The great WHAT hope?
Lynn Jenkins is either a liar or a blithering idiot. Probably both. The freshman Republican congresswoman, who edged out a Democratic incumbent in a close election last year, invoked the phrase “great white hope” in the search for a Republican savior and then denied that she meant this as racist.
How else could she mean it? She employed the word “white” in the context of an African-American president who is swiftly trying to shift the nation’s ideology, all anathema to right-wing Republicans. Interpretation is not possible here. The words are just too starkly stated.
Jenkins’ comment was not only disgusting but downright silly. True, racism probably accounts for some attacks against President Obama, but would Republicans lay off a white male who leads a comparable policy shift?
In Hiawatha, Kansas, at a forum on Aug. 19, Jenkins proclaimed: “Republicans are struggling right now to find the great white hope. I suggest to any of you who are concerned about that, who are Republican, there are some great young Republican minds in Washington.”
How vague. Really, how much plainer can one get?
When she got caught, Jenkins told the Lawrence Journal-World: “I was unaware of any negative connotation, and if I offended anybody, obviously I apologize.”
Unaware? Jenkins has a college education and has held a number of responsible positions. How couldn’t she figure out that that was insulting?
Jenkins’ phrase originated nearly a century ago when Jack Johnson, a black boxer, became heavyweight champion, which was sufficient to incite white boxing fans to long for a “great white hope,” according to The New York Daily News. James Earl Jones portrayed Johnson in both the play and movie entitled “The Great White Hope.”
Even if this wasn’t a time-worn remark, the semantics alone are offensive.
Other notable aspects raise concerns. Is she yet another model of a Republican woman in politics? Like Sarah Palin, Republican women advocate for women’s concerns, yes, the concerns of wealthy women.
It was also quite the compounded oxymoron when she referred to “some great young Republican minds.” “Mind” and “Republican” in the same sentence?
She might have taken the edge off her assault when she identified three possible “white hopes” in Congress by characterizing Eric Cantor of Virginia as “the great Jewish hope,” Kevin McCarthy of California the “Baptist hope” and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin the “Catholic hope.” Cantor, who reps suburbs of Richmond, is the last remaining Jewish Republican in Congress, so he is the only one left to embarrass me.
One last misrepresentation: To seek a “great white hope” to challenge Obama is inaccurate. Obama’s father was black, but his mother - a native of Kansas - was white. That makes Obama half-white, and contributes to making Jenkins a half-wit.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
SICKLY SENATE NEEDS SURGERY
Because James Madison compromised to enact a Constitution, President Obama is now willing to compromise to transform our health-care system.
Had Madison known that Americans would now be debating health-care reform, he probably would have predicted that the U.S. Senate might be the real stumbling block. The man who would become our fourth president believed 222 years ago that the compromise Connecticut plan to create the Senate as we know it would be unhealthy for democracy.
Madison and other delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed proportionate representation for a national legislature precisely because the minority in this country can obstruct legislation that the majority wants. It is safe to figure that the majority in 23 states with a combined population of 168 million are demanding health-care reform; if we count swing states, including Florida’s 18 million residents, the number would likely top 200 million.
The largest Jewish communities are concentrated in many of these states.
Madison probably would have expected Sen. Kent Conrad’s pronouncement that “there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option.” Conrad, a Democrat, represents North Dakota, third from the bottom in population, at 641,000 people. New York and California, whose senators all back a government program for health insurance, together represent one-sixth of the population with a combined population of 55 million.
Conrad and other Democratic senators representing at least five swing states fear they may lose their seats if they vote for a health plan with a public option.
As a result, Obama is willing to compromise, just as Madison was in 1787. Madison’s Virginia delegation introduced its Virginia plan which proposed proportionate representation in the national legislature, but delegates from small states balked out of fear their interests would be subjugated to that of the larger states.
The delegation from New Jersey, a smaller state then but now 11th highest in population, introduced the New Jersey plan to protect their clout. Then came the compromise Connecticut plan - Connecticut is now the 29th most populous state - which left us with our current system requiring a crucial difference in voting powers between the House and the Senate.
Every member of the House has nearly equal clout, each representing the same number of constituents. Each state is represented by two senators, and they hardly have equal clout. California’s senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, afford their 36.7 million constituents as much power as Wyoming’s senators, Michael B. Enzi and John Barrasso, whose state is the least populous with 532,000 people.
