NR’s Sotomayor Cover
Neil Sinhababu has a smart take on the NR Sotomayor cover:
[T]he way I see the joke actually depends on incongruities between the stereotypes of the nonwhite ethnicities involved. The Buddha-like pose and Asian features are tied to lofty pretensions of sagelike wisdom. And what sort of person is it who’s pretending to be some kind of sage? A Hispanic woman! As if.
The in-joke in this cover is for people who have already internalized a stereotype of Hispanic women as hotheaded and not that bright. Put one of them in the Buddha suit, and if you’ve absorbed the right racist stereotypes, the incongruity is hilarious.
I think that definitely captures some of what’s happening here. It should also be said that some of the ugliness of this whole thing clearly stems from the whole dysfunctional relationship our political system has to Supreme Court appointments. I remember from the Alito nomination that it’s somehow very difficult to articulate the view that “the president is someone whose ideas I think are wrong so I’m convinced that his SCOTUS pick also has bad ideas, but those who like the president are bound to see this differently.” Instead, there’s incredible pressure to “unearth” the “truth” about the nominee and how deep down he or she is history’s greatest monster.
86 Responses to “NR’s Sotomayor Cover”
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June 7th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
My favorite part of the National Review is the fold-in on the last page.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Look, I hate these dirtbags and their shitty rotten Dixie uprising magazine, but what the image is clearly meant to do is lampoon the supposedly worshipful PC liberals who are imagined to regard Sotomayor in this way.
That’s what it’s about. I think that the shitty cartoon is aimed at mocking the PC liberal observers, not so much Sotomayor, although, yes, part of the joke involves an assumption that Sotomayor is nothing at all like a wise Buddha or whatever, which likely she is not.
It’s about the Rush Limbaugh type joke that liberals are all easily hypnotized by any PC claim so if an ethnically Puerto Rican judge who grew up working class invokes that identity in any way, liberals all immediately fall into a hypnotized trance in which they have the vision on the cover.
Meanwhile, in the real world, right wingers think that it’s funny and convincing to make jokes about Obama and a teleprompter, to lampoon a type of salad green as gay and elitist, and speculate on the vault / long form / whatever nature of the latest birth certificate rant.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
“there’s incredible pressure to “unearth” the “truth” about the nominee…”
Tabloid journalism spillover: the networks are congenitally allergic to substantive reporting. SCOTUS related issues are gnarly and deep in their intellectuality. Ergo, the coverage is bound to suck.
The wing-nuts on the right are just happier to go along with the known biases of the journo establishment on this.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
That’s what it’s about. I think that the shitty cartoon is aimed at mocking the PC liberal observers, not so much Sotomayor, although, yes, part of the joke involves an assumption that Sotomayor is nothing at all like a wise Buddha or whatever, which likely she is not.
Because there are no Hispanic symbols of wisdom with which to mock her. Which is exactly why this isn’t a racist-at-heart image.
And since I’m a bit dense, who is it that this is supposed to mock? Name some names. I’ve missed their comments.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Pretty much anyone could have a smarter take than MattY, and, without really knowing that much about him other than the excerpt, pretty much anyone (except for MattY) could have a smarter take than Neil Sinhababu.
Is it difficult at all to imagine them doing the exact same thing – with only the genders reversed – with Joe “I’m smarter than you” Biden?
The “liberal” “analyses” of a magazine cover (!) do however reveal a lot about certain problems “liberals” have.
As for the truth about SS, she was a member of this group for six years and she joined them just four years after they gave an award to someone who’d proposed genocide.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Me, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they just said, “We want it to look like that Buddha picture.” ( http://burningbosom.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/buddha3.jpg )
And the first version came out, and they looked at it and said “What’s with all that mascara?” and the reply was “Well, look at the original. Something’s going on with the eyelashes.”
“But we don’t want it to look like we’re saying she goes overboard on the makeup. Make it look like those other Buddhas, with the weird eyes.” ( http://mantraworldtravel.com/en/wp-content/themes/aeros/images/buddha_eyes.gif )
… and they would have gone through this process regardless of the ethnicity or gender of the nominee.
