Race-Colored Glasses: Seeing What's There

Even if it's a fairly done deal that Judge Sotomayor will be confirmed
to the Supreme Court, Republicans are explicitly using her nomination
as a "teachable moment"
(https://ninthjustice.nationaljournal.com/2009/06/conservative-groups-see-teachi.php)
about the role of race in America. Yet Sotomayor, President Obama and
the Democrats are trying their best to avoid talking about race rather
than responding head on -- which only cedes this critical debate
conservatives who justify racial bias under the guise of
colorblindness. Instead of sidestepping the conversation on race and
trying to change the topic, Democrats and progressives should
challenge use this as our own teachable moment for ourselves and the
nation. Instead of criticizing Judge Sotomayor for seeing race in
America, we should be asking: Why don't the rest of us?

The area of the South Bronx where Sonia Sotomayor grew up, in the
poorest urban county in the United States, is predominantly African
American and Latino. In the Bronx, African American and Latino
children are more likely to be arrested and tried as adults than White
kids who commit the same acts, even though kids of color are
ultimately found innocent at higher rates than White kids. The average
household income is $29,000; a few miles away in mostly-White
Manhattan, it's $56,000. Only 16% of Bronx adults have gone to
college; in Manhattan it's 57%. Less than 20% of Bronx families own
their home, one of the lowest homeownership rates in the country. In
the 1990s, New York City unilaterally relocated sewage treatment
facilities and waste transfer stations to the Hunts Point section of
the Bronx. Rates of diabetes, heart disease and obesity are far
greater in the South Bronx than in comparable, White communities.

Nationwide, 16% of White children go to sleep hungry. Among African
American children, the rate is almost 42%. Studies show that African
Americans and Latinos are less likely to be hired for a job than
Whites and when they are hired, they're paid less than White people
doing the same work. The average White family has $88,651 in net
worth. The average Latino family is worth only $7,932. African
American families are worth only $5,998.

Statistics like these are evidence of the pernicious persistence of
racial inequality in every aspect of our society. Racism in America
is neither isolated nor aberrant, nor is it an invention to excuse
what might be attributable to individuals or cultural behaviors.
When Barack Obama ascends to the presidency, we White people often use
his success as evidence that if other people of color simply tried,
they too could succeed -- arguing that racism is a myth. We should
draw the opposite, more accurate conclusion instead -- the fact that
so many people of color are as talented and ambitious as President
Obama but do not achieve his level of success is proof that other,
systemic barriers must be in their way.

The first corporation established in the new, free market America was
the slave trading Virginia Corporation. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote
that "all men are created equal" and established the structures of our
government, owned dozens of slaves. Private and parochial schools,
and now vouchers, became popular as public schools became integrated.
As the Black middle class grew and African American families bought
homes in middle class urban neighborhoods, White families fled and
created the suburbs. Private health insurance and private hospitals
grew as funding was cut for public health systems that served mostly
low-income people of color. Yet we pretend that each of these
institutions has nothing to do with race and that the economic
inequality or lack of democratic participation that plagues
communities of color is mere coincidence, or even the fault of
communities themselves, rather than the inevitable product of highly
racialized design. Despite a national history that has been
profoundly colored by color, which has compounded gulfs of privilege
and inequality over generations, we have repeatedly bought the lie
that race does not matter in America.

The very fact that Judge Sotomayor's personal story of triumph, from
the housing projects of the South Bronx to Princeton and Yale, to
federal judge, seems so remarkable reveals our deep, hidden
expectations of what is possible and probable for people of color in
America.

There's a reason we call judges judges. We expect them to also use
their judgment. Judge Sotomayor's judgment is indeed different
because she is Latina, just as she is a different judge because she
grew up poor, was a district attorney, was a trial judge, lives in a
city. In a legal system designed to protect the powerless from the
tyranny of the powerful, wouldn't it be nice to have a judge who
understands how the abuse of power can hurt communities? And wouldn't
it be nice to acknowledge the reality of race that is all around us
rather than attacking those for seeing what is clearly there? A deep
and personal experience of racial bias is far more valuable to our
society -- and our Supreme Court -- than denial. And while confirming
Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is critical, arguably using this
moment to teach about the continuing role of race in our society is
equally as important.