Sotomayor: A Black Man's View

Republican Senators, most of them, make much of Sotomayor's ... "wise Latino woman..." statement and, of course, their numerous citing of the New Haven case: one wherein Sonja Sotomayor and a panel of 2nd Circuit Judges upheld existing law related to Affirmative Action, but were reversed by the USSC. The reversal was seen as striking down policies in employment that favored minorities, but was seen by many Anglos as introducing a bias against whites. The USSC reversal, therefore, becomes a victory for white males in particular, and conservatives in general.
This term was first put out there by the Re-thug-licans favorite racist drug addict, Rush Limpdick.
Now it seems to have caught on like that late '80's saying, "gag me with a spoon."
Everybody is talking about Reverse Racism now a-days.
The latest is the Supremes ruling in favor of the WHITE FIREFIGHTERS in Connecticut.

It seems that 19 White and 1 Puerto Rican Firefighter sued the city of New Haven for discriminating against them by promoting less qualified Black Firefighters to higher positions within the department.

The Black side of me wants to say so what, who cares? How many times have Blacks been overlooked when they were more qualified that Whites and in this case a Puerto Rican?
But the Human side of me is saying, Good for them. They deserve this ruling and all the back pay that they would have accumulated up to this point, if they would have gotten the higher position that they earned.

The city of New Haven was dead wrong and I am glad that the Supremes got this one right.
Hiring or promoting to meet a quota is dead ass wrong.
If the 19 White and 1 Puerto Rican Firefighters worked harder and studied more for the Firefighters promotion test than their Black brother's did, then they deserve the promotion and the Blacks need to suck it up and work harder.

This shit should not have even made it to the Supreme's.
And in my opinion, the Black Firefighters should have stood beside their fellow Firefighters and declined the promotions.
But that would only happen in a perfect world.
All this case did was divide the Fire Department down color lines that will take years to fix.

This case is one of the problems I have with Affirmative Action. Do we still need it?
In some cases, yes we do. Affirmative Action has put (and continues to put) minorities into positions or schools that they would not have gotten a chance to be in without it.

But hiring a person just to say, 'Look my company is not racist. We have Jerome down in the mail room, Jose is in the Kitchen, Consuela is cleaning windows and Ming Chow is at the help desk', is wrong.
Me personally, I would not accept a job if I knew that I was only hired to meet a number.
Hire me for my qualifications, my education, my personality or my deep chocolate good looks.
But don't hire me just because I just happen to be African American applicant number 9.
To me that is degrading.
People have been watching Judge Judy and People's Court for twenty years now and all of a sudden everyone's an expert on judges and the court system.
But I already know that some of my brothers and sisters are going to comment talking about how the White Man has kept us down for so long that this is only pay back.
In some cases this might be true. But.....Now a days the only man holding us back is the man or woman in the mirror.
That bullshit excuse that I know is coming is nothing but tired rhetoric that condones people getting over for doing nothing to earn what ever they get.
Racism is still alive and well here in the good ole US of A, but now two can play that game. There are too many resources available to us to just accept any and everything that is thrown off the kitchen table as scraps.
So my hat is off to my White brothers and one Puerto Rican brother that won this decision.
Because me personally, if my crib is in flames, I could give two shits what color the help is.
The only thing I would be worrying about is when is Help coming.