Of course, NOW that it’s a big issue, they’ll deny the accusations unconvincingly, since the amount of attention they’re getting makes them look like publishing business GENIUSES.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Acephalous has a good take on this, pointing out (with images!) that the illustrator added slanty eyes that don’t appear on Sotomayor or, er, the Buddha.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
And what sort of person is it who’s pretending to be some kind of sage? A Hispanic woman! As if.
It is very unwise to go around saying how wise you are, which is why she was lampooned. This goes for “Hispanics” and non-Hispanics”, women and men.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Really? Really? You mean, I’ve suggested something controversial in mentioning that right wingers think that liberals are all a bunch of PC followers who worship anyone who invokes ethnicity etc? You assumed I was defending them as not being racist? What gives?
What do you mean who is it supposed to mock? Like much of right wing humor, it mocks the people that right wingers imagine liberals to be. Why would it have to be supported by names and by real people? Why would it have to be connected to reality in any way whatsoever? This is the National Review and the cartoon is for their shitty deluded right wing readers, because it insults liberals and ethnic groups and, yes, too, the notion that Sotomayor could be wise.
Turn on any right wing radio show and listen to the hosts when they tell their idiot listeners who liberals are and what they believe and what they are aiming for.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Shut the fuck up, Lonewacko.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
And once again idiot shitbag blogwhore comes on here to try and get people to give a shit because Sotomayor was on the board of the National Council of La Raza which properly gave an award to a distinguished, accomplished professor and Dallas government attorney who said some crazy shit in 1969, at the very same time that right wing purity campaigner David Horowitz was working with Huey P. Newton and the Black Panthers.
Oh, and, um, Bill Ayers. “Proposed genocide” my ass. What a god-damn scaredy cat white boy. Even the tobacco-picking good old boys I grew up with would laugh at how AssForAHead gets frightened of every brown shadow.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
You assumed I was defending them as not being racist? What gives?
You said the drawing wasn’t racist and I think it is. I don’t think the rationale for the drawing that you provided is, in fact, the rationale for the drawing.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Then good. Then we differ and you go with whatever view of it you like and which convinces you.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
And I didn’t say anything about whether the cartoon was or was not racist.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I read the cover as not so much contrasting the wisdom of the Buddha to what NR imagines is Sotomayor’s lack of it as suggesting that her hoped-for “wisdom” is a risible pretension, in the manner of the fraudiulent ’60s Indian pop gurus of fond memory. In any case, NR certainly doesn’t mean to suggest that a wise Latina is equally wise as a wise white man; rather, that it’s laughable for Sotomayor to even hope to be wise.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
“slanty eyes that don’t appear on Sotomayor or, er, the Buddha.”
That depends on which Buddha depiction you look at. The Buddha tends to look like the people who made him. In Cambodia, he looks Cambodian. In China, he looks Chinese. In India, he looks Indian. In Japan, he looks Japanese. In Thailand, he looks Thai. In Vietnam, sometimes he looks like Confucius. Sometimes he’s fat, sometimes he’s skinny. The only constant is that he’s tall for the culture depicting him.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
I’m sickened by this National Review cover, it’s clearly racist and confused, and manages to insult Latinos, Asians, and frankly anyone who isn’t white, since National Review clearly doesn’t know the difference between minorities. And clearly doesn’t care.
Frankly, the fact that there haven’t been mass resignations from the magazine in the wake of this…well, I haven’t the words to explain what I think of these people.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Honestly, it’s offensive to anyone with a shred of respect for others.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
“That depends on which Buddha depiction you look at.”
Except at the site tomemos linked to, the guy shows you the picture of the Buddha Lowry sent to his artist, Genn, and that one clearly doesn’t have slant-eyes.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
because it insults liberals and ethnic groups and, yes, too, the notion that Sotomayor could be wise.
It lampoons her for going around and saying that she is wise. All the great sages – Confucius, Jesus, Socrates – stressed the primacy of modesty and humility as virtues and advised against pride.
