Posted on 06/04/2009 4:59:05 AM PDT by Tolik
America is intermarrying, integrating, and assimilating as never before.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has scolded Americans for being “cowards” and not talking more about race. Now, Holder is getting that “dialogue” with the recent controversy surrounding President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor.
Most of the furor surrounds statements on race by Sotomayor herself: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Sotomayor was clear enough. In a broad discussion about sex/race discrimination cases and their history, she stated that judges’ ethnicity and gender make them better or worse at what they do.
Sotomayor also once complained that, “We (Latinos) have only 10 out of 147 active circuit court judges and 30 out of 587 active district court judges. Those numbers are grossly below our proportion of the population.”
Aside from Sotomayor’s notion that federal jobs should be parceled out on the basis of race, what exactly does she mean in an America that is intermarrying, integrating, and assimilating as never before?
And why were the same people who now hold up Sotomayor’s background as a qualification for the Supreme Court so quick, when George W. Bush was president, to rally to deny Miguel Estrada a court-of-appeals judgeship?
When Sotomayor invokes racial exceptionalism — and her supporters privilege her Latina status — we enter a morass in which there is no consistent logic about either who qualifies as a minority deserving of special state consideraton or why any one group has claims over another.
Is minority status deserving of government redress defined by some sort of claim of membership in groups that suffered past bias inside the United States?
Hardly. The University of California system, for example, not so long ago worried about too many Asians on its campuses. Yet Japanese-Americans were once put in internment camps and Chinese immigrants denied civil rights. Had Asians lost their aggrieved status because per capita they were doing too well? And does that suggest that race ipso facto is no longer a hindrance to success?
Perhaps the logic of government-mandated diversity instead hinges not just on redressing historical discrimination, but also on considering present-day racial bias.
Again, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Arab-Americans, for example, don’t qualify for affirmative action, but they’re hardly immune to discrimination here in the U.S.
In truth, in the 21st-century United States we don’t know what race exactly is, or its exact role in our own success or failure, much less the reasons how and why it should count for special government consideration.
In a radically changing America, which immigrants from Mumbai, Muslim Arab-Americans, or destitute newcomers from Croatia will the government reward on the basis of their skin color, poverty, lack of English skills, or religion?
Who will prove to have the greater case for victimhood and government redress — the half-African graduate of prep school or the poorer, darker Palestinian daughter of an immigrant 7-11 storeowner?
Or should we revert to class — giving the child of the single, alcoholic, unemployed father preference over the daughter of a hardworking immigrant who built a successful business by working seven days a week?
To be the most fair, should we update rules of the Old Confederacy and have racial statisticians examine our DNA to see whether we were really are 1/16 this or that federally approved race? Sounds crazy, but sometimes that’s where it feels like we’re heading.
Just as the government now both regulates and runs General Motors, so it decides who is victimized and who is not, and then rewards (and therefore punishes) on the basis of race.
But again, 21st-century America is intermarried and mixed up. People are complex individuals, not cookie-cutter representations of their supposed tribe. The Balkans, Iraq, and Rwanda are not our models.
So, can we imagine Ivy League–educated Justice Sonia Sotomayor simply as a judge, no more, no less? Can the Senate, in its confirmation hearings for Sotomayor, vote up or down on her written record and expressed philosophy of jurisprudence?
They ought to leave it at that — and only that
Let me know if you want in or out.
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NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Pajamasmedia: http://victordavishanson.pajamasmedia.com/
In his just finished speech in cairo 0bama said:
“As long as we (islam and the west) define ourselves by our differences we will [fail.]”
But “diversity” is important in America even though he recognizes that it leads to failure.
So, who wants what to fail?
There is no empirical evidence that “diversity” provides any benefit to any group.
On the contrary, the only study that I’m aware of on this topic showed the opposite - people don’t trust each other, get less done, develop less “social capital”, etc.
“Racial exceptionalism” only refers to those who embrace progressive ideals as defined by liberal elites.
