July 18, 2009AD
Laura E. Gomez is author of a book entitled MANIFEST DESTINIES: The Making of the Mexican American Race. I have no idea what she means by calling one particular American hyphenate a "race." Are Italian-Americans a race? or Irish-Americans or Vietnamese-Americans? I ask the question, but to be honest, I feel no pressing need to read the book. Ms. Gomez recently wrote an essay for USA Today, "Another proud baby of affirmative action." Of course, she was referring to herself in reference to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, soon to be the first Latina woman on the Supreme Court.
More a video game session than an essay really. Rhetorical firepower substitutes for argument against critics of affirmative action, supporters of "meritocracy," and even poor Stephen Carter (and his book, REFLECTIONS OF AN AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BABY) comes under her withering fire. Prof. Carter, by the way, supports Judge Sotomayor's nomination. But, as the title says, he reflects; Ms. Gomez blasts away like a wise Mexican drug lord on the streets of Nueva Laredo.
She does list the judge's academic record and achievements. Which no one really disputes. And, for a woman who shares the judge's bias toward wise brown women (although Ms. Gomez looks to be from Mexico's light-skinned aristocracy), she seems to be on less than intimate terms with the class experience in this country -- and probably elsewhere.
Abigail Adams once wrote her husband, John, to say that all men are "potential tyrants." I had the somewhat unique experience to attend a law school where the majority of the faculty were women. Tyrant may be too strong a word. But no challenges made to the new status quo or, more significantly, to concerns beyond it, were tolerated. One professor loudly mused in class that the First Amendment needed some trimming. (A mild comment compared to the old Irishman who taught First Amendment law and saw nothing in it to support freedom of speech.) A student -- ironically, a young man of "little people" affiliation -- had complained as loudly about a poster of fairly graphic sexual nature. The professor's idea of privacy, a leftist view, meant compelling the uninvolved to witness the private sex acts of others. Another professor stood by with arms folded while students shouted me into silence during a hypothetical. And, of course, the academic dean, who happened to be a black man, would never call on me in class after I questioned the classroom environement in the privacy of his office.
And so it goes.
Ms. Gomez (if she has a grander title, like dona of a hacienda, I would appreciate the correction) writes no where of deprivation or need. If my own law school experience is an indication, she would have often been cited in class as a wonderful example of overcoming the odds (never calculated, by the way, nor assigned a number of any kind). I had that moment of disorientation when a middle-aged woman of latin descent was literally applauded in class merely for her demographic profile and the sacrifices -- not uncommon anywhere in the world -- of her mother. She was, I believe, from Argentina -- hardly a place that discriminated against latinas or latinos. And, she was extremely light skinned. So much so that I would never have guess she was brown. But, I'm not a wise... you know. She would later invite me to stay the weekend with her husband in their home on Long Island. Anyone who lives in the northern suburbs of America's sickest city -- Detroit -- would recognize my law school colleague's neighborhood as much like Quarton Lake Road in Birmingham. Complete with a small lake. She and her husband also owned an original Jacob Lawrence -- a gift of the artist.
Another fellow student was a young woman who had been a dancer and protested Patricia Williams' (a radical Columbia Law School professor infamous for her rambling, incoherent lectures) writing that white women can't dance. Tell that to Margot Fonteyn (or anyone of Gene Kelly's beautiful partners) was I believe my colleague's response.
Which is to say -- it gets silly on the ground.
Ms. Gomez seems unacquainted with the ground. Certainly the world I wrote of in AN IMPLACABLE DESCENT might be foreign to her. High school, college, law school -- warm baths in instant acceptance compared to my experience in a Catholic high school, grad school, and law school. Not to mention eight chilly years in New York publishing.
Ms. Gomez does talk about how much she accomplished -- and I don't doubt it -- once she "crossed the threshold." From her photo, she looks no older than thirty or so. So, what threshold? What resistance? Affirmative action has now been in effect for nearly forty years. Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has done all that she can to keep it around for "another 25 years." My family are long lived, so I just might live to see it end. Barely. But, given the Ascendancy of Social Justice, I probably won't. Neither will my nephew, nor his beautiful girls -- eight and nine.
Ms. Gomez and her cohorts might say, like the dying Napoleon, "they thought I would be another Washington." No moment, not a word nor gesture indicates that this establishment, this aristocracy of guilt, will walk away from this power, this entitlement to an assured place in every institution in American life.
Ms. Gomez dares anyone to "try to assail my qualifications." Bluntly, she misses the point. No one challenges her qualifications. No. One. Cares. This is about fairness and, yes, need. About opportunity, not guaranteed success.
I was reminded again of the pitilessness of the left. The ruthlessness that lets nothing get in the way. Not the violence and ignorance of urban schools. Not lawless city streets. Not the evils of foster care and immoral judges. Not even the horrendous statistic of millions of aborted black children. Nothing disturbs the left's monarchic complacency.
I know, I've tried. No more.
It is like trying to talk to a wall. But at least a wall reflects the sound of your voice. It's a kind of response. This is more like talking to a child who keeps saying why? why? why? Or So, so, so.
Baby talk.
Sam Macomb
NOTE: Just a quibble, regarding latina and latino. The English language is in the process of ruthless gender neutralization. Yet, Spanish (and, I assume French and German as well), are allowed their masculine and feminine.
NOTE 2: I remain uncertain as to the great historic wrong inflicted on either Puerto Ricans or Mexicans compared to American slavery. Hard labor? Cultural ridicule? Accents made fun of?
Complain to the nearest hillbilly.
NOTE 3: Considering the history of Puerto Rico. Didn't we liberate it from decadent, thuggish spanish colonialism? As for Mexico... the argument can be made that Gen. Zachary Taylor and Cap't. Robert E. Lee liberated the American southwest from a century and a half of revolution, economic stagnation, government corruption, and something quite like the opposite of England's Catholic Emancipation.
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