It is quite a stereotype to declare that “ethnics” are below absorbing the wisdom of moral and religious teachings that have been around for millenniums and are insulted just because a fellow “ethnic” (according to the parochial definition of US Census Bureau) is made fun of. Actually, that is quite an insulting stereotype that is not based on actual Latin American culture in which it is bad form to talk much about oneself. The Gringo cultural practices of praising oneself, “selling” oneself, offering oneself as a “role model”, and talking about one’s accomplishments are shunned upon.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
You know what’s interesting? I don’t think I’m going to have much luck finding people opposed to the “right” kind of genocide. I guess there’s that whole history of “liberalism” thing to take into account.
To see the quote and obtain background information, SS was a member of this group for six years.
P.S. This is interesting. It’s a good thing for him that he has a fairly common name, otherwise someone could, just as an example, try to get some of the interesting things he’s written to the top of google searches for his name.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
For actual satirical humor instead of Dixie uprising armpit fart noises from the right, there’s The Onion:
June 7th, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Please! Please everyone! Come look at my blog where I try to make the National Council of La Raza into an organization of genocidal maniacs! Please! I offer you links! I’ll post them repeatedly! Please please visit my blog, libs!
June 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Is it really worth dedicating two posts to the rotting corpse of post-Buckley National Review? In the old days we could at least count on the racism being clear and concise.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
I don’t think I’m going to have much luck finding people opposed to the “right” kind of genocide.
What, the kind that never actually happens? I will admit that is my favorite kind of genocide.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Oh! No! Someone lampoons the pretentious self proclaimed “Wise Latina”! You know the one that a priori thinks being a “wise Latina” makes her a better judge than a white guy? And who has not only spoken but written of that racist attitude. Not once as tghe ObaLiar tells us but repeatedly.
Racism! Racism! Racism!
I know, I know we can’t make fun of the middlebrow otherwise undistinguished affirmative action nobody.
WahWahWah!
Now how’s come yous ahole libs had no problem with the Bush Chimp jokes? Nor Cheney jokes?
Huh?
Sad pathetic progressives constantly reduced to calling their opponents racists just because they don’t have their tongue up your ObaFuhrer’s ass.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Jeeze, I think the commenters are dumber and douchier than normal today. Things like “Obafuhrer”? That isn’t even a clever spin on the Obama is Hitler meme.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
For generations, whites denigrated minorities with racist caricatures.
Then, the Civil Rights Movement made racism deeply unpopular with most Americans. As a result, most people stopped saying racist things because they realized that racism was wrong. Some conservative whites stopped saying racist things because they would suffer criticism for their racist views — this horrible injustice is known as “political correctness.”
Now, those conservative whites use racist caricatures to make fun of liberals and political correctness. They seem to think that using racist tropes and caricatures is OK because they do not mean to make fun of minorities, they mean to make fun of political groups (which notably include most of the minorities in the USA). If they happen to denigrate minorities and reinforce racial stereotypes in the process, it’s just because other people do not get the joke.
Maybe there is a meaningful difference between the past use of racist caricatures to attach minorities and the modern use of racist caricatures to attack political correctness, but I have yet to hear it articulated.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Is Rarely Posts so ignorant that s/he seriously believes that “minorities” have never made use of racist stereotypes?
Hows bout HymieTown Jackson?
Or Tawanna Sharpton?
Or all you good progressives who so quickly denounced the Duke Lacrosee because they were white?
Seriously, you chose to defend a crack head stripper ho because she was black and so her story had to be true!
Even after her story was revealed as lies and more lies the ahole left went on defending the worthless ho.
And EricTheHack, ObaFuhrer has nothing to do with comparing him to Hitler. But it does reference the mindless propaganda driven veneration shared by Good Germans and ObaBots for their leader.
Seriously, what American politician of recent vintage has lied and flipflopped on so many major issues in his first six months?
And the response from the left?
Sieg Heil!
June 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
As to Racists I think ObaFuhrer outshines David Duke.
After all he wants us to believe that his very own Clarence Thomas is the best most qualified Latina in our great nation?
Really?
HaHaHa!
Did ObaFuhrer not read her pathetic all-but-signed-by-her-law-clerks opinions? She is so low brow that, like a no-talent undergraduate, she thinks endless footnotes paper over her shallow thought.