Madison and other delegates ultimately came around simply because they wanted a Constitution. He even helped sell the Constitution to the public when he wrote one-third of the Federalist Papers. He supported the Senate plan, but even then he warned that the system could be “injurious.”
Obama cannot be blamed if a health-care bill as he wants it will be discarded by Conrad and company. The President cannot convince them to come on board so long as they are convinced their constituents oppose the public option. In the Senate, the will of the majority does not matter. What counts is what the majority in the majority of the states want. The tail wags the dog in the Senate.
The system is doubly unfair because we all pay the same tax rates and, presumably, the larger states pour the most tax money into the federal treasury, especially from places like Beverly Hills, New York’s Upper East Side and Greenwich, Conn.
Nice racket. It gives the term “other people’s money” new meaning. The racket must end. That the present Senate should be replaced by a chamber that affords more proportionate representation is long overdue. However, the Constitution itself makes that difficult at best. Two-thirds of both chambers and three-fourths of the states must approve any amendments.
On a practical level, lawmakers from the more progressive states can exploit their power of the purse. If any smaller, conservative states clog up a proposed national policy, the House can withhold money for these states. Maybe they can authorize a nuclear waste dump next door to North Dakota’s state capitol.
Interestingly, Senate Democrats began considering a Senate procedure which would circumvent a filibuster and require only a majority vote to pass a reform bill.
Meanwhile, liberals from Greenwich Village and Berkeley can move to these states to offset the old-school votes. Not me. To paraphrase film satirist Al Brooks, you spend the winter in North Dakota.
Had Madison known that Americans would now be debating health-care reform, he probably would have predicted that the U.S. Senate might be the real stumbling block. The man who would become our fourth president believed 222 years ago that the compromise Connecticut plan to create the Senate as we know it would be unhealthy for democracy.
Madison and other delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed proportionate representation for a national legislature precisely because the minority in this country can obstruct legislation that the majority wants. It is safe to figure that the majority in 23 states with a combined population of 168 million are demanding health-care reform; if we count swing states, including Florida’s 18 million residents, the number would likely top 200 million.
The largest Jewish communities are concentrated in many of these states.
Madison probably would have expected Sen. Kent Conrad’s pronouncement that “there are not the votes in the United States Senate for the public option.” Conrad, a Democrat, represents North Dakota, third from the bottom in population, at 641,000 people. New York and California, whose senators all back a government program for health insurance, together represent one-sixth of the population with a combined population of 55 million.
Conrad and other Democratic senators representing at least five swing states fear they may lose their seats if they vote for a health plan with a public option.
As a result, Obama is willing to compromise, just as Madison was in 1787. Madison’s Virginia delegation introduced its Virginia plan which proposed proportionate representation in the national legislature, but delegates from small states balked out of fear their interests would be subjugated to that of the larger states.
The delegation from New Jersey, a smaller state then but now 11th highest in population, introduced the New Jersey plan to protect their clout. Then came the compromise Connecticut plan - Connecticut is now the 29th most populous state - which left us with our current system requiring a crucial difference in voting powers between the House and the Senate.
Every member of the House has nearly equal clout, each representing the same number of constituents. Each state is represented by two senators, and they hardly have equal clout. California’s senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, afford their 36.7 million constituents as much power as Wyoming’s senators, Michael B. Enzi and John Barrasso, whose state is the least populous with 532,000 people.
Madison and other delegates ultimately came around simply because they wanted a Constitution. He even helped sell the Constitution to the public when he wrote one-third of the Federalist Papers. He supported the Senate plan, but even then he warned that the system could be “injurious.”
Obama cannot be blamed if a health-care bill as he wants it will be discarded by Conrad and company. The President cannot convince them to come on board so long as they are convinced their constituents oppose the public option. In the Senate, the will of the majority does not matter. What counts is what the majority in the majority of the states want. The tail wags the dog in the Senate.
The system is doubly unfair because we all pay the same tax rates and, presumably, the larger states pour the most tax money into the federal treasury, especially from places like Beverly Hills, New York’s Upper East Side and Greenwich, Conn.
