Why should the white working man and womanever vote Republican again, as it is they who are the designatedvictims of the race-based justice of Sonia Sotomayor?
If the U.S. Senate rejects race-based justice, Sonia Sotomayor will never sit on the Supreme Court.
Becausethat is what Sonia is all about. As The New York Times reportedSaturday, the salient cause of her career has been advancing persons ofcolor, over whites, based on race and national origin.
“JudgeSotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico,” writesreporter David Kirkpatrick, “has championed the importance ofconsidering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicialselection at almost every stage of her career.”
At Princeton,she headed up Accion Puertorriquena, which filed a complaint with theDepartment of Health, Education and Welfare demanding that her schoolhire Hispanic teachers. At Yale, she co-chaired a coalition ofnon-black minorities of color that demanded more Latino professors andadministrators.
At Yale, she “shared the alarm of others in the group when theSupreme Court prohibited the use of quotas in university admissions inthe 1978 decision Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.”
AlanBakke was an applicant to the UC medical school at Davis who wasrejected, though his test scores were higher than almost all of theminority students who were admitted. Bakke was white.
AfterYale, Sotomayor joined the National Council of La Raza and the board ofthe Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund. Both promote race and ethnicpreferences, affirmative action and quotas for Hispanics.
Butwhy should Puerto Ricans like Sotomayor, who were never subjected toslavery or Jim Crow — their island was liberated from Spain in 1898 bythe United States — get racial or ethnic preferences over Polish- orPortuguese-Americans?
What is the justification for this kind of discrimination?
LikeLani Guinier, the Clinton appointee rejected for reverse racism, SoniaSotomayor is a quota queen. She believes in, preaches and practicesrace-based justice. Her burying the appeal of the white New Havenfirefighters, who were denied promotions they had won in competitiveexams, was a no-brainer for her.
In her world, equal justice takes a back seat to tribal justice.
Now,people often come out to vote for one of their own. Catholics for JFK,evangelicals for Mike Huckabee, women for Hillary Clinton, Mormons forMitt Romney, Jews for Joe Lieberman and African-Americans for BarackObama. That is political reality and an exercise of political freedom.
But tribal justice is un-American.
Inthe 1950s and 1960s, this country reached consensus that denying blackmen and women the equal opportunity to advance and succeed must come toan end. Discrimination based on race, color or ethnicity, we agreed,was wrong.
Sotomayor, however, has an exception to theno-discrimination rule. She believes in no discrimination, unless doneto white males and to benefit people like her.
How can anyRepublican senator vote to elevate to the Supreme Court a judge who,all her life, has believed in, preached and practiced racediscrimination against white males, without endorsing theObama-Sotomayor view that diversity trumps equal justice, andrace-based justice should have its own seat on the high court?
Downthe path Sotomayor would take us lies an America where Hispanicjustices rule for Hispanics, black judges rule for blacks and whitejudges rule for white folks.
It is an America where who getsadmitted to the best colleges and universities is not decided on gradesand academic excellence, but on race and ethnicity, where advancementin jobs and careers depends not on aptitude and ability, but on whereyour grandparents came from.
On principle, Republicans cannot support Sonia Sotomayor.
Andpolitically, if they do, why should the white working man and womanever vote Republican again, as it is they who are the designatedvictims of the race-based justice of Sonia Sotomayor?
It wasRichard Nixon who brought the white working class, North and South,into his New Majority, when he increased the Republican presidentialvote from 43 percent in 1968 to 61 percent in 1972. Ronald Reagansolidified this base.
But why should the white working andmiddle class stay with the GOP? Its presidents exported their jobs toMexico, China and Asia, and threw open America’s doors to tens ofmillions, legal and illegal, from the Third World, who have swampedtheir cities and towns. If the GOP will not end race-based affirmativeaction, which threatens the futures of their children, why vote for theGOP?
Why should white folks vote for anyone who says, “We are against race discrimination, unless it is discrimination against you”?
Obamawould not have selected Sotomayor if he did not share her convictions.And there is nothing in his writings or career to hint at disagreement.Thus it comes down to the senators, especially the Republicans. A votefor Sonia Sotomayor is a vote to affirm that race-based justicedeserves its own seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
But if that happens, it will not only be the race consciousness of Hispanics that will be on the rise in the good old U.S.A. (You can say that again.– Ed.)