Not Your Grandfather’s Bigotry

by digby

Liberals who follow politics closely are no doubt disoriented to see someone as accomplished as Sonia Sotomayor attacked for being a bullying racist by a bunch of racist bullies, but I think we should probably get a grip and understand that this is what racism looks like in 2009. The assertion of white male privilege through whining victimization is one of the main ways it will be manifested going forward. And it’s quite effective — it appeals to people’s own hidden prejudices in a way that doesn’t socially embarrass them and allows them to use fairness as a weapon, which is a great relief to bigots who have been on the defensive for decades.

But it’s important to remind good people who are possible recruits to the reverse discrimination claims that the world is still overwhelmingly run by wealthy white men and any protestation that they need affirmative action is laughable. The day that they become a minority in positions of leadership to the same extent that women are today, despite being half the population, is the day I will become sympathetic to the cries of unfairness coming from wealthy, white conservatives. Until then, all this rending of garments over a Latina being “biased” sounds suspiciously like Scarlett O’Hara’s lady friends chattering nervously about the slaves getting uppity.

*And btw, I hope that the next time someone like David Broder tries to sell us on the idea that Huckleberry Graham is some kind of reasonable moderate, that his condescending sexist questioning yesterday is stuffed down his throat. Graham is a nasty little piece of work.

Update: Not that the mainstream media is any better. This tripe from the NY Times was sadly, written by a woman too. I guess we should just be grateful they didn’t decide to speculate on her sex life.

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