Racism and Conservative Hypocrisy

DISCLAIMER: Racism is the domain of every culture, creed, society or group. In no way does the author claim that racism is proprietary to conservatives or conservative ideology. They’re just better at it.

You would think I’d be mad as hell, by now. But whatever part of a person that makes him culturally over-sensitive is pretty much dead in me. I grew up with jokes that started, “A white guy, a black guy and a Mexican guy...” where inevitably the Mexican guy was somehow made the fool. Meh. My own grandmother sagely advised me as I would run outside to play, “Don’t play with the negros!” Of course being within earshot of the negros, I had more than one fracas as a kid. As themes of Equality and Civil Rights have been on my mind this week, I find it hard to ignore the ongoing saga of Supreme Court candidate, Sonia Sotomayor. Judge Sotomayor is the first person of Latin heritage to be nominated for SCOTUS, which in itself breeds controversy. As far as I know, any opposition to her nomination from the people that matter (the Senate) has been very low key. Republican Senator Cornyn, for example, says his constitutional responsibility is to advise and consent. That is good politics. Bad politics, on the other hand, is playing itself out in the hypocrisy and racism of conservative media-led fearmongering.

Conservatives haven’t found solid footing to attack the notion that a Supreme Court justice should have empathy. They tried, but ended up sounding quite heartless. Instead, pundits, including former Congressmen Newt Gingrich and Tom Tancredo, have focused their attentions on one sentence she uttered eight years ago at a conference promoting the Latino/Latina presence in the judiciary. On page 5 of the speech she said:

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.

Couple that with her affiliation to that radical brown power group (that's sarcasm, BTW) La Raza and you have an obvious racist.



She and Obama are the worst examples of “reverse racism” in the history of man.



Out of context, that might seem a terrible thing to say. Forget that she doesn’t say a Latina does reach a better conclusion... which would, of course, actually be a racist thing to say. But this is one sentence of a five page speech wherein she challenges the future Latino lawyers to work on their “experiences and attitudes... to make [them] capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach.”

Take the time to read the speech. Not now obviously. You have have to finish this blog and comment before the killer bees arrive. But it is good and I would be interested in an honest critique. I won’t be so naive as to say the comment wasn’t racist in any sense. As a jobless Latino I might be inclined to say, “Hey, tell them pinche gringos!” But I won't. However, reactions to it seem Super-Racist in nature. These conservative pundits are displaying their own racism in their accusations. It’s like going to a Lakers game and hearing Kobe Bryant say, “Gimme the rock!” Well! He’s obviously a CRACKHEAD who can’t get enough of “the rock,” right, Mr. Limbaugh? Mr. Gingrich? Mr. Tancredo? Tancredo is right, however. We can only look at her words to know her as a person. Kinda like this:



And by this we know that Tom Tancredo is a xenophobe who has no sociological understanding of cultural assimilation, but rather demands idiomatic and behavioral conformity of all first generation immigrants. Cult of Multi-culturalism? Racist! Racist! I see a racist!

To choose one sentence (or four minutes...) of a speech by which you make a judgment of a person's character tells the world that you already have an idea about her that you want to promote. You’ve prejudged her, as it were. If you’re going to stand on a soapbox, Tom, and defame a person as racist, please make sure your Confederate Flag belt buckle isn’t showing.

And then there’s this guy: Republican Congressman Nathan Deal of Georgia. Deal is also the Republican candidate for Governor in that state. On the same day that Judge Sotomayor was nominated for the SCOTUS, Mr. Deal said that it is time to end “birthright citizenship,” as established by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. You see the game is, if you’re an illegal, you have a baby in the U.S. who can grow up and sponsor you to come to the U.S. later on in life! Isn’t that something? So the answer, obviously, to the problem of illegal immigration is to make immigration more difficult. It makes total freaking sense! That way we don’t have to provide services to these “anchor babies,” when we can just boot ‘em out. Life’s easy when you’re a xenophobe, isn’t it? My favorite part of the argument is when they say that the 14th Amendment was written to ensure freed slaves’ citizenship. Granted. It was never, however, intended to automatically give citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants. Thanks, fellas, for interpreting the Constitution for me. Can we now talk about how the 2nd Amendment wasn’t intended to allow citizens to buy automatic weapons?

Is Judge Sotomayor a racist? No. Not from that statement anyway. My grandma is something of a racist, but she doesn't look cross-eyed at my white wife, so we can deal with it. Plus she's not a federal judge. Racism is a serious accusation, one that Limbaugh, Tancredo and Gingrich have exemplified now and in the past. At the very least they have proven themselves to be xenophobic nincompoops. Let's leave the advice and consent to those level-headed folks that matter in this debate. And if any of them decide to take up the "Sotomayor's a racist" mantle, I'll be on those pinche gueros cabrones como una mosca en mierda!

Civil Rights v. Self Governance

This is America, where the people have the right to govern themselves, right?


Skip to ahead to 1:06 for the crux of Pastor Franklin's argument, which is:

If they were to overturn this it would be a very scary day for California. What the court’s going to decide here is not the validity of same-sex marriage. They’re deciding on the validity of the people’s rights to govern themselves...

