My article expresses neither hypocrisy nor hatred, and I use no scapegoats. It is an honest account of where we currently stand in the PROCESS of reaching the goal of everyone having equal opportunity to be whom they want to be and to succeed how they want to in our society. When you say, “We should be against all forms of discrimination, bigotry and hypocrisy,” you’re right. I completely agree with you on this, but we just haven’t gotten to where we need to be. We can’t just flip a switch and have it be so.

We are in the PROCESS of working it through and reaching our mutual objective. Change always takes time, and there are always bumps along the way. Change is a necessary PROCESS that is rarely an easy thing to go through.

When you say, “A white male who said what [Sotomayor] did and claimed that he could do things better simply because of race or gender would be considered a bigot,” you’re correct. Is this situation fair? No. Does this need to happen in order to better work through the process to achieve the necessary goal? Yes. A certain amount of pain must be shared by EVERYONE in order for us ALL to move beyond it, because someone who doesn’t experience something will never truly understand it. It’s one of those bumps along the way, part of the PROCESS we must go through to reach our equally beneficial purpose.

Contrary to what you claim, not “everyone” has felt discrimination of some sort. As a group, privileged white males have not felt the discrimination other groups have. The wealth is there, the connections are there, the open doors are there, and the opportunities abound. Little or nothing has stood in their way. That is a fact, because they have always been in charge and made all decisions for everyone else, to the ultimate benefit of themselves. Luckily, this has begun to change.

Nevertheless, privileged white males haven’t been made to occupy any lower-tiered societal place, a place which has always “felt” discrimination in one form or another. It’s not a statement reflective of hatred, or hypocrisy, and it’s definitely not a scapegoat — it’s just what is.

Of course, there are exceptions, as there are to any situation. Some of these privileged white males might have, at least intellectually, “occupied” another societal tier by choice, but only because they endeavor to educate themselves about people in groups and situations less secure than their own. As a whole, however, privileged white males know no other world but their own. In fact, no one in any group knows anything except only what they know and have been surrounded by. It takes reaching outside of one’s self and experience to understand the different worlds and situations that are out there, like, as the saying goes, walking around in someone else’s shoes — the necessary exposure and education I spoke of in my article.

It’s also called empathy, and the definition of empathy is “the ability to identify with and understand another person’s feelings or difficulties.” The operative word here is “feelings” (another form of your word — “felt”). As an example, it’s why convicted slumlords, as part of their punishment, are often made to occupy the dilapidated buildings they have neglected to the benefit of themselves while at the dire expense of their tenants. Aside from just paying a fine and/or serving jail time, they will KNOW and FEEL what it’s like to live in such appalling conditions. The goal is to CHANGE their attitudes as well as their behavior. In other words, they need to experience some real pain felt by others, to walk around in someone else’s shoes.

Furthermore, as a group, so-called “liberals” don’t want to “create hate,” as you claim. (I say “as a group” because, as I stated previously, there are exceptions.) They just want social tolerance and equal rights and opportunity for all, and that’s not a “difficult” position to take because it is a worthy and realistic position to take, falling squarely in line with the intent of our founders. So, it is by no means “difficult to be a liberal in this country,” as you further claim.

The difficulty lies in getting to our ultimate goal of equality for all, and we’re still working on it. Human nature being what it is, we’ll likely always be working on it, but progress and moving forward are at the least an incremental success. If you want to take on the real hate mongers in our society, go after the hard-right extremists and small-minded religious zealots, who subscribe to their way or no way at all. They make a point of resisting and standing in the way of progress, and someone else’s shoes simply don’t exist for them.

The real scapegoat here is in your taking the easy way out by using the blanket term “liberal hypocrisy” in a feeble attempt to give cover to your hollow argument.

Joanne Turner
artburn@earthlink.net

However, I do see a problem with Judge Sotomayor’s nomination that would put Democrats on the spot. But conservative Republicans cannot bring themselves to raise the issue.