Racism – Chris Rock (from the Bigger and Blacker HBO Special)
I was going to let it go. I was going to take Kevin Drum’s advice, and adopt the following approach the whole Sotomayor thing:
After a few weeks of this, all the Democrats and maybe a dozen or so Republicans will vote to confirm her and she’ll join the court in time for the fall term.
It’s all so tedious. So instead of going though with it, why don’t we just pretend we did all this, confirm her tomorrow, and then get back to something important, like fighting a couple of wars, trying to rescue the world economy, creating a national healthcare plan, and stopping global warming?
That’s totally fair. It’s stupid to get riled up about this. There’s virtually zero chance she won’t get confirmed, and if she does it’s going to be because of something big, not because of anything that’s come out so far. So I resolved to just ignore all the arguments, to not get irritated by the dumb stuff that people say, and to not get worked up into a fervor about the need to respond.
But I kept encountering the following argument (expressed most exasperatingly here):
If a white male nominee had been discovered to have said something similar — that he was better situated to judge due to his background and life experiences than a Latina woman — he would be cashiered so fast as to induce whiplash. Those are the unwritten rules that Limbaugh and Gingrich are attempting, one suspects, to expose for their one-sidedness.
People keep saying this as if it was some kind of brilliant insight. It utterly baffles me.
You know why a white man would be excoriated for saying that? Because it would be deeply troubling. And you know WHY it would be deeply troubling? Because racism exists within a social context of existing norms and attitudes.
What these people can’t seem to wrap their mind around is that being white IS an identity. That being male IS an identity. It’s an identity which is posited as normal in our contemporary political debates, which is precisely what makes it so dangerous.
It’s not just that the way people talk about race is tremendously influenced by social position and power. Meaning that racism means something very different when the person involved is in a dominant social position as opposed to a subjugated one. See, for example, the Chris Rock clip linked above:
Man, the white man thinks he’s losing the country. You watch the news: “We’re losing everything. We’re fucking losing. Affirmative action, and illegal aliens…and we’re fucking losing the country.” Losing? Shut the fuck up. White people ain’t losing shit. If y’all losing, who’s winning? It ain’t us.
That’s true and an important point. But there’s more. It’s that someone whose identity is presumed to be non-existent will be less attuned to the way that identity DOES play a role in how decisions are made. Meaning that it’s not just less harmful in a material sense when Sotomayor makes her comment than the mirror-image would be. It’s also that her comment is true, while the opposite would be false.
Not because she has a better grasp on the ‘objective’ reality of the law, but because the experience of life outside the norm gives one perspective on the fact that there is no pure and objective reality of the law.
Which is why I wish folks talking about this quote were far more forceful in their defenses of Sotomayor. Most people start from the premise that it was a stupid comment, or say up front that it was phrased inartfully and sounds bad ‘out of context.’ Their defense is that the context makes it less troubling because she’s talking about issues directly related to race and grappling with precisely these questions, etc.
But that’s not it. Sure, the context helps. But her statement is correct. It’s not inartfully phrased, except in the sense that telling the truth may make people uncomfortable. All other things equal, someone who has not been allowed to ignore the way identity has shaped her experiences and understanding of the world WILL make better decisions than someone who has never had to experience their own identity as a lack.
Things like that Real Clear Politics piece are so aggravating not because they pose a risk to Sotomayor – who is going to be confirmed regardless, as I said – but because they contribute to the incredibly stupid way that American popular culture thinks about race. In the minds of the elite, the absolute worst thing that can happen is to be accused of racism.
Which, in a perfect form/content moment, helps to clarify PRECISELY the reason why Sotomayor’s comment is true. Because in real life, it’s far worse to experience the effects of racism than it is for someone to call you a racist. And folks who have had no choice but to encounter that reality in their daily lives will have a better understanding of the way the law influences the lives of those who live under it.
What people seem utterly incapable of wrapping their minds around is that it’s perfectly legitimate to oppose a candidate who is Hispanic. Democrats would have opposed Alberto Gonzales had he been appointed. But the reason they would have opposed him would have been…wait for it…disagreement about his political approach to the law.
No on begrudges the right of Republicans to vote against Sotomayor, or talk about how they don’t want a liberal on the Court. What people don’t like is the way that some (not all, or even most) on the Right have decided to make their opposition to her be ABOUT race.