Malena Amusa

“Another lynch mob against the Brown”?

(photo credit)

*RaceWire has been looking for a good piece on Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and race—one that looks at how him being Latino and an incompetent leader is splitting loyalties and raising tough questions. I’m happy to say, I stumbled across a piece by Edmundo Rocha published last week. Check this out.

Alberto Gonzales and the Politics of Whiteness

“… Gonzales is a prime example of a growing trend among people of color, especially among Latinos, that feel they need to “act White” in order to leave repression and poverty behind.”—Rocha

He writes:

Rarely does a day a go by without Americans learning about Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the political strife over the firings of US Attorneys. Now the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general is being pressured to resign by columnists and pundits from both sides of the political spectrum. That is to be expected by Latinos, African Americans and any other minority groups, here in the US, who finds themselves in these “Faustian bargain” situations.

Part of me considers this as another lynch mob against the Brown. I may not like the guy, but I will not take away his dues as being a son of a poor immigrant who beat the odds to become a successful and respected lawyer. His personal history of struggle and opportunity is embodiment of the American Dream in the land of Horatio Alger. The question I have been pondering about this growing issue is to what extent, can we - as a community of color - really celebrate the accomplishments of an individual from our community if their success is undeniably tied to powerful and corrupt people who are currently in power whose policies and measures have helped destroy this nation as a whole. Policies where his advice and his counsel lay the foundation for torture; the suspension of habeas corpus; the use of illegal rendition; the use of illegal wiretaps to spy on American citizens; the expansion of power in the Executive Branch; and other countless government scandals and lies.

That is where the other part of me is saying “told ya so” to organizations like the Nation Council of La Raza who were aggressively pushing for his nomination as attorney general down everybody’s throat just because he was Brown. Some Mexican Americans may admire and hail Gonzales as an evidence of how far we have come, how we finally have a place at the table. Some even touted him as the proverbial American “bootstrap” success story - the second of eight children, whose parents were children of Mexican immigrants, Gonzales was the only one in his family to complete college and rising to a prominent position in government. However, we cannot simply turn a blind eye and overlook the glaring injustices in Gonzales’ track record. There is little to admire in a peón who blindly follows his patrón just to do his bidding.

Read the rest of this thought-provoking piece here. Click it. Don’t miss it.

Posted at 10:33 AM, Jun 07, 2007 in Identity | Permalink | View Comments