Sotomayor's nomination and race
The PC crowd is at war with the truth, and wants to force feed some fantasy land utopian myth about American sub-cultures.
We are never going to heal race relations until we can have frank, honest discussions about sub-cultures.
Blacks and browns are not the problem; but many of the black and brown cultural characteristics are a disaster for America. The Victim mind set is a drug to ease the pain of cultural shortcomings, and that drug blocks progress on airing out reality.
There is no substitute for personal responsibility and effort when it comes to respect and one’s place in society. If your culture teaches laziness, victimhood, and pride for accepting something you haven’t earned or deserve, it is a debilitating problem.
This was posted here: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/28/tancredo-sotomayors-a-member-of-the-latino-kkk/ written by someone named saiga as a comment on the Sotomayor pick for supreme court justice. (I did run it through a spell check because large amounts of typos drive me crazy and take away from the message.)
It resonated with me because it’s a frequent rant topic of my own. I would add to it that certain white cultural characteristics are also a big problem when it comes to accepting and dealing with other races and cultures. This poster is dead on when s/he says that we will never heal without frank, open minded discussions about cultures (and yes, race) though.
No matter how much people try to continue to box it by skin color, the real problem that the human race struggles with is how to accept differences. Humans separate themselves by degrees of differences. Color is just one difference. Language is another, clothing is another, body language a huge one. I am most comfortable with people who are like me - that makes me human, not racist. If you give me the choice between a black woman dressed business casual or a white man dressed in a suit, I’ll end up talking to the woman. All things being equal, I talk to fat people faster than skinny people as well.
Does racism exist? Absolutely. But if we as a society treat the idea of judging someone based on their race as the ludicrous idea that it is it will be a problem of such small magnitude that it will quickly be lost in the sea of bigger issues. What we really need to be addressing is the issue of differences. Obama needs to stand up and say something like this:
“Yes, I absolutely picked Sotomayor for her cultural background and her gender.
You see, we are blessed in this country to have a wealth of people who are more then qualified for this job. People who graduated the top schools, who are the best judges they can be, who really care for both our constitution and our modern nation. Furthermore, we are so blessed that I still have several candidates who agree with me on the big political issues. As your elected president, one of my perks is getting to pick someone I mostly agree with and I’m absolutely doing that.”
“So how do I pick between great candidates? Like anyone else, I look at what makes each individual unique. A large part of that is the culture they come from. And yes, culture is influenced by skin color. And gender.
And something else: I get to try to balance out the current supreme court. In case you haven’t noticed, most of the people on that bench share the same cultural background. Not just that they are white - ask any backwoods Alabama boy what he thinks of a New York city bred and raised wall street man and you’ll quickly learn that skin color doesn’t give them much in common - no, they all come from reasonably privileged families. The thing is - most of America does not come from privileged families. So why should the highest judges in the land, the ones that make the final say on the laws that affect all people, have so little in common culturally with the majority of those people? And why does the entire court only have one woman, when 51% of our country is female?
If I had only had one best candidate, I would have picked him or her, black or white. But I didn’t - I had choices between equally great but different candidates. And when given that choice, I chose to do my best to represent America with its judges. Culture and gender should be tie-breakers, and that’s how I used them.
“When you question Sotomayor, your job is to make sure she doesn’t feel superior to men or to white people. It isn’t to condemn her for acknowledging the differences between her culture and others she is not part of. And if you find her to be actually prejudiced - to believe herself superior to others for reasons having nothing to do with actual ability, then by all means refuse to confirm her. But if you find her in context to simply be saying “where have all the wise women gone in the public spotlight,” or “I may come to a different conclusion on an issue because I have a perspective colored by a different culture” then to deny her confirmation for acknowledging these truths is to continue to try to live in silence, ignoring issues we as a country desperately need to talk about rationally.”
That would be my draft speech if I were in Obama’s campaign. (And this is why I have no future in politics - too blunt.)
Finally, for all my conservative friends whining about her - did you see his other choices? We got off light. She’s moderately liberal but it could have been far, far worse.