Conservative minorities need not apply.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
There is another term for that as well: “A soft bigotry of low expectations”
So is the white proportion of the NBA. So is the white proportion of the NFL. So what?
Are the SAT's unfair because the white majority performs better than the black and Hispanic minorities? What about the Asian minorities who perform better than the white majority? What is an affirmative action quota queen to do?
Clarence Thomas attests to that in his book. When he tried to get a job in the real world, he found that a black man's law degree meant nothing because it was assumed that he didn't earn it, but was granted it on the basis of race.
And how do we enforce percentages? We would need to keep somebody down then. It means that we’d have to deny an opportunity to some. The logic is cold. You say A you must say B. Quotes are discriminatory. Plain and simple.
Which shows that "racial exceptionalism" is merely a tool of the left to produce white guilt and thereby, gain political power.
(U)niversity of (C)aucasians (L)iving among (A)sians.
Again, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Arab-Americans, for example, don’t qualify for affirmative action, but they’re hardly immune to discrimination here in the U.S. Big complaint among the Arab youth I encountered when I lived in Brooklyn. The old-school white folks in my nabe didn't consider Arabs "white" either.
Diversity has become a state religion in America and we're expected to worship it. If we notice all the negatives, we're to overlook them as some sort of necessary religious pennance.
Meanwhile, my open challenge here stands. Can anyone tell me how Japan would benefit if it imported 25 million Arabs, Somalis, and Mexicans? That would certainly diversify the country, so if diversity is a strength I'd like to hear all the glorious benefits Japan would reap with those additional 25 million diversity bonus points living there.
One segment of our society is not assimilating at all. Know who it is? Hispanics!! They are demanding that WE learn THEIR language and the WE cater to their lifestyle.
Silly me. I thought that the reason they were flooding the US was to ESCAPE their lifestyle and assimilate into America and become part of the American dream. More often today, when I walk through a Walmart, I find myself uncertain where I actually am. Announcements are made over the PA in Spanish and the Spanish labels are displayed on the boxes of merchandise so that I have to turn the box around to the English side just to read what the thing is!!
And, it isn't just Walmart. Lowe's and Home Depot (to name but a few) are doing te same thing. In addition, when I call someplace, I have to press 1 for English or 2 for Spanish. When I go vote, I can choose between a ballot printed in English or one printed in Spanish. Again, I think I must have fallen asleep and missed something. One of the requirements for becoming a naturalized citizen is the ability to speak, read, write, and understand English. So, if voting is supposed to be limited to American citizens (native-born or naturalized), why are we taxpayers paying to print ballots and other government documentation in Spanish??
Neither Hanson, nor any of the people claiming that it is time to put an Hispanic on the SCOTUS address the fact that America is being assimilated by Mexico!! Zero's recent apology tour to Mexico City to apologize for America's existence is proof!!
My challenge isn’t so specific.
I just ask for one peer-reviewed study showing ANY measurable benefit of a “diverse” group over a homogeneous group in any (positive) goal.
I will again use my own personal example of being a minority (white gentile) at the University of Chicago, surrounded by Asian and Jewish students. Should we have AA for Italian and Polish Amreicans because we were “underrepresented” at U of C (or Harvard, Stamford, etc.). Don’t think so!
It is very corrosive. When you get a doctor in a hospital who is black - would not you question why he is here: because he deserved to be here or as an affirmative action product? Then you supposed to be ashamed for thinking like that. Doesn’t matter how you slice it, it’s bad for the society. It’s not what Dr. King was dreaming about
If you REALLY want to see a group that wishes to remain separate from the majority, that would be BLACK Americans, most of whom have been in this country alot longer than my own family.
As Hanson points out, once you to start to go down the “quota” road, there is no stopping it. We need a color (and gender and ethnicity) blind society, where jobs, school admissions, contracts, and the like are awarded solely on the basis of merit, using identifiable objective standards. No discrimination should be tolerated, be it the old-fashioned kind against minorities, or the new-fangled kind, against majorities.
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