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
Good article. Thanks for posting. The lawyer nominates the lawyer to the lawyers enclave and the lawyers in the senate reach for their rubber stamps. America’s mullah’s/judicial tyranny. Separate but equal.
Amen!
Few years ago my kids went to a lecture by Dr. Ben Carson, a famous neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins. They went with parents of their friends, big group, and I learned about Dr. Carson from them (never heard about him before). They were inspired and impressed, and one of my kids started asking what he needs to do to become a doctor like Carson.
I learned that Dr. Carson is black only half year later when I saw on TV that Bush awarded him with a medal. Before that this little fact just never came up - no need to, it was irrelevant. As it should be.
Just a partial list. More at the link: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/victordavishanson/index
And you are both missing the fact that Muslims are the biggest group that want to remain separate from American life, especially the constitutional part. They want Sharia law. So, now we have 3 groups in this country all clamoring for their own society, separate from American society. That is what diversity does, it divides and conquers.
bump
There is a good reason why Balkanization is a dirty word.
"Scuse me?? I live in the heart of Mexas - less than 150 miles from the Mexican border. While I will concede that there are MANY, MANY Hispanics (and, as you point out most are first generation - which I interpret as being those who stayed AFTER Texas independence from Mexico) who have assimilated into American culture, I see massive numbers of Hispanics (and, I'm not categorizing by Mexican, Cuban bankers (?), or three-legged Venezualan anteaters, but I am addressing the general category of Hispanic) who establish cloistered communities within a larger community, who refuse any effort to learn English or assimilate into our culture and try being Americans first BEFORE they try to cram their culture and lifestyle on us.
The Hispanic culture (sez he, again speaking in generalities) has a rich history and much to offer the US. But, by the same token, so does the US.
On a related topic, hasn't south Texas always been predominantly Hispanic, even in the post-annexation period? I understand the big difference is that the Mexican migration shifted to east Texas following WWII.
As the United States devolves into a Balkanized mess some people advocate for burying our head in the sand and just embracing it. I guess we should all become Borg. Everyone is the same. You will assimilate resistance is futile.
We have 50 pounds in a 10 pound bag and too many people want to play pretend. Tyrannical force is the only thing that is and will give some semblance of holding it together at least for awhile.
I couldn’t agree more. When we were being forced to take diversity training at the company in Baton Rouge I worked for an Iranian engineer made the mistake of pointing out we were a diverse group since we came from many difference engineering schools with different areas of expertise. The instructor was incensed. The Iranian engineer ended up getting a special private training session.
My experience is diversity is a cover to justifying hiring less talented candidates instead of more qualified white males.
The term "diversity" arose when quotas became a dirty word. Like the word progressive to describe themselves now, libs always find a way around thorny areas. We don't want quotas they blather, they simply want "diversity." And quit being a racist for pointing out the truth you nasty, evil conservative. (smirk)
When you have a can of crap,
no matter how many times you change the label,
people always find out what’s really inside it.
Sort of off topic, but still dealing with, as you say, "social capital". I was thinking about this the other day in relation to the upheaval which may occur in neighborhoods as a result of the "bust" in the housing market. Instead of a slow change in neighbors over many years, the people in a neighborhood could change over months. I'm not saying in a racial sense, just that the neighbors will more likely to be strangers to each other, and therefore, less trusting. I don't think that is good for a community. Of course my mind went on to ponder the thought of us entering another Dark Ages as a result....
I love your graphic. It gave me an idea. Let’s rename her “Quota-mayor.” It could have some sticking power—the world loves a good play on words. Could you rework the picture?
thanks, bfl
Government should not be the enabler that creates career success for those whose beliefs and behaviors are inconsistent with such success.
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