A Women of Color Trifecta This Week? Sotomayor, Chu, and Benjamin
In judge's robes: 2d Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominee for Supreme Court Justice; center: Congresswoman Judy Chu; in a doctor's coat: Dr. Regina Benjamin, nominee for U.S. Surgeon General
During the recent hearings to confirm Obama's appointment of Sonia Sotomayor as the newest member of SCOTUS, Senator Lindsay Graham sourly admitted to Sotomayor, "Unless you have a meltdown, you're going to get confirmed."
The surly, condescending impotence of Graham's statement aside, what he was acknowledging was the 60-seat majority of Democratic senators in the Senate, making Republicans' filibuster shenanigans to block Sotomayor's confirmation highly unlikely.
If all goes well, then, this week we'll have seen a women of color trifecta: Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the Supreme Court, Judy Chu's landslide election to the Congressional seat vacated by Hilda Solis upon becoming Labor Secretary in Obama's cabinet, and Dr. Regina Benjamin's appointment as the Surgeon General of the United States.
Can't appoint or elect eminently qualified women of color to serve America at the highest levels of public office because "they don't exist"? President Obama's appointments and the voters of CD32 beg to differ.
Accomplished women of all colors and walks of life are ready to repay the benefits from uniquely American opportunities available to them. This is cause for celebration, and the wider the net we throw to find talent, the more every one of us reaps the reward.
Cynematic blogs at P i l l o w b o o k. She'd like to see various LGBT military men and women (like Lt Dan Choi, for example) be reinstated to service, and DADT repealed, for the same reason that race, age, or gender discrimination is no longer a barrier to employment anywhere or to public service: DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION UNJUSTLY NARROWS THE POOL OF TALENT AND HAS NO BEARING ON MERITORIOUS ACHIEVEMENT.
Woot! This white girl is celebrating right along with you.
Posted by: Lawyer Mama | July 16, 2009 at 01:47 PM