Blanquito vs. Latino or the unbearable lightness of being Alberto Gonzales

Memorandum is off the hook this morning with news that Alberto Gonzales has resigned as US Attorney General.

There are cheers and jeers all around the blogosphere for what many consider the worst Attorney General to the worst Presidency in the history of the United States. The press release from Ralph Neas over at People For the American Way better encapsulates what a lot of people in the blogosphere are saying :

The Ennabler General

It’s high time this attorney general resigned. Alberto Gonzales was the 'Enabler General' for the imperial Bush presidency. He undermined the Constitution, made a mockery of the rule of law, and turned the Justice Department into an arm of the Bush Administration’s political operation.

Gonzales protected the interests of George W. Bush over the interests of the American people at every turn. He oversaw a Justice Department that was twisted to serve political interests, from the president’s domestic spying program to bogus allegations of voting fraud that kept minorities and poor people from the ballot box. He showed open contempt for oversight by Congress, and gave testimony under oath that was at best incompetent and at worst, deliberately untrue.

...

Now, it’s time to heal the Justice Department, and find a new attorney general who will restore integrity to the office.

To me though, what's really is important is how Gonzales' fall is not just a foible of his character. To me what is important here is how the Bush administration has used the idea of "diversity" to empower into corruption racial, ethnic and gender minorities.

Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are a thorn in the side of black people in this country who have had to stand by, with mixed feelings, about how they could get to such high and powerful positions and yet serve as ennablers in an illegal war. Not only did Colin Powell lie about weapons of mass destruction, but Condoleeza Rice has submissively as his political mistress, deployed to use her charm around the world as his main obsfuscator.

Condoleeza does double duty in the gender department along with White House Secret Keeper Counsel Harriet Myers. Where were all the women of the Republican party when Roe v. Wade was gutted? Where were they when the right to choose was taken away from teenage girls? Where were they when violence against reproductive health clinics was laughed at with the enshrining of John Roberts in the Supreme Court?

It doesn't stop there.

There's all the closeted and semi-open gay men and women of the Republican party who stand as disgraceful examples of how gays have actively collaborated with the Bush administration to oppress in exchange for access, money and power. From the scores of closeted bible belting ministers who have raised millions of dollars for the party of ex-gay reformers to the Log Cabineers still standing by their party after the infamous Defense of Marriage Act; there is not one gay republican who can successfully parse out their roles as accomplices to a government that has one of the most legislatively violent track records against women and homosexuals in the history of this country.

And then there's Alberto Gonzales.

What latinos like me consider the biggest betrayal from Alberto Gonzales is that, as a brown-skin Mexican of working class ascendancy, he has become a symbol of those Latinos who, if they can't pass by their whiteness, they'll buy into it by their actions.

For those of you who don't get what I am talking about, let me break it down for you : There are the blancos of Latino América like Giselle Bundchen, Rosario Ferrer, Jorge Luis Borges or Luis Miguel. Then there are 'blanquitos'.

In Puerto Rico (and much of Latin America) blanquito is as bad as the word 'nigger', yet it's meaning is completely the opposite in social and political terms. To call someone a blanquito is to say they're people who use money to buy themselves into not just a higher class, but a social status that makes them superior to the rest of us by making them "whiteish".

Yet the idea of blanquito goes beyond the irony of Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing's comment about John Tuturro's "olive complected mudafucker". Blanquitoness is really and over all sociopolitical statement. Blanquitos believe their social status shields them from race, ethnicity and hence minority politics. So much so that the mark of a blanquito is someone who uses their status as a latino as if it were political teflon.

It's as if by adopting all the social, political and rhetorical cues of whiteness they prove that race and class don't matter anymore. It's as if all the hair relaxers, contact lenses, hours of speech, rhetorical and physical coaching proved that hard work only got them to their success and that it is success itself that liberates them from giving "back to the community".

And by giving back I do not just mean money, but to give back in political activism and advocacy in order to level the social, economic and political playing field for other latinos and people of color. This is particularly so because in the minds of blanquitos, their 'success' makes them immune from any political engagement that could put into question how they were able to achieve that success in the first place.

This is why not all Latinos are created equal.

The Bush administration is probably the most diverse administration at the executive levelin the history of the United States. Yet it has also proven to be the most corrupt.

This administration proves it is not enough to say that a black woman Secretary of State is a sign of progress or that having the child of undocumented Mexican immigrants as Attorney General is a sign of progress.

In the case of Condoleezza Rice and Alberto Gonzales, the corruption that comes with money, access and power is the most obvious reason to dismiss their accomplishments. Yet for the rest of successful 'latinos' or 'blacks' or 'gays' or 'women' the message is clear : You can't have it both ways.

In the case of latinos in particular, you can't claim your minority status if you then use your money, access, influence and power to wash your hands of minority politics --and to support the power structures that keep other latinos and people of color marginalized or even oppressed.

It is not enough to say "we have a latino on staff" or "look, this guy is a successful latino", if said latino is not giving back to the community by working to knock down barriers for others like him. If that same latino who claims their success is only due to their hard work is the only latino in a sea of white success, progressive shoppers beware.

You are not buying into a latino no matter how latino they claim to be. You're buying into a blanquito.

Look what that got us with an Alberto Gonzales.

'Nough said.

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