In recent years an expression has taken hold that sets my teeth on edge. I think it is more than me being crabby, or old. Maybe I’m watching too many news shows and I’m getting pounded by the repetition of who we are.
The expression: “Looking like America.”
An instant cliche, it’s usually used in connection with diversity, which is generally a good thing, but has become a fetish. It fetishizes minorities, usually American Blacks.
Currently, her supporters, including President Joe Biden, say elevating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court will “make it look more like America,” and such a nomination is “overdue.”
First, the overdue.
Who set the time frame for a Black to sit on the Supreme Court? It’s never been published, as far as I know. Overdue? Maybe.
African-American Thurgood Marshall joined the High Court 55 year ago. For millennials, that means more than a half century.
Oh, we didn’t mean THAT. We meant a WOMAN!
Sandra Day O’Connor took her seat on the High Court in 1981 after being nominated by President Reagan, who promised to appoint a woman to the Court and Republicans did not go bat shit with his “disqualification” of male candidates.
She was confirmed unanimously by the Senate. That was 41 years ago. For Gen X, that was before MTV, which actually played music then.
Oh, we didn’t mean THAT. We meant a BLACK woman!
Ah, I’m getting the picture, but there is a problem with that. Blacks are 13% of the population, but having two on the Supreme Court would represent 22% of the Court — almost double their numbers in the population.
This is the insanity of the numbers game.
I am trying to point out that opinions about diversity sometimes are wrapped in the poison shell of identity politics.
Her ethnicity was one of the “selling points” for Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Associate Justice. What happens when we run out of easy “firsts”!
Will we need an Albanian Associate Justice to “look like America?” Greek? Asian? Gay? Trans? Hermaphrodite? Circus Roustabaout?
Not to complain, but no one seated on the Supreme Court “looks like me,” meaning a tall, overweight senior citizen with a decent hairline.
That doesn’t mean they can’t represent my interests,
Maybe they sometimes don’t, but not because they don’t “look like me.” It means they don’t think like me. Justice Clarence Thomas “looks like” American Blacks, most of whom don’t like him.
I went to a city college, and I think we’d have a better Supreme Court if more of them did, but no.
Four of the Justices got their law degrees at Yale: Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, Sonio Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas.
Four from Harvard: Stephen Breyer, Neil Gorsuch, Elena Kagan, John Roberts.
The only Justice not from the Ivy League — Amy Coney Barrett, Notre Dame.
Nominee Jackson is out of Harvard.
Does this look like America?
How about someone from a land grant college in the Great Plains? Or Chinatown?
That might introduce an educational diversity into the court, and make it actually look “more like America.”
How many of the current justices actually represented someone in court?
Not sure. I know the nominee has, as a public defender.
HAPPY WEDNESDAY !!!
pallie,
As you, we could pass for twins, in the likeness of Arnold Schwarzeneger and Danny DeVito. No problem with diversity there.
America is made up of mongrels. A long time ago, the Europeans came here. Then the South Americans. Somewhere, sometime, Asians. Now we have people from every continent. We have married cross culture, cross religion, cross everything. I think that New York city is THEE melting pot. I don’t believe that I ever heard anybody say their ethnicity with a hyphen. You can’t hyphenate New York !
Me being old and fairly much set in my ways, I would much rather see a constitutional scholar sit on the Supreme Court. Granted, the better education used to come from the Ivy League – and possibly still does. We don’t need anybody graduating from a community college sitting on the bench.
Tony
Never took you for a bigot. What’s wrong with starting at a junior college? You still have to go to law school.
I’m not tall enough to be a BIGot.
Stu, I want the best minds to sit on the bench. The odds of getting a legal genius out of Philly CCCP…… well, you have a better chance of hitting the lottery.
For example. Civil Engineering. Two years for the fundamentals. Two years when you specialize, be it civil, mechanical or hydraulics. You barely get the fundamentals of your chosen field. That’s why, everybody hiring wants a masters. To my knowledge, Drexel is still the only college that requires split time in class/field.
I have to assume ( bad word ) that the Ivy League has the best professors, the best students.
Tony
Where are the Asians?
The Supremes are just like the politicians in Washington. They don’t
Represent America.
If you watch commercials on TV, every family is mixed. Is that a true representation???
Albert, for many, many, many years the tv and print commercials showed every family to be white. Was that true representation?
“If Jackson can’t define what a ‘woman’ is, what’s so historic about her nomination,” says Mark Levin.
Her nonresponse was clearly a muff.
The senators pretending to examine the candidate had a lot of class. It was nearly all low. Seems to me they were making more self-serving comments than asking critical questions. They frequently and rudely interrupted the candidate’s responses. The theatrics of the so-called hearings revealed little or nothing about the candidate leaving the nomination to be confirmed as directed by the political machines.
Agree and that’s why I did a column calling the process a face and suggesting some changes.
We’ve feminized the military (cross-dressers, trannies, bis, and gays, the Army wants YOU!), and thoroughly politicized the courts. What’s left for the PC Police to screw up?