Revealing Prejudice - The Underbelly of the Beast

This is my response to someone who said Sotomayor was an activist who was more interested in "brown pride."

If you were always being criticized for who you were and what your ancestry was only because you looked different than those in the majority, you'd develop some pride in defending yourself against such unfair characterizations as well. Maybe you might even call it "white pride" (or whatever your visible ethnicity and genetics has given you).

Tell me this - when your kids were being picked on or someone called your cousin a name or made fun of your family, did you not stand up and demand that those who were doing those things stop? You had pride in your family, even though you knew there should be no difference in how your family was treated compared to how their families were treated.

Now expand that thought to entire groups of people who have been singled out for verbal abuse and discrimination simply because their ancestry differs from others around them. What is wrong with their standing up for their group and saying "Enough is enough!!"? Why is it OK for YOU to stand up for your demographic group but not OK for HER to stand up for her own demographic group? But, here is the difference. She KNOWS the law and she applies it equally to all. That doesn't mean she can't personally reject the notion that people within her demographic group are all too often judged to be less than and frequently are denied the same opportunities that YOUR demographic group receives.

Consider this - in 1948, the Corpus Christi (that means body of Christ, if you didn't know) Naval Air Station DENIED HEALTHCARE TO HISPANIC VETERANS OF WWII!!! Why? They were fellow military, fellow veterans and fellow CITIZENS who had served their country defending FREEDOM. But, they were HISPANIC! Their service, their matching allegience to serve and to give their lives for this country, the fact that they swore the same oaths upon enlisting as the non-Hispanic military members of the Naval Air Station meant nothing because they were HISPANIC! And, you don't think things like this should be opposed??

And, just in case you don't believe me on this one (and many like you won't), here is a link to the very event I just mentioned: www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/19.html

I was pretty fired up by both things. The bonehead who accused her of "brown pride" thought his comment was the perfect answer to MY commentary that I've posted to another Bubble. Once the fire is burning, I jump in, feet first, and stay until the flames have died down. Now that they have, I'm posting both things here.
+Bigotry +Politics +Puerto-rico +Puerto-ricans-are-citizens +Puerto-ricans-are-not-immigrants +Unrelenting-hate


Photo credit - Some rights reserved by raymaclean (www.flickr.com/photos/raymaclean/)