I was attending a Fresno rally in protest of the decision to uphold Prop. 8 when I was asked if I could tell the difference between civil rights and upholding a person's constitutional rights to vote and speak [freely]. To which I reply, yes. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

At this point, I think it is worthwhile to congratulate those in opposition to marriage equality (and by extension full inclusion of the gay community) for successfully changing the subject, yet again. As much as I’d love to rake him over the coals in a public debate, I agree with Pastor Franklin that self governance is an American ideal that must always be upheld. But he has committed a very subtle sleight of hand that I want to make sure passes no one’s attention.

Through the history of this country there are examples of legislation and judicial interpretation that at one time or another has codified the oppression of a minority group. For the most part we, the people, have been successful at removing those laws and using the courts to uphold high standards of equality. Prop. 8 was an unprecedented constitutional amendment that restricted rights for some people. In creating its narrow definition of the term “marriage” it specifically targets an outsider (minority) group and prevents them access to that definition. We, the majority, of heterosexuals now have the exclusive right to marry a person of our choosing. We are a constitutionally privileged class.

My direct answer to the question of civil rights and self governance should expose Pastor Franklin’s sleight of hand. Civil rights describes the need to make laws so that a minority group can enjoy freedoms from which they are currently excluded. Self governance (including a person’s right to vote and speak freely) describes The People’s right to create laws. Hopefully those laws will make this country a better place to live. With Prop. 8, The People have made a law that excludes a minority group from a freedom the majority enjoys, thus making said minorities' American lives harder for them. I am at my wit's end to see how Prop. 8 makes life better for the majority group.

Pastor Franklin’s lie (let’s call the duck a duck) is that self governance gives us the authority to choose “who” gets access to “what” civil rights. It gives us the right to oppress minority groups, so long as the majority agrees. This is a perversion of self governance that is a clear and present threat to civil liberty. The very notion that we have to sacrifice self governance to civil rights is absurd.

At the rally I spoke to a man named Bill, who admitted he was against gay marriage. He was there because he wanted to understand why people are so vociferous about it. When I explained that a simple majority should not be able to restrict civil rights he asked how many votes are enough. I didn’t really answer him then so I will now: No amount of votes is enough to oppress a minority group. Civil rights and self governance should never come into conflict. Rather, self governance is the tool which we use to secure and insure civil rights. California has used that tool for its opposite purpose, namely to restrict the civil rights of a minority class. This directly violates our American ideal that all men are created equal and are endowed with the inalienable right to pursue happiness.

The Constitution declares that the majoritarian chorus may not alone dictate the conditions of social life. -Justice William Brennan

Activist Judges Legislate from the Bench... again

California is, again, on the wrong side of history and humanity. Today marks the CA Supreme Court’s ruling on the divisive Proposition 8 (P8), which amended the state Constitution, defining marriage between one man and one woman. With a 6-1 decision, conservatives can claim victory in the ongoing battle for marriage equality and civil rights. The irony of this victory is that has come on the backs of the very same people so derided as “activists” because those people did not give conservatives what they wanted in 2008.

As I read the opinion, it quickly begins to bleed absurdity. On page 7 it suggests that P8 does not impinge on the substantive rights of same-sex couples, those of equal protection, due process and privacy. The effect of P8 is limited to carving out a narrow designation of the term “marriage.” The court recognizes the significance of that designation to the petitioners but the amendment was passed by voters befitting the initiative process (defined in Article 2 Section 8 of the CA Constitution); therefore, it is compelled to uphold the amendment.

In short, the court has said the following: 1) the passing of P8 conformed to the standards of the CA Constitution, 2) the court is bound to decide based on the document which now includes the language of P8, and 3) the amendment only serves to qualify a narrow definition of “marriage” and cannot impinge on the “governmental plan or framework” established by the Constitution, those of equal protection, privacy, et al. Same-sex couples are equal to “married” couples by the state Constitution, but they are not the same. In it’s decision the CA Supreme Court has thus defined same-sex unions as separate but equal.

The opinion goes on to hide behind the initiative process, pointing out that other states limit the initiative power. It does not nullify those same-sex marriages that have already occurred nor does it give any real handling of same-sex marriages from other states, i.e. full faith and credit. The decision, in my humble opinion, is pandering and cowardly. It follows the logic of segregation laws in the 1920s and any miscegenation law that was struck down by Loving v. Virginia. It passes on the dual opportunities to join the social progress of states that have recently recognized same-sex marriage and provide the federal government with further incentive to repeal DoMA, end military segregation and promote Article IV of the U.S. Constitution.

When the Marriage Cases opinion was published in 2008, the decision that briefly legalized same-sex marriage, conservative critics called the CA Supreme Court “activist judges (specifically the four)” who “legislate from the bench.” I defended them then, not because I was in favor of their ruling, but because they were simply doing their jobs. I hope the irony of my title isn’t lost. I still think the judges were doing their jobs. They referred to the highest document they could in the case of Strauss v. Horton, but I do think they got it wrong. They are not “activists.” They simply erred to the detriment of equality, which I believe will soon enough be rectified. They pandered to the obfuscation that P8 is about the right of people to govern themselves and not an denial of civil rights. I have never been a fan of the initiative process but I will participate in it to repeal P8, especially now that opinions seem to be shifting towards progress. I still find it very sad that civil rights can be subject to a majority vote, but I can only hope that this time “We, the people” is a more inclusive club.