Posted on 07/31/2009 3:44:33 AM PDT by Kaslin
Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor, provoked a tempest in a Twitter this week when he said he'd be a rich guy if he "sold out as hispanic and worked at fox news." The commentary on the episode mostly centered on whether working at Fox News Channel constituted "selling out," with left-wing bloggers defending Sanchez and conservatives weighing in on Fox's behalf. But the real outrage in Sanchez's statement isn't what he implied about Fox News; it's the whole idea that an individual is capable of "selling out" others who happen to share his race or ethnicity.
First, a bit of disclosure: I've been a Fox News contributor since 2001. I'm usually on to discuss politics or comment on a news item, including recently giving my views on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
While I suppose Sanchez might read the latter as proof that Fox invited me as a "token" Hispanic conservative foil to the liberal Hispanic judge, he'd be reading into it his own biases. In fact, Fox has invited me on to discuss every Supreme Court nominee since I became a regular contributor. I was one of the earliest critics of Harriet Miers (a Bush nominee) and a staunch supporter of Chief Justice John Roberts, with whom I worked in the Reagan White House, and Justice Samuel Alito. I'm there to articulate a political point of view and to share my policy expertise, not to "represent" the views of women or Hispanics on any issue.
Unless you believe that all women -- or blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, you name it -- think alike, it's absurd to assume that any one person can or should represent the views of the diverse members of his or her particular group. Of course, we don't tend to do that with whites or men for that matter.
We'd be rightly offended if, say, Bill Clinton was accused of being a traitor to his race or sex because he supported affirmative action programs that benefited blacks or women. Yet a black, Hispanic, or woman who criticizes those same programs is in for a heap of abuse based on his or her alleged disloyalty. I know; I've been called everything from Tia Tomas to Malinche (the Indian woman who aided Hernando Cortez in overthrowing the Aztec empire) to "coconut" for my alleged ethnic betrayal. One viewer offered the following critique after I testified against Sotomayor: "I want to congratulate you for having the courage to sit in front of all those old white men and reinforce their opinions of Latinos. You managed to place yourself in the very useful position of smearing the accomplishments of a fellow Latina. I wonder how good it feels to be used that way. ..."
We rightly condemn stereotyping when it maligns whole groups of people. We know that it's bigoted to use terms like shiftless or lazy or greedy to describe racial or ethnic groups. And any public figure who does so soon suffers the consequences. Radio shock jock Don Imus lost his job -- at least temporarily -- after calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy-headed ho's," and scores of others have suffered similar or worse fates. So why is it acceptable to call someone a sell-out because he or she doesn't conform to ethnic stereotypes about political beliefs?
We ought to relegate terms like Uncle Tom, sell-out, and traitor-to-your-race (or sex) to the same category we do racial and sexual epithets. They reflect the same root prejudices. Anytime we assume that we know something fundamental about how a person behaves or thinks based on race, ethnicity, or sex, we're exhibiting our own biases. People aren't good or bad, hard-working or irresponsible, smart or dull, liberal or conservative based on the amount of melanin in their skin or the number of X-chromosomes in their DNA.
The sooner we start judging people as individuals, not as members of groups, the sooner we'll put prejudice and bias of all sorts behind us once and for all. So the next time Rick Sanchez starts casting ethnic aspersions based on politics, let's recognize his prejudice for what it is.
I would be a it and run Drunk if I had not got drunk and hit someone.
But if Fox actually made him an offer, he would suck it up in a heart beat. He sounds like the little kid on the playground who just received a wedgie.
Sanchez doesn’t speak with a Hispanic accent, thus he is a sellout.
For me, the person who brings up race is the person who just lost the argument. That's the only way to get to a post-racial society.
Excuse my ignorance, but what is Godwin’s law?
Was Sanchez sober when he said this?
Gerald was last night on The Factor. I had to mute him as he started immediately the race card. I won’t watch his Geraldo at Large
A couple of years ago, with much hoopla, Geraldo launched a prime-time show on FOX entertainment. In a matter of weeks he was canceled. It's not that guy isn't talented, it's that he's more suited for carnival work.
My question to all my fellow, Freedom loving Americans, I am sick and tired of hearing this RACE crap. These people getting to high places in our society just because of the color of their skin and not the content of their character. You all come here and want to be in your little RACIST clique, beating down old whitey to no end. I am not responsible for what you went through or what you are alleging you went through in your life’s journey.
This is America made up of all different kinds of people but we are more alike than not.
He has kept Rick, too, instead of the more Hispanic "Ricardo"! Sellout!
Reference: See Geraldo.
Rick Sanchez, a CNN anchor just another bed wetter from the left who whines about everthing that is right for America he needs to go back to Mexico or what ever third world he came from.
Was there this much noise over racism in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s?
Must not have been so bad then. /s
The corker about Sanchez is this:
He is only in America due to his parents’ wanting to escape the Marxist regime of Cuba, so their children could be free. Admirable, it says here....
So what does the “free” Sanchez do with the freedom his parents sought for him?
Not only go along with a neophite Marxist regime being hatched in his parents’ new country, but malign a fellow Latina when she isn’t interested in being a apparachik.
What a strange world we live in....
You can look it up on Wikipedia, but I can give a short description:
Originally, it was an observation from the old usenet days that in any debate, as the length of the debate increased, the probability that someone would declare the other person to be a Nazi would increase, eventually reaching the point of certainty. The corollary to this is that as soon as you are so bereft of useful arguments that you have nothing left to offer other than an insulting: "Yeah? Well, Bush is a Nazi!" then you really have declared yourself to be the loser in the debate.
I'd like the Race Card to be seen in this way -- if you bring a political discussion down to the level of Black vs White, and what one side owes to the other side, then BOOM! you declare yourself to be a race hustler and a loser.
Rich Sanchez would be a "rich guy" if he layed off the sauce and stopped running over innocent pedestrians, leaving them in the street to die.
Geraldo came to West Virginia during our most recent mine disaster. The families were waiting for information in a church while the press and general public was being held back at the main road. Geraldo bulled his way past the security people (the only reporter to do so) and went into the church with his camera man and started trying to interview family members. One family member punched him in the nose.....and Geraldo left.
Maybe the rest of the country could take a lesson from us hillbillies on how to handle the press.
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