Nice racket. It gives the term “other people’s money” new meaning. The racket must end. That the present Senate should be replaced by a chamber that affords more proportionate representation is long overdue. However, the Constitution itself makes that difficult at best. Two-thirds of both chambers and three-fourths of the states must approve any amendments.
On a practical level, lawmakers from the more progressive states can exploit their power of the purse. If any smaller, conservative states clog up a proposed national policy, the House can withhold money for these states. Maybe they can authorize a nuclear waste dump next door to North Dakota’s state capitol.
Interestingly, Senate Democrats began considering a Senate procedure which would circumvent a filibuster and require only a majority vote to pass a reform bill.
Meanwhile, liberals from Greenwich Village and Berkeley can move to these states to offset the old-school votes. Not me. To paraphrase film satirist Al Brooks, you spend the winter in North Dakota.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
CRIME AND HEALTH CARE
Is it a war? Abortion? Israel? A racial clash? An election in Florida? No, health care.
It is really about far more - a shift in ideology and balance of power.
The wonkish health-care debate has degenerated into lynch-mob rage bonded with racist and other bigoted expressions. It has grown into the political lynching of our first President of color, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Their conduct is inexcusable. They have been crude, racist, disruptive, insulting, somewhat criminal and hypocritical. They resemble the white mobs who taunted black schoolchildren as they entered newly integrated schools 40 or 50 years ago. Organizers of the town-hall meetings have effective means at their disposal to respond, mainly by having police arrest anyone who is disruptive.
These people monopolized the early hearings, shouting at members of Congress who hosted the sessions and drowning out voices in support of health-care reform. That in itself constitutes disorderly conduct, not to mention some of the fights which erupted. Someone painted a swastika on a sign outside the office of U.S. Rep. David Scott in Georgia. The African-American congressman told the Associated Press that some of his mail contained a racial epithet and references to President Obama as a Marxist.
In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carried a sign that read “Obama and Pelosi = Mein Kampf” outside a high school where Obama hosted a town meeting; Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Sen. Arlen Specter was confronted in Lebanon, Pa., by Craig Miller, 59, who told him: “One day, God is going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you,” as The New York Daily News reported. Specter is Jewish, and one must wonder what Miller was thinking when he spouted these words.
Calvin Montgomery, 39, of Exeter, N.H., opposes a governmental role in health care, but he makes his living off the government. He told the Daily News that his employer provides him with health insurance, and his employer is a government contractor. Former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner Herb Denenberg chided Congress in a commentary for rushing into a vote, yet I do not recall Denenberg or other health-care critics scolding Congress seven years ago for rushing its vote to invade Iraq.
These spectacles are bad for our health - the health of our democratic process. The critics have every right to speak out, and they should. They may well have legitimate concerns that should be communicated to Congress for the betterment of us all. However, it is very hard to distinguish between rhetoric and genuine concerns amid all the bombast.
It is clear that the Republican Party is trying to undermine Obama; prominent right-wingers are whipping up a frenzy; and companies that will lose profits are probably financing this uproar. However, there are real people who are speaking their minds and identifying themselves for the public record.
Why do we hear from them now? For 28 years, they had no need to assert themselves so forcefully. The Republican Party turned hard right when Ronald Reagan was elected president, and has generally had its way whether it had partial or nearly complete powers during those years. The party has since collapsed of its own weight and now its hard-core followers have very limited clout in Washington.
With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, Obama and his congressional allies are moving government in a direction abhorred by right-wingers. Obama and his supporters call it public service, and his critics call it “socialism.”
As an aside, racism was injected partly because of Obama’s race, but these goons would be no less obnoxious if a white male led this movement.
The only legitimate response to such uproar is to alert police and press criminal charges. These thugs figure that their hosts are such easy marks that they can get away with anything they want short of violence. However, disrupting these meetings amounts to harassment and disorderly conduct, if not other relatively minor criminal offenses.
They’re bullies. They figure that nothing will happen to them. If the senators and House members sought arrests and criminal prosecution at the outset, these free-for-alls would have been ended swiftly. No self-respecting instigator is going to risk punishment he so richly deserves.
On a communal level, supporters of health-care reform can stand up and be counted. The lynch-mob movement provoked a backlash. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Senate candidate who represents a suburban area, shrewdly hosted a meeting in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 11, drawing far more supporters than critics. I stood in line and participated in a mini-debate where an opponent was alone against four of us health-care backers. A large crowd turned out for a rally in Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb, the following Saturday in support of reform.
