Marginalization

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 :

Alberto Gonzales, ennabler and stooge and barely Attorney General: Alberto Gonzales playing stooge to George Bush.
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.
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It's a racist, sexist world in Wikipedia

Wikipedia shows its colors with the death of Steve Gilliard and they are white and pink and and ivory and peach.

There is an astoundingly racist discussion going on in Wikipedia on the subject of whether Steve Gilliard should be included in Wikipedia. I have added my two cents to the discussion after I read this:

He was definitely widely cited by his peers, in the liberal blogsphere and therefore meets the notability requirement. If Atrios, Markos, Josh Marshall are all citing him, I think he should remain.

So as long as white, male bloggers like Markos Mooulitzas, Josh Marshall and Duncan Black quote you, you are opened the gates of notability. Anybody else, no matter how important they are to the blogosphere, is kept out.

Unless, of course, you publish a book --and that's only if the book is by a major publisher with wide distribution.

So somebody like me, Chris Rabb or BrownFemiPower, Jill Filipovich or Lauren Bruce are out. Barbara O'Brien, Jessica Valenti are in.

Lynne D. Johnson and George Kelly maybe are in if their companies push for the page. If they won't, then they're out as well. Lindsay Beyerstein could be included and so Amanda Marcotte given they are quote by 2 of the 3 BWM gatekeepers.
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liza's picture



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These new-found tensions which are present at all stages in the real nature of colonialism have their repercussions on the cultural plane. In literature, for example, there is relative over-production. From being a reply on a minor scale to the dominating power, the literature produced by natives becomes differentiated and makes itself into a will to particularism. The intelligentsia, which during the period of repression was essentially a consuming public, now themselves become producers. This literature at first chooses to confine itself to the tragic and poetic style; but later on novels, short stories and essays are attempted. It is as if a kind of internal organisation or law of expression existed which wills that poetic expression become less frequent in proportion as the objectives and the methods of the struggle for liberation become more precise. Themes are completely altered; in fact, we find less and less of bitter, hopeless recrimination and less also of that violent, resounding, florid writing which on the whole serves to reassure the occupying power. The colonialists have in former times encouraged these modes of expression and made their existence possible. