I get mighty annoyed by the unspoken implication in a lot of commentary that anyone not a member of a Protected Minority must have grown up in a twelve-bedroom lakeside mansion and been chauffered off to prep school with a silver spoon in his mouth. Judge Sotomayor was raised in public housing? So was I. Her mother was a nurse working late shifts? So was mine. When did white working poor people disappear off the face of the earth? Where are the eager listeners to their "compelling stories"?
John "Help, Help, I'm Being Repressed" Derbyshire.
What our good friend from the NRO doesn't quite understand is the very real fact that for as long as their have been "minorities" in the United States, they have have to work harder, prove more, and struggle in ways that the "average white girl from Montana" could not possibly comprehend.
Also, it should be pointed out that it has only been within the lifetime of my oldest sister that minorities have been able to rise to the positions that they currently reside in - but this is becuase they fought to get there. Simply because you don't see racism, bigotry, and sexual-discrimination on a daily basis doesn't mean that it isn't there.
And isn't this a classic example of what it means to be a white, conservative, male? They see no racial significance if it is the "white man" that is in power, yet they whinge and squeal when a qualified, Hispanic, woman ( whom has worked tirelessly to get where she is, no matter the obsticles ) is in a position of power or has the opportunity to.
And, deeper still, it is the opportunity for a minority ( especially a woman ) to have a seat at the table that troubles white men like Derbyshire.
No one has said that there aren't struggles for "white" people. This is simply a way for Derbyshire to mask his own willfull ignorance of race, and how it is viewed in the socio-political realm, so that he can complain that someone that isn't white has actually accomplished something.
John Derbyshire might not be a racist, but he is most certainly an ignorant buffoon.
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