Did he not note her 60% reversal rate?
Oh yes I know, all dose udder judges dey be racists!
Even her Latino mentor who found cause to rebuke her sad writings.
Sotomayor is such a mediocrity that ObaFuhrer insults all Americans telling us that she is the wisest of wise Latinas.
Just another sad joke being played on America.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
People whose eyes have an epicanthic fold (the usual Chinese-style eye) have narrow eyes, but they’re just as horizontal. The 45 degree eyes, I think, are only found in Western caricatures.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
JT,
You’ve got spittle on your chin.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Y’know, Puerto Rico has Buddhists of its own.
http://cbp.memberlodge.org/
And if that site is an accurate representation, how do THEY portray the Buddha? As an Asian (or of Asian descent/relation.)
June 7th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
*sigh* The cover was obviously created to generate outrage on the part of liberals. The National Review is, unfortunately, no longer even ostensibly a highbrow political publication. It has been thoroughly Rush-ified. (I say this as someone who found Buckley to be interesting and entertaining, if often wrong and, on occasion, morally monstrous.) The proper approach to this cover is, at most, eye rolling. DON’T FEED THE TROLLS, even when they publish famous magazines.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Tintin over at Sadly No continues the gargantuan task of fixing the internets
June 7th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I know this is more trouble than its worth, but just for the record, Sonia Sotomayor can reference a ‘wise latina’ other than herself. Actually, since the quote she’s referencing its supposed to be parallel to a ‘wise old man’ and most 47 year olds don’t self describe as old yet, you might even say its LIKELY she’s not talking about herself, but rather other wise role models she knows.
Grace and peace
June 7th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
El Cid is exactly right on this, the cover is mocking the imagined liberal PC folks that the image is mocking, the Buddha thing is just a convenient visual trope for “wisdom”, plus it helps that PC flakes are usually into that Eastern religion shit. It is in fact, shares a number of resemblances to that New Yorker cartoon of Obama – which was obvious poking fun at right wing caricatures, but was nonetheless denounced all over the cables as “racist”. I won’t hold my breath for a similar denunciation coming from Lou Dobbs.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
On second thought, there are some key differences from the New Yorker cover. Those depictions were pretty close to what right wingers were actually saying, whereas with the NR cover, I don’t think anyone is equating her with having some kind of transcendental gift for interpreting the law.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
[...] Me: Who the fuck is the National Review? Boyfriend: Some conservative magazine. Me: *punches computer screen* [...]
June 7th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
OK this may seem really dumb but it’s an honest question:
What’s the difference between this kind of caricature and, say, one where we always show a Scotsman in a kilt playing bagpipes, possibly drinking? Is that racist, too, and I just didn’t realize it? Or is there some distinguishing factor in the case here?
June 7th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Lupita @ 20/8: It lampoons her for going around and saying that she is wise.
If you look at the context of the speech, she’s responding to a saying (attributed to Justice O’Connor) that “a wise man and a wise woman will rule the same way,” and pointing out why this is true; which is why diversity in the legal profession is a good thing.
People have been discussing this speech for a while now. You’ve had plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the context of her remarks. If you can’t be bothered, you should consider shutting up.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
*pointing out why this is untrue
June 7th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
JT,
Many minorities have used racist caricatures in the past. Nothing in my writing suggested that I thought minorities were incapable of racism or racist actions. I was talking about this magazine cover and similar phenomena; I was not trying to describe all racism in the USA.
Honestly, I rarely post because of exactly this type of completely mindless regurgitation of irrelevant and/or inaccurate talking points in a vicious manner. Why must some people be so tiresome?
June 7th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Matt W-
technically she disagrees with Justice O’Connor-the key challenge is that in cases of discrimination, Sotomayor argues that a wise latina will do better than a white man.
I tend to agree with her, which is WHY diversity is valuable on the supreme court (and everywhere else in life)-a diversity of viewpoints is more likely to lead to good decisions.
