal scholar, for certain. But how about the justices involved in the Dred Scott decision? Of course, that's just one decision, not a whole career, but I suspect it was a career-defining decision. here.

Some interesting comments about lunatic justices here. I can't comment on the accuracy but it's interesting reading.

I agree with you, the glue that is holding the last remnants of the replicant party together is racism. Well, maybe also christian reactionism and antiabortionism too.

(Freudian typo, "Republican't" - but I liked it so left it in).

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 1, 2009 at 10:22am

@Sophia.

Bullshit! Other countries with wide ethnic diversities, even with a history of racial genocide, have managed to do this. Australia, for example.

The problem in the US is that the country still practices a strong form of unacknowledged racial segregation. Races live in areas which contain (mainly or exclusively) other members of their race. This leads to schools with similar tendencies towards mono-racism. Change this, and you begin to remove the herd mentality which continues racist ideas.

Permalink Reply by sophia on June 1, 2009 at 2:18pm

Rosemary, you reminded me of Mumy's scolding.
I think U need more informations about Australia. I wonder if you heared about recent indian's protests in Australia?

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 1, 2009 at 3:05pm

I have lived in both countries. Born in Australia; lived in the US for ten years now. Believe me, they are very different in the level of racism expressed.

Permalink Reply by Rosemary LYNDALL WEMM on June 5, 2009 at 6:56pm

I've seen both places in action firsthand. I win :-)

Permalink Reply by Ralph Dumain on June 1, 2009 at 3:42pm

To reiterate: I could only hope that a Latina coming from an impoverished background would judge differently--in favor of the have-nots against the haves--from a privileged white male, with the caveat that there are plenty of white males around without money or power. But such a differential can no longer be counted on (think Clarence Thomas and Condie Rice), and I think that itself it is a bogus argument.

But the fact that one statement taken out of context, irrespective of a factual accounting of Sotomayor's judicial record, is blown up into a matter of controversy, is all smoke and mirrors perpetrated by the right wing. Which doesn't mean I endorse the duplicitous rhetoric of "diversity". If anything, diversity has replaced social equality as the watchword, meaning, in effect, the diversification of elites, which is all the Democratic Party stands for anymore, anyway.

Hence the very terms of this pseudo-debate are skewed from the beginning. It comes down to a debate between an impartiality that never existed vs. a confession of necessary partiality but related only to one's origins, not to the dynamics of professionalization and upward mobility themselves.

As for whose background and personal experience leads to a more humane political stance, based on group membership, here's a quiz: of the top three Democratic Party presidential candidates last year, which had the most progressive political line?

(1) Barack Obama
(2) Hilary Clinton
(3) John Edwards

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on June 2, 2009 at 10:54pm

I will take your test and say (3)....?

Kucinich was much more progressive, but then again he didnt have a snowball's chance in hell.

Not related to "who is the most progressive" but "who is the only progressive candidate who can win" here is an interesting answer from June 2007!

Permalink Reply by Ralph Dumain on June 3, 2009 at 12:43am

Yes, so the question becomes, what went wrong? I never liked Clinton or Obama. The media, however, treated Edwards like a non-person and fed the charisma for both Clinton and Obama, not to mention the inevitable temptation of making the nomination about the black man or the white woman. Then there's the fund-raising. Ultimately, of course, the voters' illusions are their fault. I never took the Democratic primary process seriously for a second, but then, I don't take the Democratic Party seriously anyway.

Permalink Reply by Sentient Biped on June 2, 2009 at 10:45pm

I suspect that they'll just dig themselves a deeper hole. Trouble is, 10 years ago a lot of people thought that about the Democrats, but they made a come back. So the same could happen with the Republicans. Damn, what a scary thought.

Permalink Reply by Kate Richardson on June 19, 2009 at 6:09am

Why do you keep talking about America? Is this an American group?

Anyway, ethnic pride is wrong. You can have no pride in something that you didn't influence. You can't choose your race, you're born with it. Any pride in anything you had no say in or influence in is not just wrong, but completely false. What are you proud of? You didn't DO anything.