The Republicans are losing their minds.
How else to explain the transparency in their vicious attacks on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor? What makes the charges of racism lodged by Newt Gingrich and promulgated by Pat Buchanan, radio host Rush Limbaugh, and other conservatives dangerous is the history of virulent racism utilized by Republicans, their ability to divide and conquer that was most recently on display and almost succeeded during the 2008 presidential campaign. Understanding what makes them wrong, however, helps to neutralize (neuter) their impact on the national psyche.
The Republicans are wrong in calling Sotomayor racist because no woman of Puerto Rican heritage who was raised in a Bronx housing project is powerful enough to be racist. Even one who went to private schools. Even one who graduated summa cum laude from Princeton. Even one who has been nominated to serve on the highest court in the land. Even her.
The fact is, very few individuals are powerful enough to be racist. Race is a political construction; the Human Genome Project proves that, biologically, there is no such thing as race. What plagues America is the persistence of institutionalized racism and the effective means of exploiting our nation’s racist past as employed by individuals most likely to benefit from the social construction of race difference.
Sonia ain’t one of those individuals.
Indeed, her professional ascent can only be impeded by institutionalized racism. Like most Americans, including middle, working, and low-income whites, racialist thinking, particularly when it leads to racialist decisions, would only cap her professional ambitions.
Sotomayor could be prejudiced, but her record seems to suggest that she is not.
This is the difference: Folk express prejudice when they say something like, ‘I hate Black people.’ Folk wield racism when they say, ‘I hate Black people, so I’m going to prevent them from getting a job here, getting a home here, living their natural born lives here.’
Racism denotes power. A racist is able to effectively prohibit the life, the liberty, and/or the pursuit of happiness of The Other because the racist is powerful enough to do so. Prejudiced people might hurt your feelings, but they can’t do anything with those feelings, like, say, prevent you from voting. Racism disables. Racist people can keep you from voting and be slick enough to make you think you were the one who made the decision not to register and go to the polls. Racism pulls the rug out from under you and, very often, makes you feel like it was your fault for falling.
When Limbaugh, Gingrich, Buchanan, and their buddies spit the word racist and the name Sotomayor in the same sentence, they are reinforcing the institutionalized racism that still fortifies the system controllers, those who own and control the media, Wall Street and the business sector, education, insurance companies and the health care system, and (yes, even with a Black president) the government. While the Republicans are on the decline, and racialist thinking is dying out with the old guys who still grip difference with both fists as they pull in their last breaths, it will take more than one administration to change what 400 years have wrought. That an Obama presidency will not magically eliminate the persistence of institutionalized racism has only become more evident with the public discourse over Sotomayor’s nomination.
While we as a nation should be cheering in the streets for the symbolic and real value of Sotomayor’s nomination and, hopefully, confirmation, the persistence of powerful racists has us twisting back, around and around, in circles of language and feeling and hurt and nonsense. The real dog and pony trick here? They have those of us who would benefit most from Sotomayor’s confirmation calling her the R-word.
Rug pulled.
By Eisa Nefertari Ulen, published in The Grio, June 11, 2009
Comment(s)
- § eisa said on : 06/03/09 @ 12:10
thanks, chrystal. you know we shouldn’t even trip (on pulled rugs). let’s instead pray for this sister’s confirmation and the continued march toward a more equitable society where no one can be racist. in the meantime, i’m with you: let’s at least get the terms right.
joy!
eisa
Comment(s)
- § chris chambers said on : 06/03/09 @ 12:24
We have come to a sad point when people like Rush, Tom Tancredo et al are calling people racists and gnashing their teeth?
We shouldn’t be afraid about proclaimin that this our expression, our thing. Sonia should not be couching this as an apology. But this leads to a dirty little secret. A lot of this is the fault of white liberals who have turned racism into fairy tale villian “hate” and intolerance, sucking the meaning right out of it. Now we all are racists, and we’re running around apologizing to people who never apologize or even acknowledge our concerns and experience.
Comment(s)
- § Sabiyha Prince said on : 06/03/09 @ 12:25
Thank you for the enlightening essay. While we often tout the benefits of dialogue, so much depends upon what those parties participating in these important conversations actually know about the subject matter. Your piece represents the kind of thoughtfulness and awareness that is missing from discussions initiated by mainstream media pundits and elected officials. Their thinking is not nuanced and they don’t know the history of race.
In addition, I am particularly dismayed by the racializing of Sotomayor as the race (gender, religion, sexuality and everything else) of her critics are assumed to have no role in shaping their perspectives, opinions and, given white privilege, overall status in life. I mean gee whillickers, even the most cursory familiarity with American history reminds us that whiteness only feigns invisibility – all people are shaped by their backgrounds and experiences in life. Contrary to centuries of racist pseudo-science and cultural imperialism, white men are not more objective than women or individuals and/or groups of color.
Comment(s)
- § eisa said on : 06/03/09 @ 17:19
thank you, all of you, for your supportive comments. it’s good to know we are in community and not in isolation as these attacks continue. (even newt gingrich’s apology seems mean-spirited and strategic.)
Comment(s)
- § elise said on : 06/03/09 @ 21:19
eisa, your essay expressed what so many of us have been thinking since gingrich, limbaugh, and company pulled that desperate rabbit out of their hate . . . um,, i mean hat. i guess they didn’t read the republican/conservative book of fairy tales, especially the chapter about how anyone can make it in america and be successful if you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, get a good education, and work hard. here’s one of many people who did just that! sorry you don’t like the ideology, rhetoric, or (let’s keep it real) skin color! sotomayor’s story is the “american dream” realized, but they don’t like the fact that she has not baptized herself in the american melting pot.
one thing that stuck out the most to me in hearing her story is when she talked about her first year or two at princeton . . . how she wouldn’t even dare to open her mouth because she felt so different from her classmates. how could she go through her life and forget or ignore that experience that i’m sure was brought on by many factors – race,gender, class, ethnicity? how could she not let that and many more experiences shape who she? and how could she not carry who she is into her professional life on some level? it is a sad proclamation proclaimed by even sadder people. if they think she is racist (and i too have been arguing about that word and prejudice being used as if they were synonyms), well, as my mom used to say, “it takes one to know one.” in the meantime, i’m looking forward to “sonia from the block” becoming our next supreme court justice!
Comment(s)
- § pittershawn said on : 06/03/09 @ 22:21
Although I don’t go for some of the thoughts on Sotomayor and the Human Genome Project because of different things I’ve learned, I must 100% agree with you on the difference between prejudice and racism. Tell it! Cause folks don’t realize. Racism carries power and action. Prejudice does not. Preach on it sister! Love the break down and clarification on that point.