June 7th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
By the way, Andrew McCarthy (lead contributor to NR’s Sotomayor edition) together with Bill Kristol and Michael Goldfarb vie for the title of worst human being in America who has not directly participated in the murder or rape of anyone. McCarthy might be the worst. Maybe it’s because I’m a lawyer, but I’m more disgusted by McCarthy’s enthusiasm for torture than Kristol and Goldfarb’s enthusiasm for war and general amoral hackery. Clearly, something in the U.S. institutions of legal education failed deeply with that man. The thought that he once represented the Justice Department as an AUSA is chilling.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:03 pm
Ironically, this fold-in is on the cover. The limbs of the lotus tree behind Sotomayor form a silhouette of Obama’s head. See the ear behind/above the N in National Review?
June 7th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
Neil is reading too much into it, the joke is just about the “wise” usage, it would have suited them just as well if this was Hillary in an alternative universe being nominated for SCOTUS (or anything) and she had these quotes in her background (a man just as well).
The oddness of it is ridiculing the notion of wisdom, at least in terms of people living today, and its value (or lack of it) in our culture.
Of course, they’ll have fun with “wise Latina” for some time, I imagine, but the “Latina” part is the least important aspect of their general reaction and the cartoon, various stereotypes of the passionate, fiery Latina woman notwithstanding.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
. The National Review is, unfortunately, no longer even ostensibly a highbrow political publication.
Oh, ostensibly they are. I’m sure their readership considers the act of reading NR to be a “highbrow” experience. The thing is that standards of different in conservo-America.
June 7th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
Latinasattva, would you take me by the hand?
June 7th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
More simply, you could substitute just about any other identifier for “Latina”, after “wise”, and probably get a similar reaction, and as for the racism charges, those seem wildly out of place in regards to this cartoon, or the Right ridiculing her “wise” pretension (as they see it), as Sotomayor is the one responsible for initially injecting ethnicity into this context in the first place.
The fact the identifier is an ethnicity just makes it probably even more absurd to the Right (and to a lot of people), since few would publicly ever claim wisdom is unique or more pronounced in a particular race or ethnicity. In our culture, the only real general weight given for wisdom is age.
Of course, complete context is totally and intentionally lost by the Right and the cartoon, since Sotomayor didn’t even start the context/conversation about “wise man and wise woman” judge, but this is par for the course on the Right, who really just care about getting their way and tricking whoever needs to be tricked in order to do so.
Still, the “wise Latina” usage doesn’t help matters, and in many ways should be condemned, because ideally no race or ethnicity should be injected into the law, and various Latinas are going to have so many disparate experiences, backgrounds and living conditions, it’s absurd to say things like “wise Latina wiser than white man”, especially as a judge, whether or not you are talking about law impacting minorities, and the same goes for someone saying “wise Black”, “wise Jew”, “wise Pole”, etc.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
People have been discussing this speech for a while now. You’ve had plenty of time to familiarize yourself with the context of her remarks. If you can’t be bothered, you should consider shutting up.
Sotomayor has repeated the “wise Latina” bit in several speeches, or maybe she only has one speech and repeats it over and over.
Furthermore comparing a wise Latina with any old white dude, which she does, is comparing apples and oranges. One could equally say that a wise alien is wiser that a Latina.
So she does go around saying she is wise, which is unwise.
Furthermore, all the debate surrounding Sotomayor has not been reported in Latin America. So saying that Latins are offended is way off mark. On the other hand, it was widely reported that some idiot senator of yours said that Mexico was the US’ back yard. There were numerous editorials saying this was disrespectful and offensive and the senator apologized, which was again widely reported. This incident was hardly reported in the US.
Yanks are obsessed with race. Latin Americans are obsessed with Yankees meddling in our affairs. Different cultures.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
What’s the difference between this kind of caricature and, say, one where we always show a Scotsman in a kilt playing bagpipes, possibly drinking? Is that racist, too, and I just didn’t realize it? Or is there some distinguishing factor in the case here?
Maybe a Yank would have a different answer, but no, neither a caricature of a Scotsman in a kilt or a Mexican in a huipil is intrinsically offensive. At least not in Latin America. In the US, however, what passes as the left seems to be supplanting negative national stereotypes with absurdly positive ones in a last ditch effort to avoid addressing issues of class.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Furthermore comparing a wise Latina with any old white dude, which she does, is comparing apples and oranges. One could equally say that a wise alien is wiser that a Latina.
