Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Identity Politics

Matthew Yglesias is spot on:
"The idea that any time a person with a Spanish last name is tapped for a job, his or her entire lifetime of accomplishments is going to be wiped out in a riptide of bitching and moaning about “identity politics” is not a fun concept for me to contemplated. Qualifications like time at Princeton, Yale Law, and on the Circuit Court that work well for guys with Italian names suddenly don’t work if you have a Spanish name. Heaven forbid someone were to decide that there ought to be at least one Hispanic columnist at a major American newspaper.

"Somehow, when George W. Bush affects a Texas accent, that’s not identity politics. When John Edwards gets a VP nomination, that’s not identity politics. But Sonia Sotomayor! Oh my heavens!"

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5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

It seems like both sides of the partisan media pundits are talking about her ethnicity more than her legal opinions. On MSNBC they hype her as the Latina Judge and talk about how she grew up in the projects! The spotlight should be focused on the very important decision she made in 1995 with MLB and we all know it.
Jason

8:45 AM  
Anonymous tim said...

Seriously..unless you have an authentic British accent, you should not say or write "spot on". There's some identity politics for you.

11:21 AM  
Blogger Brian Ulrich said...

But my mom always said it.

12:02 PM  
Anonymous Tim said...

It's the law...or it should be, Professor Ulrich.

7:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i don't know who you are tim, but i know i have a very british isles ancestory and brian is spot on when he says spot on! mother u

9:13 PM  

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