A sure way to convert Calvin Montgomery, the New Hampshire guy whose employer contracts with the government, would be for the government to cancel the company’s contract, which would in turn lay off Montgomery. Then he’ll become a devoted supporter of health-care reform.
It is really about far more - a shift in ideology and balance of power.
The wonkish health-care debate has degenerated into lynch-mob rage bonded with racist and other bigoted expressions. It has grown into the political lynching of our first President of color, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Their conduct is inexcusable. They have been crude, racist, disruptive, insulting, somewhat criminal and hypocritical. They resemble the white mobs who taunted black schoolchildren as they entered newly integrated schools 40 or 50 years ago. Organizers of the town-hall meetings have effective means at their disposal to respond, mainly by having police arrest anyone who is disruptive.
These people monopolized the early hearings, shouting at members of Congress who hosted the sessions and drowning out voices in support of health-care reform. That in itself constitutes disorderly conduct, not to mention some of the fights which erupted. Someone painted a swastika on a sign outside the office of U.S. Rep. David Scott in Georgia. The African-American congressman told the Associated Press that some of his mail contained a racial epithet and references to President Obama as a Marxist.
In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carried a sign that read “Obama and Pelosi = Mein Kampf” outside a high school where Obama hosted a town meeting; Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House. Sen. Arlen Specter was confronted in Lebanon, Pa., by Craig Miller, 59, who told him: “One day, God is going to stand before you, and he’s going to judge you,” as The New York Daily News reported. Specter is Jewish, and one must wonder what Miller was thinking when he spouted these words.
Calvin Montgomery, 39, of Exeter, N.H., opposes a governmental role in health care, but he makes his living off the government. He told the Daily News that his employer provides him with health insurance, and his employer is a government contractor. Former Pennsylvania insurance commissioner Herb Denenberg chided Congress in a commentary for rushing into a vote, yet I do not recall Denenberg or other health-care critics scolding Congress seven years ago for rushing its vote to invade Iraq.
These spectacles are bad for our health - the health of our democratic process. The critics have every right to speak out, and they should. They may well have legitimate concerns that should be communicated to Congress for the betterment of us all. However, it is very hard to distinguish between rhetoric and genuine concerns amid all the bombast.
It is clear that the Republican Party is trying to undermine Obama; prominent right-wingers are whipping up a frenzy; and companies that will lose profits are probably financing this uproar. However, there are real people who are speaking their minds and identifying themselves for the public record.
Why do we hear from them now? For 28 years, they had no need to assert themselves so forcefully. The Republican Party turned hard right when Ronald Reagan was elected president, and has generally had its way whether it had partial or nearly complete powers during those years. The party has since collapsed of its own weight and now its hard-core followers have very limited clout in Washington.
With Democrats controlling the White House and Congress, Obama and his congressional allies are moving government in a direction abhorred by right-wingers. Obama and his supporters call it public service, and his critics call it “socialism.”
As an aside, racism was injected partly because of Obama’s race, but these goons would be no less obnoxious if a white male led this movement.
The only legitimate response to such uproar is to alert police and press criminal charges. These thugs figure that their hosts are such easy marks that they can get away with anything they want short of violence. However, disrupting these meetings amounts to harassment and disorderly conduct, if not other relatively minor criminal offenses.
They’re bullies. They figure that nothing will happen to them. If the senators and House members sought arrests and criminal prosecution at the outset, these free-for-alls would have been ended swiftly. No self-respecting instigator is going to risk punishment he so richly deserves.
On a communal level, supporters of health-care reform can stand up and be counted. The lynch-mob movement provoked a backlash. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a Pennsylvania Senate candidate who represents a suburban area, shrewdly hosted a meeting in downtown Philadelphia on Tuesday, Aug. 11, drawing far more supporters than critics. I stood in line and participated in a mini-debate where an opponent was alone against four of us health-care backers. A large crowd turned out for a rally in Jenkintown, a Philadelphia suburb, the following Saturday in support of reform.
A sure way to convert Calvin Montgomery, the New Hampshire guy whose employer contracts with the government, would be for the government to cancel the company’s contract, which would in turn lay off Montgomery. Then he’ll become a devoted supporter of health-care reform.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
TWILIGHT ZONE OF PREJUDICE
Racial guilt, of sorts, gnaws at me.
