Like a good person of color I am supposed to celebrate the nomination and confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's High Court. And I do not miss the enormous symbolism of a woman, raised largely by a single mother, working class, first-generation American, Puerto Rican being elevated to the US Supreme Court.
But I am not here to write party invitations. And, frankly, since my liberal friends cast Revolution Cuba - which I support - as some sort of racial, gender paradise, I head for the nearest door frame whenever they celebrate anything.
The election of Barack Hussein Obama started this post-racial nonsense, but easy atonement without sacrifice is a hallmark for the liberal crowd.
If liberals, moderates, conservatives of any political party think these things are turning-points in the country's long record of human rights violations codified in law and affirmed by high and low courts, I have a clunker program to sell to them.
Justice Sotomayor is an amazing, brilliant judge and legal mind. But women and especially women of color still persist in structural gender discrimination in the US, especially where wages are concerned. Ms. Sotomayor is sort of a freak of nature, not one among equals.
Puerto Rico was stolen by the US in the Spanish-American War. It remains a semi-colony of the US empire. The United Nations has demanded it be made a state, on equal footing with other US states or be allowed its independence. Its residents suffered brutal repression in the hands of the US government. Its women in the 1960's were the Guinea Pigs for female contraception [the Pill].
Over 100 years after that Conquest, the US puts one of its daughters on the High Court. One hundred years not included in most high school history books.
While Revolution Cuba in general, Fidel Castro in particular, are routinely indicted for the flight of millions of Cubans, the "flight" of Ms Sotomayor's parents with millions others from Puerto Rico goes without any comment. The early death of her father: without comment. The struggles of a single mother raising two children: without comment.
It goes without comment, that is, until it can be used to show the Horatio Alger Story, which every nominee is supposed to have fulfilled. Born on the bottom - hard work - Success. Many Americans believe this stupid story and know nothing of the structural oppression put on colonials abroad and the working class at home.
They don't know any of the famous Puerto Rican independence fighters, like the other Sotomayor: Lolita Lebron Sotomayor, who led an armed attack on Congress in 1954 for US occupation of her homeland (and because the US government had just toppled a democratically elected government in Guatemala), Mariana Bracetti, Lola Rodriguez de Tio, Blanca Canales, or Juana Colon.
Is the Nixon-Era term "Hispanic" designed to hide this history? The music term "salsa" was alleged to have been introduced around the same time to avoid references to Cuba, its primary source, which was governed by the King of Hell.
These liberal celebrants think this country has actually made a dent in the racist spirit, sexist ghosts of this country, and this is dangerous. Dangerous for them, for me, and mine. Complacency is dangerous. Lack of solid allies is distress.
I have noted over the many years of my political activism that many of these liberals can offer very cogent criticisms of US policy until one of its underclass speaks up - that is, a woman, racial minority, sexual minority. The shutters close and these liberals can become the best White Nationalist, offering cogent reasons why the US is the Great and Good.
So I'll keep my champagne bottle corked.
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