It is official. In a surprisingly swift nomination and confirmation process, the usually dysfunctional Congress has confirmed Sonia Sotomayor as the country's 111th Supreme Court justice. The Senate voted 68-31 in favor of her confirmation with nine Republicans joining the 59 Democrats; Senator Ted Kennedy was unfortunately too ill to come in and vote.
Sotomayor has an ivy league education, Princeton and Yale, 16 years on the bench, most recently as a Federal Appeals judge, and all of this was accomplished by a woman who grew up in the Bronx, NY housing projects. She has similar education and experience to our recently appointed Chief Justice, John Roberts, and even surpasses him in time served on the bench. In addition, it is a fact that she is the most qualified appointee in recent decades. Yet, she shall be remembered as the first Latin American to serve on the court.
Being the first Latin American and only the third woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court is not a bad thing, it is an extraordinary achievement. However, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the perceived threat to the white establishment was the overarching theme of her confirmation hearings. In fact, she was deemed a racist by some (read GOP) factions because she suggested that her unique experience might make her a better judge than her white counterparts. Yes, it may be horrible that she may rule in favor of keeping the white people down...NOT!
The ridiculousness of this assertion is, of course, the lesson that we must take from this historic occasion. This assertion is turning up everywhere as the white establishment (read closet racists) begin to feel more threatened by the success of minorities including and not limited to President Obama and Justice Sotomayor. Now that the minorities are starting to overcome, the "someday" when they will finally overcome is now creating a racial backlash unwittingly unleashed and mobilized by no other than Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin? Really? Well, when you think about it, she was the one who came out and whipped this brew into a frenzy. This is when we first saw the nastiest racist outbursts against then candidate Obama. Fox News and other self-described conservatives have been deviously fomenting racial dischord as they orchestrate blanket disapproval of all the Obama Administration's policies. Right now healthcare reform is front and center. I fear it will only get nastier from here.
However, in the meantime, we should applaud Sonia Sotomayor for her achievement because she really earned it.
Showing posts with label Ethnicity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ethnicity. Show all posts
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
We Are Here! We Are Here!
Yesterday I was thrilled to read Nicholas Kristof's column in the New York Times that began with the following paragraph, "In the mosaic of America, three groups that have been unusually successful are Asian-Americans, Jews and West Indian blacks - and in that there may be some lessons for the rest of us." He was commenting on Richard Nisbett's book Intelligence and How to Get It that puts forward the notion that cultural values inherent in these ethnic groups allows them to capitalize on their intelligence and become successful in ways that other groups do not; intelligence can be transcended by the context in which it is applied. Ultimately, "success depends less on intellectual endowment than on perseverance and drive." (from New York Times, 6/7/09)
I was thrilled because I am a West Indian or Caribbean American, either term is fine with me, and there is not much written about us. The article goes on further to state that "West Indian blacks, those like Colin Powell whose roots are in the Caribbean, are one-third more likely to graduate from college than African-American as a whole, and their median household income is almost one-third higher." We usually and generally are lumped in with African-American blacks because, after all, we are all black which has less nuance ethnically in America than do white Americans; we have our Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and so on but you don't really hear about the specific ethnicity of black Americans. Like the Whos in Who-ville, we West Indian or Caribbean Americans want to yell to the world "We are here! We are here!"
I was born in England, the child of West Indian parents. When I arrived in New York, from my prestigious boarding school in England, I was shocked at the lack of academic ambition on the part of my fellow black Americans. Here I was in Westchester County, an upscale suburb of New York City and I actually endured more taunting from my fellow black students because of my academic ambition than from my fellow white students, until it mattered to them. In my Senior year when I was accepted to an Ivy League university, many intimated that I was accepted because of affirmative action even though I had received stellar grades right alongside them for all of those years.
Some of this annoyed me but what annoyed me more was having to constantly respond to the African-American history/experience in the United States; this was a history that was not my own. Though I had no forbears here, I was black in America and therefore lumped into the overarching black American history of which I was quite sympathetic, even to the point of internalizing much of the struggle, but I felt erased, sometimes; I was British and I was West Indian, what about that? Certainly, my history gets complicated having been born in England of West Indian parents and then emigrating to America but I didn't want to be put upon to overcome the unfortunate legacy of slavery and the black American experience either. After all, I was an immigrant, just like my fellow immigrants who came to America, in my case as the offspring of a parent seeking economic opportunity.
I am happy to finally see some recognizable distinction for us West Indian Americans. There was a movement to have a Caribbean/West Indian American ethnic category on the 2010 census. It did not succeed but maybe next time, maybe next time America will not lump all black people together and where we get to celebrate our heritage nationally just like any other ethnic group does.
I was thrilled because I am a West Indian or Caribbean American, either term is fine with me, and there is not much written about us. The article goes on further to state that "West Indian blacks, those like Colin Powell whose roots are in the Caribbean, are one-third more likely to graduate from college than African-American as a whole, and their median household income is almost one-third higher." We usually and generally are lumped in with African-American blacks because, after all, we are all black which has less nuance ethnically in America than do white Americans; we have our Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans and so on but you don't really hear about the specific ethnicity of black Americans. Like the Whos in Who-ville, we West Indian or Caribbean Americans want to yell to the world "We are here! We are here!"
I was born in England, the child of West Indian parents. When I arrived in New York, from my prestigious boarding school in England, I was shocked at the lack of academic ambition on the part of my fellow black Americans. Here I was in Westchester County, an upscale suburb of New York City and I actually endured more taunting from my fellow black students because of my academic ambition than from my fellow white students, until it mattered to them. In my Senior year when I was accepted to an Ivy League university, many intimated that I was accepted because of affirmative action even though I had received stellar grades right alongside them for all of those years.
Some of this annoyed me but what annoyed me more was having to constantly respond to the African-American history/experience in the United States; this was a history that was not my own. Though I had no forbears here, I was black in America and therefore lumped into the overarching black American history of which I was quite sympathetic, even to the point of internalizing much of the struggle, but I felt erased, sometimes; I was British and I was West Indian, what about that? Certainly, my history gets complicated having been born in England of West Indian parents and then emigrating to America but I didn't want to be put upon to overcome the unfortunate legacy of slavery and the black American experience either. After all, I was an immigrant, just like my fellow immigrants who came to America, in my case as the offspring of a parent seeking economic opportunity.
I am happy to finally see some recognizable distinction for us West Indian Americans. There was a movement to have a Caribbean/West Indian American ethnic category on the 2010 census. It did not succeed but maybe next time, maybe next time America will not lump all black people together and where we get to celebrate our heritage nationally just like any other ethnic group does.
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