With the Cambridge flap looming large, two African-American women were handed a legitimate reason to wonder if I was dissing them. I stepped off a train at Penn Station in Manhattan, entered an elevator holding four other people and stood directly in front of the button panel. I spotted the two women standing outside the elevator and plenty of room was still available for them. Why should I deny them entry?
I never did. The doors closed on the women and I scrambled to find the “open” button. A man’s finger poked the air to my side as he uttered something about finding the right button. He pushed the button that sent us spiraling upward to the station concourse. I was the only white guy there; the others appeared to be Asian. These poor women had a right to wonder if I deliberately barred them from the elevator because of their race.
I felt incredibly stupid. I was tempted to tell the other guy, “Thanks a bunch.”
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. bungled his reaction to a Cambridge police officer’s visit on July 16, but his actions were nonetheless fully understandable. The officer’s investigation touched a nerve, tapping a deep reserve within Gates of centuries-old racism toward him personally and African-Americans in general. The celebrated scholar’s sensitivities were compounded by struggling with a cold and enduring an extremely long flight from China.
Lucia Whalen was performing her civic duty by alerting 911 that two men seemed to be breaking into a house. Sgt. James Crowley responded to a call of a break-in. He claimed that Gates was confrontational from the outset and showed him a Harvard identification which excluded his address, The Washington Post reported.
A smart, responsible citizen always cooperates with any symbol of authority. Gates should have waited until the incident was done and, if he was still upset with the officer’s conduct, report his concerns to the police department. Maybe Gates would have done this if he was thinking clearly at the time. If Crowley was truthful, then he might have been attempting to sort out the matter as Gates harangued him. This would mean that Gates interfered with an incomplete investigation.
Yet, Gates cannot be blamed. Gates could have been responding to the perception of prejudice. We all know the depth of racism in American history - the common practice of lynching young black men in the South; pervasive segregation only 40 years ago; widespread poverty in the black community; and even the barring of African-American campers from a suburban Philadelphia swim club weeks ago.
Boston itself is known as the North’s bastion of racism. I am sometimes the only white person when I ride Philadelphia’s buses and subways, and while visiting Boston I discovered that most passengers on its subways and trolleys were white. The few African-Americans on board were visibly nervous. Maybe Gates was irritated with persistent racial attitudes there.
Who knows what racism Gates experienced in his own life?
Gates might have been stressed out by his long flight from China and his struggle with a cold. He arrives home and maybe can only think about flopping down on his bed. Then a white police officer enters his house demanding that he provide identification on his own property. That sets him off, possibly.
With America’s history of racism and other forms of bigotry, prejudice has dimmed somewhat in this country. That presents an interesting and vexing problem. A situation may bear all the earmarks of bigotry, but it turns out not to be the case. Jewish groups seeking to build schools or synagogues in congested suburbs have charged anti-Semitism when their neighbors - less observant Jews among them - object to their grandiose plans. If a black athlete is arrested, is the “man” trying to bring him down or did he commit a crime? When an imam denounced Jews at a Muslim conference, did he represent only himself or did he verbalize what most Muslims are thinking?
Unlike the bad old days, it is often difficult to figure out what these things are all about. A white social worker who removes a child from a black mother’s home is doing exactly what many black social workers would do. There are non-Jews who criticize Israel because they genuinely believe the government misused its powers. Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that “wise Latinas” know best does not mean she hates white males.
Few of us can forget the context of our history. It is hard to trust other groups after centuries of discrimination. Some conservative Jews are already calling President Obama an anti-Semite because of his demands on Israel. Lucia Whalen was accused of racism before Cambridge police tapes proved that she did not inject race into her 911 call. Many whites cease considering any arguments on a racial issue the instant that Jesse Jackson Jr. or Al Sharpton open their mouths.
On a personal level, the harsher critics of Israel have called me an apologist and hawkish Jews likened me to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister accused of appeasing Hitler. A black jury foreman told me, during a break in deliberations in a case with racial overtones, that there were things I needed to learn. Like what? How to be abrasive and antagonize a somewhat liberal white man?
We have reached a stage that resembles a twilight zone of prejudice, where we must separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s hard work, but who said that keeping a free society free was easy?
