Jeffrey Toobin profiles John Roberts in the New Yorker and says that race has becomes a defining issue for the chief justice:
[Roberts] has not yet embraced one particular judicial principle as his special interest—in the way that Rehnquist chose federalism and states’ rights—but Roberts is clearly moved by the subject of race… His concerns reflect the views that prevailed at the Reagan White House: that the government should ignore historical or even continuing inequities and never recognize or reward individuals on the basis of race (JK: emphasis mine).
In a recent dissenting opinion, Roberts wrote, “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” At a certain level, that strikes me as about right. But then questions arise:
Is Roberts’ view naive? Does it assume a post-racial society that does not now exist?
Are affirmative action policies leveling the playing field, redressing grievances, and ensuring diversity?
Or are those policies actually feeding divisions between the races, correcting a wrong with a wrong, and fostering a “soft bigotry of low expectations“?
Is it racist to ask those questions? Is Roberts an angry white male to hold those views?
Please: Let ‘er rip…
…
Wednesday, May 27th 2009 at 8:13 pm |
The word, sordid, meaning vile, filthy, bothers me and seems chosen in an attempt to MAKE something sordid, rather than describe something. That seems like a tactic that is used when people want to shut down communications, close down an argument or debate. Make it seem dirty to even talk about it. Could that be the same reason teen pregnancy has doubled in Alaska this year? or in Texas, where abstinence training leave many teens confused and suffering STDs? If we quit talking about our differences or things that make us uncomfortable, they will go away. I’m not buying that one. Even VP Biden, with a foot in his mouth often, has been able to bring light to race in this country. When President Obama was simply his opponent in the primary races, Biden described him as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” during an interview with the New York Observer. Only Biden and maybe his staff know what he was trying to say. I’d love to have heard the discussion between those two men over time about that statement. And how did they come together after that? Through discourse, discussion, differences… not by ignoring their differences and those of others in this melting pot.
Wednesday, May 27th 2009 at 7:36 am |
Ken, thank you for putting in black and white the thing that I left it to the readers to look into for themselves - sometimes I’m a little too ambiguous, but that’s alright. Thomas has NEVER been too worried about his bias (conservative, not racial), while the President has been impossible to pin down. It’s yet another not-so-subtle jab by me at President Obama’s lack of leadership in the area of race relations. Why does he refuse to champion either cause, while people like Holder and Thomas vigorously enjoin battle on opposite sides of the debate? Perhaps he is not only attempting to transcend race, but in fact actually HAS transcended it. His cause is economic class equalization, Robin Hood, not race relations. And that really confuses and frustrates a lot of interested people - does he honestly believe that the state of race relations in this country is not as objectionable as the fact that America has really rich and really poor people, or has his pragmatism directed him to the conclusion that it is a problem that cannot be solved and therefore deserves no effort on his part?
Saturday, May 23rd 2009 at 9:55 am |
I am not sure if Tom is asking a rehtorical question or not, but Justice Thomas has been very clear that he opposes affirmative action, and has spoken often on the subject.
Thursday, May 21st 2009 at 2:28 pm |
Not sure how angry he is, but he’s definitely a white male. And almost (but not quite) ALL of us share that point of view.
Wonder what Clarence Thomas thinks about that sordid business? I think I have a pretty good idea of what Eric Holder thinks, and those are the two highest-ranking black Americans in the U.S. legal field, not including the Constitutional scholar that currently holds the office of the President of the United States. Dare they, President Obama and Justice Thomas, speak out on this topic, or would they be too worried about their “bias” - which, by the way, Chief Justice Roberts apparently has NO issue with in regards to himself.