Oh really? She’s said that since her 2001 Berkley Law speech? That would be interesting to hear about. Please cite dates and places available in the public record, no “someone overheard her at a dinner party” crap.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I’ll spell out a stereotype: Asian are natural Republicans. They usually come from traditionalist cultures that default to a conservative mindset. New Asian immigrants have tended to be generally religious, mostly entrepreneurial, anti-communist/pro-capitalist, etc. They hate taxes and don’t think government services and policies are meant for them so are usually against them. Yankee Republican with a bit of Southern relgiosity mixed in.
So, Republicans should be courting this growing, well-educated, wealthy portion of the population. Nope. The Republican Party and their intellectual leaders ostentatiously reject them with mockery and disrespect (we’re big on “face”). This cover will not go down well with us Asians.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Asians, though they voted Republican during the Clinton era, have made a very sharp shift to the Democratic Party in recent years. The Democratic share there is roughly that of Latinos; if you factor out the Vietnamese, who roughly occupy the same position as Cubans, it’s even greater.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Please cite dates and places available in the public record
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life”
It is obvious that a wise whatever with a rich life is better than a whatever who is not wise and has led a dull life. It is a stupid comment which is why even Obama said that she had not chosen her words very well.
Why is it that Yanks think they are doing Latin Americans (”ethnics”) a favor by defending the stupid comments of a fellow Yank who has Latin American ancestors? You would be more helpful if you addressed issues such as agricultural subsidies, covert assassinations, and financial raids.
But that would be too leftist for you, no?
June 7th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Excuse me. My entire post is underlined and the link did not appear. I will try again.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Hmm… I will just post it directly.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/05/sotomayor.speeches/
June 7th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
This cover will not go down well with us Asians.
You are as gringo as Sotomayor.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
@Lupita:
What does this mean? That we asians are the “good” minority (you know, “the other white meat”) so we can’t complain when we encounter an image that immediately and viscerally resonates with us as overtly racist and disparaging? Or is there some kind of snark there that I’m not catching?
June 7th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
Why is it that Yanks think they are doing Latin Americans (”ethnics”) a favor by defending the stupid comments of a fellow Yank who has Latin American ancestors?
Because, like people in every country, we care far more about our country than we do about others. I thought that was obvious.
June 7th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Maybe, but in that case, don’t read and comment on blog posts explicitly dealing with a U.S. Supreme Court nominee and her critics.
If I want to see what the debates are in Latin America I read Latin American newspapers and magazines and tune into Latin American radio.
Ecuadoran daily El Comercio covers some of the latest Sotomayor debate here.
Now, maybe El Comercio would be better off discussing other subjects, and if so, you should tell them.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:30 pm
Sotomayor argues that a wise latina will do better than a white man.
Getting closer but — sadly — no.
OT. I just watched an episode of MI-5 and they used the contraction “daren’t.” Is that hoity-toity or what?
June 7th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Lupita,
You really know very little about the United States. Stop calling us all Yankees or Yanks; it is really ignorant.
It is very unwise to go around saying how wise you are, which is why she was lampooned. This goes for “Hispanics” and non-Hispanics”, women and men.
I get that the square quotes indicate that you think Hispanic is a made-up ethnicity, which is also your point about the comment about the categories of the “parochial” US census bureau. Well, all ethnicities are socially and culturally constructed. Deal with it. The census bureau isn’t so much imposing a category as adapting to the categories that stem from lived experience in our society. They’re all made up, but that doesn’t mean they’re not “real”, they’re just not “natural”, whatever that would mean.
As someone told you in another thread, you need to listen more and stop lecturing Americans, as you have a truly blinkered understanding of our culture and politics.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Stop calling us all Yankees or Yanks; it is really ignorant.
By which I mean, in case it wasn’t clear, that Yankee is a specific category; some Americans are Yankees and some are not.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I need to go on some french/quebecois (after all, what’s the diff, right?) blog and tell all the commenters there that they’re just a bunch of parochial ignoramuses arguing over arbitrary trivialities. If they were really concerned about stuff, they’d be concerned about the stuff I’m concerned about! My french might just be up to the task and Lupita has shown me the way…
June 7th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
all ethnicities are socially and culturally constructed.
