Down the Rabbit Hole

So the other day while Dave and I waited to be called in for my ultrasound, we heard the announcement that Sonia Sotomayor had been chosen as Obama's nominee for the open position on the SCOTUS. I didn't think much of it since I was reading this totally lame and yet unbelievably engaging article on Pat Boone in some random magazine I'd picked up from the stack in the shared radiology/cardiology waiting area. As I was reading all about Pat Boone's favorite desserts, I suddenly heard Tucker Carlson start shouting wildly, "But she's a racist!"

Wha-?

I glanced up to see Tucker Carlson loosing his ever-loving mind on Fox News. I mean a straight up meltdown over Sonia Sotomayor's alleged racism. I sort of a laughed it off and headed into my ultrasound. By that evening, the entire far right wing of the GOP was in an apopleptic fit over Sotomayor. And I have to say, I find it hilarious.

First of all, it's quite apparent very few of these people screaming "RACISM" have criticial thinking skills. If you read the full context of the essay in question, Sotomayor simply states that a Latina woman with a life experience similar to hers would likely make different choices than a white male. I can't disagree with that. Our life experiences, whether we're born into wealth or poverty, the majority or minority, color our judgments and ideologies. To argue any differently seems a bit ridiculous.

Example? My dad went to school during the sixties. Because he was Latino, he was shoved into this little shithole of a classroom with all the other brown kids and treated as if he were mentally retarded because he spoke mainly Spanish. Was my dad slow? Um, no. Did he really need to be segregated from the rest of his kindergarten class? Hell no. If anything, Dad was lightyears ahead of the other non-Latino students because he could communicate in two languages. Now, all these years later, my dad is a huge proponent of ESL education within the main classroom. He knows first hand what a nightmare it is to be sent away to some dark corner of the school. Most of Dad's Caucasian classmates, however, (many of them his friends) are totally against having those kids in the classroom. If they'd been segregated as if they bore some hideous disease, they'd likely feel differently.

Secondly, where does G. Gordon Liddy get off calling Spanish "illegal alien?" As in, Maria is a polyglot who speaks English, German, Russian, Arabic, and illegal alien. What. The. Fuck. Because, apparently, all people who speak Spanish are illegal aliens? Um, sure. OK. Liddy. And don't even get me started on his sexist comments about Sotomayor.

Behold in all its bullshit misogynistic glory: "Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then."

What? WHAT?! Did he really just go there? Since when does the shedding of the lining of a woman's uterus have anything to do with becoming a Supreme Court Justice?

Finally, what kind of crazy fruit does Tom Tancredo feed through his Jack LaLanne juicer every morning? I mean, really, Tom? Really? The National Council of La Raza is "...a Latino KKK without the nooses or hoods." I can't even wrap my head around that one. So apparently every group that exists to further the civil rights of a specific, historically underrepresented and/or discriminated subset of people is racist? Like, oh, the NAACP? Do you think Tancredo would dare make that comment if we were talking about an African American woman? I'd like to think not, but he's obviously a bit slow so who knows.

Look. Yes, La Raza literally means "the race," but to most Spanish speakers of Central America and Mexico it's used more as a way to describe a community of people. I guess you have to understand where the term comes from to really understand the idea behind La Raza. In the twenties, Jose Vasconcelos* wrote an essay called "La Raza Cosmica" or "The Cosmic Race." Vasconcelos wasn't a huge fan of Darwinism since he viewed it as a way to explain and justify the subjugation of various non-white peoples. He believed that if you looked at what was happening in Mexico, at the continuing melding of European, indigenous Mexican, African, and Native American bloodlines, one could reasonably expect that in the future a new race, a blended race, a Cosmic race if you will, would arise.

Through this blending of culture, ethnicity, and race, Vasconcelos believed we, as humans, could transcend the ugliness of racism and prejudice. Mexicans, in particular, identified and accepted this idea. They adopted the term La Raza as a means of describing their shared heritage with pride and dignity. That's it. There's nothing sinister about it.

Are there a handful of folks in La Raza who likely talk big about taking down The Man and other ridiculousness? Probably. Every group has their fringe supremacist nutters. *Cough* David Duke. *Cough* Republican. *Cough* I try not to judge an entire group based on one or two batshit crazy folks though.

Anywho. I have to say the funniest--like fall out of my chair hilarious--thing I've seen during this entire brouhaha was a comment addressing Tancredo's likening of La Raza to the KKK.

"Just last week La Raza burned an Aztec Calendar** on my front lawn."

LMFAO.

*I can't be bothered to get up and dig through my boxes of books still in the garage for the book containing the actual essay so I'm just giving a brief synopsis of what I remember after reading it a decade ago. I could be wrong. You'll have to Google if you're really interested.

**See when you go to an old skool panaderia to pick up a box of totally scrumptious pastries and cookies, they'll sometimes give you a promotional calendar. Without fail, these calendars always have these drop dead sexy half-naked Aztecs cradling buxom Latinas, shoulders bared and dresses fluttering in the wind, against their bronzed mantitties. George Lopez does a funny bit about his grandma and the Aztec calendar and her memories of a rather tawdry affair with a--well--never mind. That's a bit too risque for even this blog, lol.