People ask me, why don’t I join in the "victory?” Why don’t I
join the Latinos across the United States who hail Gonzales’
appointment as a sign of how far we have come, how we finally have a
place at the table. Because I refuse to overlook the glaring injustices
in Gonzales’ record simply for the sake of putting a brown face in the
White House. Because I don’t believe (as some groups have conceded)
that Gonzales "is not nearly as bad as we might have expected." Because
I want to believe that just policies, human rights, and due process are
infinitely more important than playing the race card. This myopic view
— that a Latino, any damn Latino, in the White House will trickle down
to the rest of us — has allowed many to turn a blind eye to Gonzales’
track record on important legal issues. As a Latina, I feel my duty to
my community is to do my homework — to understand just exactly what
Alberto Gonzales will bring to the White House. In support of the
Senate’s confirmation of Gonzales, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky),
said, "Judge Gonzales doesn't owe anybody an apology for his record,
but some owe him an apology for rimracking him with phony allegations
instead of honoring his willingness to serve his country." Sen.
McConnell is correct; Gonzales doesn’t owe anyone an apology — he owes
us an explanation. As Attorney General, Gonzales essentially represents
the citizens of the United States. That includes me. I want Gonzales to
explain how the legal reasoning he used in the January 2002 memo will
translate to the policies he will set as our Attorney General. [more]
Alberto Gonzales should not be U. S. Attorney General [more]
The
Washington Times (2/4, Dinan) reports, "Michael McKenna, a Republican
pollster who has surveyed Hispanics, said Republicans will be able to
send home a strong message about the 36 Democrats who voted against Mr.
Gonzales. 'Everywhere this guy goes now, he's going to be emblematic of
Democratic hostility to Hispanics,' Mr. McKenna said."These rednecks really think people of color are stupid.
Raul Reyes, an attorney in New
York, writes in USA Today (2/4) , "I commend the 36 senators who voted
against Gonzales. I question the leadership of the Latino groups who
endorsed him. And I feel deeply cynical that the president's motives in
selecting him were based on three L's: He's Loyal, he's Latino and he
has a great Life story. That's not good enough." Gonzales' "top
qualification for becoming attorney general, ultimately, was his
ethnicity. This is tokenism at best, pandering at worst and not a
compelling enough reason to have this brown guy lead the Justice
Department of the United States."
Mary Frances Berry on the Rice Appointment. "We have learned through experience that having diverse faces in high
places doesn't really mean that the policy will be progressive and in
our interests. So we've had to learn that, and now we know it. And the
second thing is that the activities she engaged in, aside from foreign
policy, such as mucking about in civil rights, advising the president
in the Michigan affirmative action case not to
support the university, mucking about in civil rights, telling a
Washington Post magazine that she didn't have any civil rights heroes
and questioning even whether Martin Luther King was hero; it's that
sort of mucking about in things that weren't even in her foreign policy
portfolio and saying things that seemed to reinforce a negative kind of
civil rights policy that upset a lot of people and made it impossible
for them to do what Dorothy Height said we should do, which is to smile
when we heard that she had been made secretary of State. But I think
that the secretary of State's job, whatever she thinks herself, is to
reflect the president's foreign policy, and there's not doubt that she
reflects Bush's policy."
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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