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The Sotomayor Hearings - Branding the Neo-Confederates
If you read the liberal blogosphere, you know about Senator Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions's history of dubious racial statements. If you're following on most of the mainstream media, you don't. You might even buy the Alabama Republican's not-so-subtle assertion that Sotomayor is a "racist" -- discriminating against whites -- while Sessions is above any considerations of color. This will change only if some Democratic Senator on the judicial committee (though probably not Al Franken) calls Session on his game, and calls him on his history.
Sessions, as you may know, was rejected for a federal court seat after calling the NAACP "un-American" because it "forced civil rights down the throats of people." He also called a white attorney a "disgrace to his race" for litigating voting rights cases on behalf of African Americans. And during a murder investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, he joked, as black former assistant US Attorney Thomas Figures testified in Sessions's original hearings, about how he had no problems with the Klan until he discovered they were pot smokers. He also warned Figures to "be careful what you say to white folks." It's ugly stuff, and consistent with his racially charged questioning of Judge Sotomayor: He said she should have voted with a fellow Puerto Rican judge whose opinions he endorsed, asking, "Is there any instance in which you'd let your prejudice impact your decisions?"
But the major media still hasn't covered Sessions's history. It's too loaded, jarring, and ugly. CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin did raise related issues, saying: "What's worth noting about what Jeff Sessions -- the line of questioning, was that being a white man, that's normal. Everybody else has biases and prejudices ... but the white man, they don't have any ethnicity, they don't have any gender, they're just like the normal folks."
But the worst of the history remains largely buried, and therefore invisible to most of the public. For that to change, some Democratic senator on the judicial committee must breach Senate decorum, and say bluntly and unequivocally that someone with Sessions's history can't say Sotomayor's relationship to her racial identity makes her less fit to be a Supreme Court Justice. They'll have to say that so strongly that the major media has to cover it, and therefore make it central to the hearings.
A Democratic senator must do this because it's the truth and it will resonate politically. The way Sessions, Rush Limbaugh and others are going after Sotomayor jibes with how the Republicans are now the party of older white Southerners -- barely reconstructed Confederates. In an electorate that's becoming younger and more racially diverse, that's not a winning brand. So while some in the heart of dear old Dixie may cheer Sessions on, my hunch is that most now coming of age feel at least somewhat embarrassed about his approach. So do most whites in the rest of the country, particularly younger ones. So do the Latinos who are proudly anticipating Sotomayor's ratification. And the Republicans have long since lost the African American vote, something black RNC chairman Michael Steele is unlikely to reverse with recent talk of winning them back with "fried chicken and potato salad." (What, no watermelon?)
Sotomayor can't raise this history. She must stay above the fray, since once she gets confirmed she'll be making her case to a jury of one: Justice Kennedy. Barring some unlikely conversion, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Roberts are so bought into a hard-right authoritarian politics that, ties to hawkish neocons aside, they'd fit seamlessly into affirming the election in Ahmadinejad's Iran.
Suppose, however, one of the Democratic senators on the judicial committee raised this history bluntly and unequivocally. True, it would break senate congeniality, and the Republicans would protest. But the Democrats will never have Sessions's vote, and the more his race baiting becomes an issue, the better for the Democrats long-term -- and maybe for the Republicans too, if they're ever going to emerge from this kind of politics. To make that happen, at least one Democratic senator will need to step up.
Any takers?
- Posted in
29 Comments so far
Show AllIt's hard to believe that the Republicans would look a gift horse like Sotomayor in the mouth. Also hard to believe that this author and others like him believe that Sotomayor is progressive (and will somehow be trying to persuade Kennedy to become moreso) just because she's a Latina.
"Neo-Confedrates"
Never heard that one before.
Brother. You've just "coined" a new one for this racist bunch.
Thanks
I think we should all start referring to the Republicans from now on as The Neo-Confederates. The current Pope once said that he didn't care if the Catholic church was reduced to 10,000 people. He only wanted the True Believers. The Neo-Confederates are no different.
To make that happen, at least one Democratic senator will need to step up.
Any takers?
Not here.
As far as racism goes in their history I see little difference between Sotomayor and Sessions.
Watching the Democrats in this hearing is like watching grass grow. Smugness squared.
These folks are preparing an ass kicking for 2010 and 2012. We are going to get slaughtered and lose anything we might have gained because of their emulation of Neocons and their policies. The smirks I have seen surpass even GWB's.
"What's worth noting about what Jeff Sessions -- the line of questioning, was that being a white man, that's normal. Everybody else has biases and prejudices ... but the white man, they don't have any ethnicity, they don't have any gender, they're just like the normal folks."
These are the kind of racist statements that are going to get our heads handed back to us.
