FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 31, 2009
Jollene Levid, Gabnet Secretary-General
secgen@gabnet.org
Tel: 323-356-4748
GABNET/MA-AL DECRIES SEXIST AND RACIST ATTACKS ON SOTOMAYOR, LA RAZA
Gabnet of the Mariposa Alliance takes issue with the barrage of sexist and racist attacks unleashed by predominantly white male neo-conservatives on Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who has been nominated for the U.S. Supreme Court.
If ever anyone doubted the strength of sexism in the US, consider the statement of Nixon-era ex-convict G. Gordon Liddy: “Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.”
Sotomayor has been labeled “emotional,” and a “schoolmarm,” and despite graduating summa cum laude, her smarts questioned. The neo-con cabal of predominantly rich, straight, white men has called her a “reverse racist” for having said that she’d hope “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” Not content with that, they have even smeared the organization of Latinos, La Raza, with which Sotomayor is affiliated, calling it a “KKK.” How many lynching and cross-burnings did La Raza do, pray tell?
All the neo-cons have done is affirm the need for organizations like La Raza to struggle for civil and human rights for ethnic minorities in this country.
All the neo-cons have done is affirm the need for organizations like Gabnet and the Mariposa Alliance to advance the civil and human rights of women in this country.
And they have simply affirmed the sentiments of Sotomayor statement: indeed, a woman with the richness of her experience would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion than a white male.
For one, we women and women of color will not push this country into two wars, wallow in such self-indulgence as to ruin the world’s financial system, transfer public monies to war profiteers like Halliburton, spy on US citizens, turn torture into a government policy, etc., etc. Ann Coulter probably will but she has the values of the neo-con man – Carl Rove’s values, he who was called by his friend and boss George W. Bush “turd blossom.”
We call on all women and men who desire honest and profound political discourse to reject this anti-woman and racist diatribe masquerading as politics.
We call on all women and men who desire honest and profound political discourse to reject the neo-cons smear tactics as fear-mongering.
We call on all women and women of ethnicity to organize and struggle even more against the hidden but pervasive sexism and racism embedded in US society.
REJECT SMEAR TACTICS AND FEAR-MONGERING IN POLITICS!
ORGANIZE, STRUGGLE AND ADVANCE THE CAUSE OF WOMEN’S EQUALITY!
ONWARD TO WOMEN’S LIBERATION!
A WOMAN’S PLACE IS AT THE HEAD OF THE STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION!
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