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Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson, Obsessed With Race
Surprise Meter stuck on zero.A court seat for privilege... By Derrick Z. Jackson | January 14, 2006 AMAZING AMNESIA. How sweet the white privilege. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't this remark reek a wee bit of racism? Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ''Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Right on time for the King holiday, America is elevating yet another man to lifetime power on the claim of sincere ignorance of his association with racism and sexism. Just like the smear job Uncle Teddy tried this week. Maybe it'll work, next time... Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito was repeatedly asked in this week's hearings about his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton. The group lasted from 1972, the year Alito graduated from Princeton, to the mid-1980s. The group whined in its writings that increased numbers of ''women and minorities will largely vitiate the alumni body of the future." And Derrick is part of an editorial staff that's been on the wrong side of many issues itself. The point is...? In the dictionary, ''vitiate" means, ''1. To reduce the value or impair the quality; 2. To corrupt morally; 3. To make ineffective." Well, I'll give him props for doing at least this amount of 'research' for his article. During the hearings, Alito said of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton: ''I don't remember this organization." ''I have wracked my memory about this issue, and I really have no specific recollection of that organization." None of this is of consequence in a nation where President Bush won reelection on the strength of his white vote. It was a vote that thrived on ignorant fears, fears that allowed Bush to get away with an agenda that resulted in such things as going to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the attack on affirmative action, even though white women have always been its chief beneficiaries, and the assault on gay marriage despite absolutely no proof that it damages the values of our society. Haven't, like, all Presidents won election or reelection because of the 'strength' (can't use 'majority', nope, too honest) of the white vote? The agenda is now almost complete. (cue Monty Burns rubbing his hands together, whispering Exxxxxxcellent!) On a Capitol Hill with Bush's Republican Party in charge, Alito will get his seat and the right wing will have its chance to reverse the gains of the King era, gains which were extended from black people to Latinos, to white women to gay and lesbian people, to the physically challenged. Alito will join the pantheon of modern white power brokers who continue to determine the laws of this country despite their flirtations with bigotry and romancing the segregated past. If this guy's saying Alito and Republicans in general are going to reverse the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, he's off his rocker. To further accuse both with charges of racism is reprehensible. In his convenient amnesia and his vigorous support of Ronald Reagan's attempt to roll back rights, Alito mimics the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. Rehnquist wrote in 1952 that the 1896 Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholding segregation was ''right and should be reaffirmed." He owned not one but two homes with restrictive covenants against selling them to black people or Jews How many of your home purchase documents have you read, Mr. Jackson? I've only read parts of the ones I had to sign. Ready for the next smear? Alito's memory loss mirrors that of Trent Lott, who is still a powerful Mississippi senator despite three speeches to the post-Klan Council of Concerned Citizens and despite claiming ''no firsthand knowledge" of the group's racism. It echoes John Ashcroft, Bush's first attorney general, who praised Confederate leaders in the racist publication ''Southern Partisan" and then claimed in his confirmation hearings, ''I can't say that I knew very much about the magazine." Memory is irrelevant in a nation that accepts a president who spoke during the 2000 presidential campaign at Bob Jones University despite its nationally known racial and anti-Catholic bigotry. Bush defended his appearance until pressure from Catholics forced him to apologize to the late Cardinal John O'Connor. ''On reflection I should have been more clear in disassociating myself from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice," Bush wrote. Not sure this adds to Jackson's argument, since Bush apologized for the appearance. Or is Jackson calling Bush a liar in his own little way? Bush made it very clear what forces he wanted to associate with in 2003. The week before that King holiday, Bush threw the weight of the White House behind the white students who wanted to Just not like in France. Torching cars is soooo mid-80's Detroit... Posted by: Raj 2006-01-14 |
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