Lots made of the Hispanic vote and its growth, its around 7%, perhaps it would help to stop with the racist insults if you want peoples votes that are 76% of the voters?
10 seconds of cursory, preliminary research reveals that in this controversial and supposedly racially-biased ruling, one of the 18 complainants whom Sotomayor ruled against just so happened to be Hispanic.
Putting aside the inanity of Republican pseudo-racism, which could hardly be more insulting to thoughtful reflection except that it is so hamhanded as to be confused rightly with mere stupidity, what is so plausible about a Puerto Rican judge suffering from some sort of congenital empathy which excludes Hispanics to the benefit of African-Americans?
That is a pretty convoluted form of favoritism, and not one that would even trouble me particularly, even if it were really conceivable that this formed some remnant of minute design in Ms. Sotomayor's judgment.
Aside from this, the partisan representatives are faithfully ignoring the fact that this was a 5-4 decision at the level of the Supreme Court, ostensibly trying to assert that the other four judges may well be unqualified, convoluted love-bigots as well.
Nevermind the standing U.S. employment law concerning disparate or adverse impact that the decision is actually based on, which apparently has no place in the courtroom either. Nor the fact that mathematical quantification of current employment standard(s) seem to support and legitimate the concerns of the City of New Haven officials, on a purely statistical basis (ignoring the equally legitimate concerns over relative, but not absolute, merit that the test quantifies). Nevermind that it only took this action of not certifying any promotions after the Civil Service Board was unable to reach a consensus in a split decision (2-2).
And finally, discounting the eventual Supreme Court ruling, with Justice Kennedy writing for the majority simply that "[t]he respondents cannot meet that threshold standard [likelihood of liable]" which is hardly a purely objective assessment, considering that at most 2 Hispanic firefighters would have been eligible for the 17 positions available, a mere 11.76% (2:17) non-white promotion rate (entirely excluding African-Americans) and a 73.53% (50:68) non-white passage rate. We must, as thinking individuals, allow for the fact that there are different concepts of objectivity, which do not always gel. There is legal consistency, and there is mathematical consistency, for instance.
From "Engineering Contractors Ass'n v. Metropolitan Dade County", regarding "strong-basis-in-evidence" (the threshold standard):
"The most probative type of evidence seems to be statistical data showing 'gross statistical disparities between the proportion of minorities hired...and the proportion of minorities willing and able to do the work.'"
This provides the anecdotal basis for the City's decision, if not the basis for upholding its action under strict scrutiny.
How many commentators watched or listened to the Roberts hearings? My guess is none. If so, why? First, Democrats rolled over and played dead. Second, the media made nothing of the Roberts hearings. Why? Well, Roberts is a conservative white guy. Similarly, the national media is disproportionately white and male. White, male, and conventional.
Similarly, my suspicion is if a word count were done on coverage of the Al Franken/Norm Coleman recount in national articles, Norm Coleman's name would appear far more often than Al Franken's, even though Franken won. If I'm right--and I think I am--it reinforces the claim of conventionality to the national media. Both are white, both are male, but Franken is "unconventional"--liberal and a comedian.
As for Sotomayor, female and Hispanic are a bit much for the national media, especially Hispanic. Thus it is, although initially saddened, I am increasingly becoming indifferent to the decline of the mainstream media. Good riddance to bad rot.
Finally, considering Republican attacks on Sotomayor, take it easy progressives. Lean back and enjoy the Republican party guaranteeing solid Hispanic Democratic identity for at least one generation. How often do you get to watch Republicans enrage the largest and fastest growing "minority" in the U.S.?
Last note. After reading a Los Angeles Times article by a Hispanic grinding his teeth over Sotomayor's treatment, I began wondering why similar articles weren't appearing in other national sources. My conclusion is other national media do not have Hispanics on their staffs and/or don't consider their views important. Ah, the national media, white, male, conventional, suicidal.
The biggest mistake Lincoln made, other than attending Ford's Theatre, was trying to hold on to the states that wanted to secede. More 'blowback' that we're still trying to live with.
Nothing in the constitution precluded them from leaving nor gave Lincoln the authority to keep them as unwilling participants in the Union. They should have been left to go on their merry little way.
It was after the Civil War, remember, that people stopped talking about "These United States" and began referring to "The United States". And we've been on the track of imperial power ever since - not forgetting, of course, the founders who had their own wet-dreams of imperial ambition, but inadequate means to pursue them.
I'd agree with you completely except for one thing:
It wasn't a mistake.
Empire was the goal.
The so-called "Civil War" WAS an Imperial war of expansion. It was the successful attempt by the central Government of the Federal Republic to transform the many States in the Federation into Provinces of the Nation (Empire).