With the Cambridge flap looming large, two African-American women were handed a legitimate reason to wonder if I was dissing them. I stepped off a train at Penn Station in Manhattan, entered an elevator holding four other people and stood directly in front of the button panel. I spotted the two women standing outside the elevator and plenty of room was still available for them. Why should I deny them entry?
I never did. The doors closed on the women and I scrambled to find the “open” button. A man’s finger poked the air to my side as he uttered something about finding the right button. He pushed the button that sent us spiraling upward to the station concourse. I was the only white guy there; the others appeared to be Asian. These poor women had a right to wonder if I deliberately barred them from the elevator because of their race.
I felt incredibly stupid. I was tempted to tell the other guy, “Thanks a bunch.”
Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. bungled his reaction to a Cambridge police officer’s visit on July 16, but his actions were nonetheless fully understandable. The officer’s investigation touched a nerve, tapping a deep reserve within Gates of centuries-old racism toward him personally and African-Americans in general. The celebrated scholar’s sensitivities were compounded by struggling with a cold and enduring an extremely long flight from China.
Lucia Whalen was performing her civic duty by alerting 911 that two men seemed to be breaking into a house. Sgt. James Crowley responded to a call of a break-in. He claimed that Gates was confrontational from the outset and showed him a Harvard identification which excluded his address, The Washington Post reported.
A smart, responsible citizen always cooperates with any symbol of authority. Gates should have waited until the incident was done and, if he was still upset with the officer’s conduct, report his concerns to the police department. Maybe Gates would have done this if he was thinking clearly at the time. If Crowley was truthful, then he might have been attempting to sort out the matter as Gates harangued him. This would mean that Gates interfered with an incomplete investigation.
Yet, Gates cannot be blamed. Gates could have been responding to the perception of prejudice. We all know the depth of racism in American history - the common practice of lynching young black men in the South; pervasive segregation only 40 years ago; widespread poverty in the black community; and even the barring of African-American campers from a suburban Philadelphia swim club weeks ago.
Boston itself is known as the North’s bastion of racism. I am sometimes the only white person when I ride Philadelphia’s buses and subways, and while visiting Boston I discovered that most passengers on its subways and trolleys were white. The few African-Americans on board were visibly nervous. Maybe Gates was irritated with persistent racial attitudes there.
Who knows what racism Gates experienced in his own life?
Gates might have been stressed out by his long flight from China and his struggle with a cold. He arrives home and maybe can only think about flopping down on his bed. Then a white police officer enters his house demanding that he provide identification on his own property. That sets him off, possibly.
With America’s history of racism and other forms of bigotry, prejudice has dimmed somewhat in this country. That presents an interesting and vexing problem. A situation may bear all the earmarks of bigotry, but it turns out not to be the case. Jewish groups seeking to build schools or synagogues in congested suburbs have charged anti-Semitism when their neighbors - less observant Jews among them - object to their grandiose plans. If a black athlete is arrested, is the “man” trying to bring him down or did he commit a crime? When an imam denounced Jews at a Muslim conference, did he represent only himself or did he verbalize what most Muslims are thinking?
Unlike the bad old days, it is often difficult to figure out what these things are all about. A white social worker who removes a child from a black mother’s home is doing exactly what many black social workers would do. There are non-Jews who criticize Israel because they genuinely believe the government misused its powers. Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that “wise Latinas” know best does not mean she hates white males.
Few of us can forget the context of our history. It is hard to trust other groups after centuries of discrimination. Some conservative Jews are already calling President Obama an anti-Semite because of his demands on Israel. Lucia Whalen was accused of racism before Cambridge police tapes proved that she did not inject race into her 911 call. Many whites cease considering any arguments on a racial issue the instant that Jesse Jackson Jr. or Al Sharpton open their mouths.
On a personal level, the harsher critics of Israel have called me an apologist and hawkish Jews likened me to Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister accused of appeasing Hitler. A black jury foreman told me, during a break in deliberations in a case with racial overtones, that there were things I needed to learn. Like what? How to be abrasive and antagonize a somewhat liberal white man?
We have reached a stage that resembles a twilight zone of prejudice, where we must separate the wheat from the chaff. That’s hard work, but who said that keeping a free society free was easy?
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