Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. —Henry Fielding

22 July 2009

Bill O'Reilly on the Topic of White Men

I see his point. He's an idiot, but this is standard neo-conservative fare and no more racist than his usual nonsense. The new link to the video is here (YouTube took it down):



What I don't get is how he can say that the supreme court is not "stocked with white men" just because of Justices Ginsburg and Thomas. I mean, two justices of the current nine are not white men. And the entire history of this country's interpretation of the law (that is, 99 of the 101 justices prior to the Roberts court) were also white men. That means that ALL of the rulings of the supreme court for its ENTIRE HISTORY have been decided by a majority of white men. ALL. By which I mean Every. Single. One.

In other words: The law in the United States for the entire history of the United States has been written and interpreted by a majority of white men. This is not debatable.

The statement of these facts enrages powerful white men because they wish (like Senator Lindsey Graham) to pretend that questions of race do not influence their decisions. The truth is, of course, that these powerful white men know that race influences their decisions, otherwise they wouldn't be so worried about race possibly influencing one of Justice Sotomayor's decisions.

This racism is so blatant it is shocking. What do they think that Sotomayor is going to do when she gets on the court? I'll tell you what they think: they think she might somehow manage to infringe on the base of power that these white men have built for themselves. That is what threatens them. And this betrays just how white and male the power base already is.

No comments:

Post a Comment