REpesctfully disagree Matti, Empire was the result - the primary goal of the Civil War was American Hegemony in a war caused by two groups of feral richfilth white men over who would control this abattoir (at least temporarily). By 1860 the GDP of the Slave South with the ancillary svs of insurance and transportation was double everything produced in the North. The Northern richfilth animals made a fight with the Southern richfilth animals over who would own the slaughterhouse...richfilth animals are like that.
Church ladies Bo Sessions, Orrin, Lindsay and McConnell are some of the Grand Ole Perverts party's closeted gays. Like those in Hitler's cabinet, there are few things more dangerous than frustrated gay men.
JEFF OUGHT TO RENAME HIMSELF JEFF I NEED SOME PSYCHIATRIC
SESSIONS. DO YOU KNOW HE ATTEMPTED TO BECOME A FEDERAL JUDGE
IN THE 80'S AND THE ABA RULED THAT HE WAS UNQUALIFIED!
IT APPEARS THAT HE'S UNQUALIFIED TO BE A US SENATOR BUT
THE INCREDIBLY UNQUALIFIED CITIZENS OF ALABAMA KNOW EVEN
LESS THEN HIM.ONLY IN AMERIKA COULD SUCH A CRACKER HONKIE
WHITE TRASH GOOBER GET ELECTED. AND BEFORE YOU SAY ANYTHING GUESS WHAT? I'M WHITE. JEFF'S FOLKS SHOULD HAVE PRACTICED
BIRTH CONTROL SO WE DON'T HAVE A WINGNUT LIKE THAT
REGULATING OUR LIVES. HAVE A NICE DAY. RONNIE RAY GUNS LOVED HIM.
Get a new computer, your caps lock key is stuck.
Almost everyone misses the fundamental reason why Sessions et al. played the "reverse racism card" during the Sotomayor hearings. Today the overwhelming majority of Republican voters are "white". Sessions et al. were out to assure their voters that they will leave no stone unturned to protect them against "reverse racism".
Yep.
And "reverse racism" here operates as code for the good ol' standby...Nativism.
The "latinos" are the new Irish, Polish, Italians, Greeks, and Jews.
The Irish, Polish, Italians, Greeks, and Jews are the new Anglo-Saxon, Scots-Irish, Scots, and Germanics.
(Or at least that's the plan)
I doubt it'll work though.
The irony that the "latinos" -being mostly mestizos and mostly from Central America- are ACTUALLY native unlike any of the above seems lost on the weird lumpenfascists that qualify as "conservative" nowadays (irony not being one of their strong points).
Oh yeah.
Check out -Henry8's- comment above to see the viral campaign already at work.
Race needs to be dropped as a concept. And this refusal to even separate humans into these false divisions of "race" needs to be vehemently defended and vigorously adhered to.
Dropping race as a concept is reactionary. With ideas like race we do as with things like technology - toward the greater benefit. With race we celebrate our diversity. And with technology we build tools to serve and sustain.
It is the elites who inflame racial hatreds, to keep the people fearful and in need of authoritarian protection. And it is the elites who abuse technology, for profit, power, control over people/planet.
Many people call for banishing the things/ideas that are abused/exploited by elites. Instead, we have to banish the intent to abuse, the intent to oppress. Help banish the intent by shifting your individual exchange/association away from the power centers and toward your local community.
My understanding is that technically, there is only one race - the human race. Any functional differences of this race are cultural and/or minor physiological differences based on environmental pecularities. (Development of dark skin to shield from strong sunlight where it's hot, or a tendency to shorter limbs, flatter noses to warm the air better, and relatively more body fat to conserve body heat where it's cold.)
Separating individuals into arbitrary and artificial 'races' is just another method used by anal-retentive governments to divide and conquer.
America is a racist country!
Anyone who even debates that America is not a structurally racist country to this day must be an IDIOT!
There are still GOLF white-owned country clubs which Tiger Woods cannot even get a membership to.
And idiots still claim that America is not a racist country?
No wonder why other countries people laugh hard at the written documents (U.S. Constitution, etc.) that White American Nationalists fawn over.
"America is a {{classist}} country!
Anyone who even debates that America is not a structurally {{classist}} country to this day must be an IDIOT!
There are still GOLF {{wealthy}}-owned country clubs which {{my forest worker cousin who golfs every week}} cannot even get a membership to.
And idiots still claim that America is not a {{classist}} country?
No wonder why other countries people laugh hard at the written documents (U.S. Constitution, etc.) that {{"Middle"-income}} American Nationalists fawn over."
Not snarking you.
Just showing that in addressing the structural flaws in the U.S. system, we do not need to resort to something that will divide us for the next several centuries until EVERYONE is as "mixed-race" as Tiger Woods.
"Race" is a trap that the Left needs to escape from.
I respectfully disagree with you....