We are never going to heal race relations until we can have frank, honest discussions about sub-cultures.
Blacks and browns are not the problem; but many of the black and brown cultural characteristics are a disaster for America. The Victim mind set is a drug to ease the pain of cultural shortcomings, and that drug blocks progress on airing out reality.
There is no substitute for personal responsibility and effort when it comes to respect and one’s place in society. If your culture teaches laziness, victimhood, and pride for accepting something you haven’t earned or deserve, it is a debilitating problem.
This was posted here: http://hotair.com/archives/2009/05/28/tancredo-sotomayors-a-member-of-the-latino-kkk/ written by someone named saiga as a comment on the Sotomayor pick for supreme court justice. (I did run it through a spell check because large amounts of typos drive me crazy and take away from the message.)
It resonated with me because it’s a frequent rant topic of my own. I would add to it that certain white cultural characteristics are also a big problem when it comes to accepting and dealing with other races and cultures. This poster is dead on when s/he says that we will never heal without frank, open minded discussions about cultures (and yes, race) though.
No matter how much people try to continue to box it by skin color, the real problem that the human race struggles with is how to accept differences. Humans separate themselves by degrees of differences. Color is just one difference. Language is another, clothing is another, body language a huge one. I am most comfortable with people who are like me - that makes me human, not racist. If you give me the choice between a black woman dressed business casual or a white man dressed in a suit, I’ll end up talking to the woman. All things being equal, I talk to fat people faster than skinny people as well.
Does racism exist? Absolutely. But if we as a society treat the idea of judging someone based on their race as the ludicrous idea that it is it will be a problem of such small magnitude that it will quickly be lost in the sea of bigger issues. What we really need to be addressing is the issue of differences. Obama needs to stand up and say something like this:
“Yes, I absolutely picked Sotomayor for her cultural background and her gender.
You see, we are blessed in this country to have a wealth of people who are more then qualified for this job. People who graduated the top schools, who are the best judges they can be, who really care for both our constitution and our modern nation. Furthermore, we are so blessed that I still have several candidates who agree with me on the big political issues. As your elected president, one of my perks is getting to pick someone I mostly agree with and I’m absolutely doing that.”
“So how do I pick between great candidates? Like anyone else, I look at what makes each individual unique. A large part of that is the culture they come from. And yes, culture is influenced by skin color. And gender.
And something else: I get to try to balance out the current supreme court. In case you haven’t noticed, most of the people on that bench share the same cultural background. Not just that they are white - ask any backwoods Alabama boy what he thinks of a New York city bred and raised wall street man and you’ll quickly learn that skin color doesn’t give them much in common - no, they all come from reasonably privileged families. The thing is - most of America does not come from privileged families. So why should the highest judges in the land, the ones that make the final say on the laws that affect all people, have so little in common culturally with the majority of those people? And why does the entire court only have one woman, when 51% of our country is female?
If I had only had one best candidate, I would have picked him or her, black or white. But I didn’t - I had choices between equally great but different candidates. And when given that choice, I chose to do my best to represent America with its judges. Culture and gender should be tie-breakers, and that’s how I used them.
“When you question Sotomayor, your job is to make sure she doesn’t feel superior to men or to white people. It isn’t to condemn her for acknowledging the differences between her culture and others she is not part of. And if you find her to be actually prejudiced - to believe herself superior to others for reasons having nothing to do with actual ability, then by all means refuse to confirm her. But if you find her in context to simply be saying “where have all the wise women gone in the public spotlight,” or “I may come to a different conclusion on an issue because I have a perspective colored by a different culture” then to deny her confirmation for acknowledging these truths is to continue to try to live in silence, ignoring issues we as a country desperately need to talk about rationally.”
That would be my draft speech if I were in Obama’s campaign. (And this is why I have no future in politics - too blunt.)
Finally, for all my conservative friends whining about her - did you see his other choices? We got off light. She’s moderately liberal but it could have been far, far worse.