Obama, Race, Discrimination and the Sotomayor Selection

I knew of the New Haven Conneticut case (Ricci v. DeStefano) in which appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor found against firefighters who did well on promotion tests. So well, they did better than all the applicants of another color, save one. They didn't all receive their promotions in spite of doing everything they were asked to do. Their only short fall? They were white.

This is the person that post-racial Obama has nominated for the Supreme court. Here is a short snippet from the commentary I have linked to.

...Sotomayor and two colleagues simply brushed aside the important constitutional and statutory questions raised by the city's decision to discard the results of a race-neutral test given to applicants for promotions within the department. Too many men of the "wrong" color had passed it -- that is, all of those who scored highest were white except for one Hispanic.

Those firefighters had worked hard to get the test results they did; the lead plaintiff, Frank Ricci, is dyslexic, but he had been on the force for 11 years and was determined to become a lieutenant, so he paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes and make flash cards. Ricci gave up his second job in order to study long hours -- and aced the test.

Most of the people I know have not heard of this case. It didn't make it into the news cycle with the same gusto as other stories. Many may decide she was right in her decisiopn on the case, but most would not. Even many of those I know who are not white would not agree with this. One thing they would question is the assumption being made that the blacks and hispanics aren't smart enough to beat our their white counterparts on a test, so let's give them a charity promotion. That wouldn't sit well with me were I part of a minority.

If we are going to fight discrimination based on color by discriminating based on another color then it's not about discrimination anymore. And if Obama is going to nominate such lightening rods to the highest court in the land, he is no more post-racial than the idoits who would call my wife and kids the "N word".

In spite of electing a black man to be our president, we are still caught up in the same old same old. He is not going to help heal the deep wounds of our nation and it's sordid history of discrimination and racism. No, not so long as he makes decisions like this one.

We can no more live in a country where a white man gets passed over for a job, in spite of following the rules and working hard than we can a country where a black or hipanic man can't even sniff one because of his skin color. But that IS the country that Sotomayor wants to live in, and by extention, maybe our president does as well.

This commentary is worth a read.

Commentary: Identity politics in the age of Obama - CNN.com.