Racism, Classism, Sexism, Xenophobia, Homopobia and, yes even, Militarism are all inter-connected....oops.....sorry......
And the "left" as you claim needs to talk about race issues instead of running away from it. Running away from issues is not addressing it at all....
Racial apartheid is alive and well in America and the only ones who see division in discussing issues are those who take up avoidance strategies as "solutions."
Racism is alive and well in America....a true "leftist" should not run from this issue at all.....
Did you ever think that "white privelege" is not directly connected to classism? Do you think George W. Bush would have gotten into Yale without family legacy and that white privilege which is so intertwined with race, and yes, class, white class of oppression? And that John McCain would have NEVER been accepted to the Naval Academy without his own white privelege-classist family connections?
Let's see, the "Left" escaped from Race in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and now in the 21st century they continue to "escape". Like someone once said, "Good job, Brownie."
Cornell West asked a very long time ago, "Can America exist without racism?" The answer to that Q has never changed. Here's the delio,
Race operates in a context defined by Authoritarian Patriarchy, White Male Supremacy, Gender Slavery, Constant War and the Rights of Conquest, and feral blood drinking Oligarchy based on inherited wealth. This is the Roman Slave Republic designed by the kiddie raping, slave holding, richfilth patrician animals (aka founding daddies) to serve them in the acquisition of all wealth for themselves, forever. Call it their "Prime Directive".
Race is a trap? Sorry, White America is the trap.
"and justice for all"
...Yeah right. My ass, or that your brain is actually your ass!
As long as your not three-fifth's of a person under that law....
Wait a minute--that was rectified---yeah but not if those "strict constructionists" have their way...
If these racist "strict constructionists" ever have their way, say welcome back to Jim Crow America.....as if that has not already happened...
Yes, that white flight out of the inner cities unless one is related to that family member or tribe that worked in those fire houses and police stations....then it is white flight back into the inner city, not to live, but to get that union contract in those fire houses and police stations.....
White flight out---but---White Flight Back when it comes to being that "proud firefighter or police officer."
That Frank Ricci is so dramatic, I could have sworn I saw him on "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." These "macho" firefighters and police officers love their high-paid union jobs in cities they would NOT take residence in. The majority of white firefighters and police officers who work in inner-cities live outside that city in suburbs or rural towns and have the worst sentiments about people of color.
Frank Ricci--who got you that job in New Haven in the first place? Did your daddy or uncle help you get it as in white legacy job handouts which so permeate America till this day? Yes, that old white boys network continues, albeit the denials and the bogus "reverse racism" shitola which is racist itself, and diminishes the hundreds upon hundreds of years of racial apartheid in America which continues to this day.
Racial apartheid in America is no better than when the Civil Rights legislation was passed in 1964 and 1965....
One other thing--studies have showed over and over again that white women have been the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action of any group in the U.S. So that "reverse racism" b.s. does not wash out when again, white people--white women have been the biggest recipients.
How about neo Yankee, all this country is racist as hell. Drop all the hot air about the Confederacy. This whole damn country invented racism. The wonderful slave ships from the North brought the slaves over to this country to make those "wonderful" greedy jack asses a pile of money. If only the British side had prevailed in the 1770s and 1780s, we wouldn't be in this damn mess, and we would be honored and at peace with the world, but as Winston Churchill would have said, but too few would listen. But I put it to you. Never, never should we ever again give up the right to be British subjects. "God save the Queen on the dawg!"
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I do not call my self "Subject" to anyone. To hell with all Kings, Queens or so called rulers for life. The Brits had an opertunity to become a republic in the 1600's to bad they went back to a monarcy.
Sotomayor should be confirmed as far as I can see, and this Senator Sessions is a pompous, racist, damn jack ass. His state is ill served such a jerk. We all are. My real concern with Sotomayor is that she's too much in favor of the status quo and the old and older order herself. This garbage about her be proud of being "a Latina" is pure silliness and drivel. What the hell is she supposed to be? She has every right to be proud of being a Hispanic woman who has done well in her career, and I say that as a man of European Caucasian persuasion.
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The Confederacy was no saint and had its flag wrapped around slavery for about five years, but the stars and stripes of this "free country" wrapped itself around slavery for about 85 years following the USA becoming independent from the British sovereign.
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The Confederacy was no saint and had its flag wrapped around slavery for about five years, but the stars and stripes of this "free country" wrapped itself around slavery for about 85 years following the USA becoming independent from the British sovereign.
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Judge Sotomayor does not seem to have much going for her as a Catholic, Hispanic, woman except her good, judicial, experience and qualifications . As long as we can trust that the Pope will not influence her judgements. This is something that the Republicans are not questioning her about since they would like her to be under the Pope's influence.Although one Republican tried to catch her on the abortion issue but he was unsuccessful.