Whereas american ethnicities were born in the bowels of the US Census Bureau.
The census bureau isn’t so much imposing a category as adapting to the categories that stem from lived experience in our society
That is false. No Latin American calls him/herself “Hispanic” or “Latino”. Real ethnic groups transmit their culture and language to the next generation whereas only 5% of your immigrants (not “ethnics”) are able to transmit their mother tongue to their American offspring. The US, far from being multicultural, is a black hole of foreign cultures and languages.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Yankee is a specific category; some Americans are Yankees and some are not.
I understand, however, I am using the term in its global sense. Americans around the world are know as Yankees or Gringos. Brits call you Sepos. Just like you have names for us (Latino, Hispanic) that we do not use or use to mean something totally different, so do we have names for you.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:21 am
Well, Neil is a moron, now isn’t he?
Something for Neil to ponder: wisdom is not the opposite of unintelligent.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Deeply offensive to all Asians and to Hispanics.
That was the objective, wasn’t it, of these racists?
June 8th, 2009 at 1:42 am
No Latin American calls him/herself “Hispanic” or “Latino”.
I think the point is that it is a category in America.
Real ethnic groups transmit their culture and language to the next generation whereas only 5% of your immigrants (not “ethnics”) are able to transmit their mother tongue to their American offspring.
Insisting that certain things define a “real” ethnic group (as opposed to…what? A made up/constructed one? I’d say that you’re missing something important if that is your distinction) really misses the point.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Lupita,
Thanks for bringing some good sense to this blog. You’ll soon find that what makes this blog so chatrming is precisely the insight it offers into the airheaded ditziness of late-capitalist America. Don’t give out too much personal information though, because the patrons of this blog include an unrepentant bank robber, a deranged Muslim anti-Semite, and the genteel Klansman Steve Sailor, all rather dangerous people. Welcome.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:14 am
“Brits call you sepos”??? Speaking as a Brit, I had to go and look ’sepo’ up on the interweb: Urban Dictionary tells me it’s Australian rhyming slang (Septic Tank = Yank). If Lupita thinks that the terms Australian and British are the same or interchangeable, that would explain why he/she is having such difficulty understand the difference between race and ethnicity…
June 8th, 2009 at 9:17 am
George Bush is not actually a chimp. The jokes based on comparissons to chimps were unfair. Whether they were unfair to Bush or the chimps is a matter of debate.
Jokes about Cheyney being a callous, evil, sadist were made to relieve the tension brought about by the fact that our vice president was a callous, evil, sadist.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:20 am
Personally, I think it would be nice if instead of saying “Hector is Latino” we said, “Hector is Dominican”, or Peruvian, or Cuban, or Mexican, or Puerto Rican as it were. And instead of saying “John is Black”, we said African-American, or Jamaican, or Ethiopian, as it were. American racial classifications are really, really dumb. Of course many things about the United States are really, really dumb so our system of racial classification is hardly unique in that regard.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:38 am
No Latin American calls him/herself “Hispanic” or “Latino”.
Well, in that case, Sotomayor can’t have been referring to herself with the comment about a “wise Latina”. Now that you have refuted yourself, will you go away?
June 8th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Real ethnic groups transmit their culture and language to the next generation
Apparently the only Irish people left in the world are in the towns of the west coastal gaeltacht.
That said, I’m sort of amused by Lupita’s persistent pissed-offedness of the entire existence of this blog. Last time she was ranting that we had the audacity to admire Sotomayor’s upbringing from a housing project in the Bronx, which she considered not too impressive because she had running water and thus wasn’t “really” poor.
June 8th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Um, plus the fact that they deliberately tried to make her look physically unattractive. She’s useless to these guys if she wouldn’t look stunning in a bikini.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Thanks, Hector, for the welcome.
Insisting that certain things define a “real” ethnic group (as opposed to…what? A made up/constructed one? I’d say that you’re missing something important if that is your distinction) really misses the point.
