Race to the bottom

Given all the hoopla over Sotomayor's nomination for the Supreme Court, it occurs to me that I haven't talked about racism on this blog.

Well, despite my sympathy with the Tea Party crowd and Janine Garafalo's irrational delusions, I'm not a racist. I have been accused of it fairly recently, though, mainly because I've always opposed Barack Obama as president. However, to my way of thinking, the fact that he's a socialist is such a huge turn-off I never got beyond it. After looking at his policies, his color comes in a sorry last as something to think about.

I didn't vote for McGovern, Jimmy Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, or Clinton, either. They were white.

I don't really believe, deep in my heart, that there are any significant differences between blacks, whites, asians, Hispanics (are they a different race or only a different language group?) or southsea islanders -- or whatever the politically correct subscriber groups are, per the federal government. When asked for my race, I usually write down "human race." That's all anyone needs to know. Anything else isn't anyone's business.

Cultural differences do exist, but this is learned behavior, not based on physiology. Like Germans raised in the US have different attitudes from Germans raised in Germany, or in Brazil or anyplace else. Skin color doesn't really matter.

I knew a couple of Africans in college and they had different approaches and perspectives than most American blacks I know. One Nigerian woman kept telling the Americans that once we graduated, we should go to Nigeria because everyone has a college degree in America, but in Nigeria, we'd really stand out and could get all the good jobs.

I don't believe social divisions are based on race so much as they are based on whether or not a person actively works to adopt a certain set of characteristics, attitudes, etc., that he or she assigns to a particular group. Like if you believe Group X are over-achievers, and you class yourself in that group, you will probably be an over-achiever. If you sincerely believe you haven't got a chance for a job because you're black, Hispanic, or for any other reason, you probably won't get that job.

I was discriminated against once because I'm caucasian. I applied for a job at a Chicago publishing company, went for the interview, and was told frankly that the company really would prefer a black employee. OK. Funny, it never even occurred to me to file a complaint with the OEO. No hard feelings, either. It's their company, they can hire whomever they want for whatever reason they want. In fact, I half-suspected the inteviewer only told me that to be nice to me, and that I really just wasn't qualified for the job.

In contrast to real race issues, I tend to lump the perennially self-pitying along with the merely lazy and/or criminal into a distinct cultural group called "Victims," regardless of their age, race, religion, or nation of origin. These are people who always have good reasons for failing or for not even trying. They are often also alcoholics or have strange and debilitating addictions or one kind or another, and tend to develop the symptoms of whatever ambiguous mental or physical illness was recently discussed on some TV show. They volunteer for this role, the same way people volunteer to be fire fighters or mothers. At some point, personal choice is involved.

It's even hard to argue a case for ignorance anymore, as in: "He was raised like that. He just doesn't know any better."

Here we all are, sociologists and psychologists actively trying to measure the impact of being relentlessly bombarded by information in American society, and some people just don't know any better. Oh well, maybe their parents locked them in the basement until they were 35. I suppose that could happen.

Eddie Murphy did this bit on "Saturday Night Live" one time where he dressed up very Brooks Brothers and went out in "white face" makeup. He stopped at a news stand and picked up a newspaper, left money on the counter. The news seller looked at him with surprise and pushed the coins back, saying, "We don't charge white people for that." He stopped to get a shoe shine, same thing. It was a lot funnier than I'm presenting it... One reason Eddie Murphy makes a whole lot more money than I do.

Anyway, I think what Murphy was getting at in this sketch is that the supposed privileges of being white in America are very often wildly exaggerated, or are almost entirely non-existent, except in the oratory of people like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson and others who exploit this kind of thing for political and other kinds of gain. Playing the race card, you know. Or the Democrats' class warfare.

And it's easy for a bunch of snot-nosed punks to behave in a totally obnoxious way and when people object, to claim everyone hates them because of their color, their accent, or whatever. No.... really.... it's your rude and insulting behavior.

Which brings us to Sotomayor. In regard to the New Haven, CT, fire fighters.... Apparently New Haven had hired some professional organization to develop a race-neutral civil service exam to determine who would get promoted to lieutenant. The high scorers were all white except for one Hispanic. No blacks -- or anyone of any other color, I guess -- had test scores that would warrant their promotion. So rather than promoting only whites and one Hispanic, New Haven threw the whole thing out. No one got a promotion.

One of the white fire fighters, Ricci, filed a civil rights suit. (Actually, his name sounds Italian. Shouldn't he be considered Mediterranean or something? Or should we assume he's mafioso?) The case wound its way to the Court of Appeals, where Sotomayor reviewed it and threw it out. That is, she determined that it wasn't worthy of review and the Court of Appeals wouldn't hear arguments about it. The decision of the preceding court stood, and that court had backed the City of New Haven.

Other Appeals judges, including another Hispanic, took a second look at the case and disagreed. The case is now in front of the US Supreme Court. Sotomayor won't hear it even if she joins the Supremes. The case will be disposed of before she's sworn in.

Anyway, hearing about this struck me that that's exactly what happened in Dred Scott in the 1850s. Scott was a slave who'd lived most of his life in free states because that's where his owner had a business and lived. Scott petitioned for emancipation because he'd spent so many years in free states where slavery was illegal. (An owner from a slave state could bring slave into a free state temporarily, and the slave remained a slave. Scott's case was based on his having spent much more time in free states than in slave states.)

Scott actually won his case in the lower courts, but the decision was reversed on appeal. Scott petitioned for a hearing in the Supreme Court. Justice Taney reviewed the case and threw it out -- that is, refused to let it be tried in the Supreme Court. Taney's reason (and other judges dissented) was that Scott was a slave, slaves had no constitutional rights, so Scott had no right to sue anyone. So the decision of the last court held -- Scott could not be emancipated. The Dred Scott case set the precedent that in the US, if you were born in slavery, you could never be a citizen, not even if you were free.

Sotomayor did the same thing -- just refused to hear the case. It's really sort of a cowardly act, a way for a judge to sweep a matter under the carpet and refuse to think about it. It's a way to avoid controversy and/or attaching something to your reputation that you don't want attached.

Apart from cowardice, the effect of Sotomayor's actions in this particular case seem to indicate her belief that white people can't be discriminated against.

How could whites suffer discrimination? According to the Victim myth, white people own everything. White people get everything free. White people are invincible and, apparently because they're superhuman, they don't need the protection of the law -- not the same way Victims do. And apparently Sotomayor's background as a Victim, or overcoming her Victimhood, has made her actually more superhuman than even white people. In a separate statement, she talks about "the wisdom and richness of the experiences" of Hispanic women giving them the ability to make better judgments than white men.

So maybe we should just do away with the expense of paying legislators and just let Sotomayor make up the law as she goes along, based on the wisdom and richness of her experiences.

OMG, another omnipotent Messiah in this administration? We seem to be collecting a regular pantheon in Washington.