Identity Politics

[Hanyou]

This may seem like a rant. I'm sorry.

Oh boy. We could have our first ""latina justice." Time magazine even emblazoned the words on its cover!

Sigh.

Fun anecdote. when I asked my mom about it (she's a Latina woman, so her opinion on the matter would of course be more valid than mine) she said she was ecstatic. It didn't matter that Sotomayor was a loose constructionist appointed by a president my mother likes even less than George W. Bush. It didn't matter that the decisions she reached would, as Obama presented it, weight justice and knowledge of the Constitution with "empathy," as if that were the purpose of the judicial branch. Of course not. My Cuban mom felt validated--felt like a person--because, even if Sotomayor didn't represent any of her views, she would be "THE LATINA JUSTICE." And if you couldn't detect the sarcasm in this paragraph, get off the interwebs.

Right. Brilliant. I could rant about the appointment for a decade, so I'll just link to a video with which I agree one hundred percent and leave it at that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbvYLFe9 ... annel_page

But that's just a bit off-topic, and this thread is about more than that. I'm actually sick of the obsession with race. To acknowledge it as anything more than a physical trait--mind you, a prominent one, but just that--is to confine oneself to an awfully narrow identity. And yet we continue to do so. Black men who dare to oppose socialism and identity politics--see Larry Elder, Thomas Sowell, and Clarence Thomas--are "Uncle Toms," or at the very least race traitors. It's applied arbitrarily, too. Never mind that Obama is only half-black and was raised by his (according to him, racist) white grandmother. He's black. And a white man born in Africa isn't technically "African-American," even if basic logic dictates that the label be applied to him []. Why even have these labels if they're actually racist in the first place and if they don't even make sense in the second place?

Cultural identity is certainly not arbitrary, and it's unfortunate that our culture (predominantly "African-American" and Hispanic "communities") has placed such an emphasis on race that it has been collapsed with cultural identity. Affirmative action and segregationist policies are best left on the ash heap of history. So long as we must live with the stupidity of racial identity, however, I encourage all white people to embrace their skin color. Perhaps, soaked in white guilt as they are, it will demonstrate to the modern liberals their own level of absurdity.

Or we could all just agree that race ought to mean nothing. But I don't believe in utopias.

Thoughts?

[noodles]

haven't we had an arbitrary "JEW JUSTICE" for decades now

but seriously I agree with you 100%

I just am too lazy right now to say anything other than it makes Obama look like a puppet

[Kaname]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbvYLFe9 ... annel_page

Ah, a poor, oppressed white male, venting his FURY. It must be horrible to be a white male, and suffer one judge not being a white male. Such oppression.


The problem with the video and the arguments therein is twofold.

One: He insinuates that there is "obvious subtext"(Read: He's making things up, like the 'reverse racism' for example) and that somehow, magically, because one judge isn't a white male, the judge is automatically 'activist' and places 'empathy' over the constitution.
This shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the constitution actually means. What people like this don't understand is the very simple fact that the constitution needs to be intrepeted like any set of law. A lot of people without a clue about law make this mistake, so it's nothing to be that ashamed of (although, honestly, if you're that ignorant about the fundamental system of your country, you really might want to start to educate yourself before you talk about law in public, because you're sounding like a child claiming the moon is obviously made of cheese).
This is why there is a supreme court in the first place, and why originally, your founding fathers wanted to have an assembly revising the constitution every 16-20 years. Yes, really.
Law is not magically unchanging and perfect and flawless the moment it is created, and it will never be. Remember your amendments? Or the many attempts to put amendments to the constitution to ban gay marriage? It isn't just evil because the OTHER side is doing it.

Two: The argument is of course entirely hypocritical. After all, what was the important trait of the last judge appointed by a conservative president?
Oh. Empathy. Clarence Thomas' "great empathy" was a very important trait back then, and nobody objected to it. Funny how it goes.

Empathy isn't magically only evil when a non-white person has it. It is instead a very important trait for an intrepeter of law. Because, again, law is not unchanging.


Also fail for using the construct of "white guilt". White guilt doesn't exist - the whole concept is mostly an attempt of rebranding "not racist" as "white guilt", in an attempt to make it sound bad. White people do embrace their skin color - the difference is just that for them, it's the normal thing to do. Most don't even notice - but are quick to condemn the same thing when other people do it.
It's not magically evil when a non-white person does it. It is absolutely okay to embrace yourself and your own identity. Just because a person isn't white doesn't mean they aren't allowed to do it.


As an european, the whole bruhaha over Sotomeyor(or however she is spelled) is insanely funny. Most of the arguments against her rely on quoting her entirely out of context while changing the quote ("reverse racism"), to twist her judgings ("Firemen case") or rely on claiming attributes are bad for her that were good for the white judges ("empathy"). Or, of course, attacking her because she might be menstruating, and as angry white males fearing for their priviledge know, menstruating women lose all rationality - G. Gordon Liddy sure showed how good the "arguments" against her really are by using that gem seriously.


The simple reality is that Sotomeyor is of course a brilliant choice, and that conservatives don't really oppose her because she's evil, but because she was appointed by the "other side". I just wonder why they're so scared of simply admiting it. Over here, nobody does it like that. It's a candidate for the other party, so naturally you try to get your own candidates voted for, not them.
Sure, it sounds better if you pretend the other candidate is a representative of evil (pardon, "socialism" - another concept some americans have yet to actually understand), but it's also rather silly.

[noodles]

[Hanyou]

[Kinokokao]

I have that issue of Time sitting on my coffee table, and I was just thinking how annoyed I am at the "LATINA JUSTICE" headline

Unfortunately, while I admire the French color-blind system (in which no one even tracks ethnic composition as, officially, the government will never ask) it does bred problems (see the current issues with France and the North African/Muslim minorities). However, our hyper-racial-sensitive system is certainly no better. I would hate to labeled first as a woman and secondly as "white" before anyone discusses the actual ME.

As for labels of race, let's just all admit that is color and utter bullshit. America is so fucking obsessed with your color.

As for the actual political debate this has become, I stand aside. I find the fact that we have ideologically appointed judges utter infuriating bullshit to begin with.