Just like your financial system missed the point of actually creating real wealth and promoting long-term stability. “Real” in quotations? That is worthy of Colbert.
Sotomayor can’t have been referring to herself with the comment about a “wise Latina”
Sotomayor is a Gringa. Gringos call themselves Italians, Asians, Irish, of whatever some remote ancestor was. The whole world knows, of course, that they are Gringos.
June 8th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
[...] A smarter take than mine on that National Review cover [via Yglesias] [...]
June 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
It should also be pointed out how oddly vaginal those flowers surrounding her are.
June 8th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Lupita:
Gringa? Or a Puerto Rican version of a Pocha (for all those who dont know, a pocha is a very aculturated ultra- assimilated mexican-american woman, don’t know if Nuyoricans have a similar term). I put question marks there because I’m not entirely sure of what you mean by calling her “gringa”? Not offended, just genuinely curious (and a tad confused).
June 8th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
In Mexico “gringo” means American, as in “gringo chocolates”, “the gringo invasion”, or a “gringo/a”. When I say Sotomayor is a Gringa, I mean she is American, that is, not a foreigner (from Americans’ perspective). This is how it is used in Mexico though I understand that in the US it may have another connotation. Guess what kind of connotation. Racial! Always racial.
As to your definition of “pocho”, it is different from that in Mexico. In Mexico it means Spanglish or a Spanglish-speaking person. In another context, “pocho” means “incomplete” which is why it is also used in reference to people who mix words from English while speaking Spanish, their Spanish is “incomplete”.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Lupita:
You might have missed this part:
That sentence, or a similar one, has appeared in speeches Sotomayor delivered in 1994, 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2001. In that speech, she included the phrase “than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” at the end, which sparked cries of racism from some Republicans.
It’s the “I might be able to judge things better than a white guy” part (that she said once) that offended conservatives so much from what I get. Otherwise without that sentence she’s just saying that a judge from a background of diverse experiences might make better decisions is pretty uncontroversial.
But I thought that the extra addition didn’t venture anywhere near racism anyway, if you want to call me the white woman who’s racist against white people, go ahead and waste your words I guess.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
if you want to call me the white woman who’s racist against white people, go ahead and waste your words I guess.
Why would thinking Sotomayor’s comment is uncontroversial be racist? Do Americans consider people racist when they agree with another person who does not share their personal ancestry? Surely you have hit a new PC low!
Furthermore, Sotomayor is also white. By your own tortured race/ethnicity definitions, “Hispanics” can be of any race and Sotomayor looks white to me, though I acknowledge that Americans, whose perceptions have been historically fine-tuned to detect one drop of non-white blood, may see something I do not.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Lupita,
Part of your point is that the categories of identity that you feel are “real” are somehow more legitimate than the equally constructed categories that obtain in American and other societies. Well, ok, but insisting that some categories are stupid because they are “made up” really won’t get you or any of us anywhere.
It’s simply not true that Americans refer to themselves as members of ethnicities but the world knows they are gringos. Tell that to the Irish newspapers that follow the doings of Irish Americans and obsessively trace the Irish lineage of American officials. I am a member of an ethnic group and am recognised as such by fellow members I’ve met in Germany, the UK and around the world. As an American and as a member of a particular diasporic culture.
You are also wrong the no one uses the categories hispanic or latino except Americans. They are quite common where I live, Canada—where identities that you describe as a figment of American imagination are defining categories–and I’ve heard those terms in Britain and Ireland. I’m not surprised that people living in Latin American countries don’t use those terms–they describe identities and communities in our immigrant society. Insisting that hispanics, Irish, Italians, etc., are all an undifferentiated mass of white people, and that it is self indulgent to employ those categories, removes a useful tool to analyze and describe real, lived differences among communities.
You need to stop your harangues and read a book. _How the Irish Became White_ might be a good start.
Part of your point seems to be that it is silly for us outsiders to use terms like Hispanic or Latino that those communities don’t apply to themselves. Then you argue that it is fine to call a person from Georgia a “Yankee” because that’s what some outsiders around the world do, even if it’s not the category that person uses himself.
I’m sure you can see the silliness of your argument.