An Open Letter To Newt Gingrich

Monday, June 08, 2009

Dear White Privilege:

You could have left well enough alone and just said "I had a little too much to drink when I called Sotomayor a racist" but instead, like some of the other great white politicians before you, decided to elaborate on your already privileged views (making yourself look more like the relic you really are) during Face the Nation saying:

"If you say people of this ethnic background are superior to people of this ethnic background, take out her language and put in the word 'white,' put in 'white male' where she had 'Latina,' that person would be disqualified from the court. Also would be disqualified as a juror."
Listen - I get it that you want to try and "reframe" the conversation so it puts the onus back on Sotomayor to try and defend herself - because that's what people like you do - but do you seriously think any of us don't see what you're doing? That you're trying to take her words out of context? That we're really supposed to believe that if you just swap out the words "Latina" and "female" for "White" and "male" that it's the same thing?

I mean do you think we'll actually drink that pale kool-aid with no flavor?

Sorry to burst your little D.C. bubble but the fact remains that no matter how hard you try - as a white male - you're life experience is going to be vastly different and if you actually look in the mirror and not just history, but your own personal life and what you've gotten from it simply because you're white - you'd actually have a clue and not use phrases like "New racism is no better than old racism" because I didn't know any of this "new racism" by POC involved things like redlining, not being able to testify in courts against whites, a little old thing called slavery, and just letting white people kill POC without anything happening to them simply because they could.

Like some of that "old racism".

Now I'm not saying that she's the end all be all, nor that if you're white you can't help with the cause or understand what POC are up against, but when there's something that needs to go to the highest court in our nation dealing with matters of race, racism, or gender, you can bet your ass I at least want a few people on there helping to decide the outcome who've had that life experience of being on the other side.

Who haven't always had the power.

Slanty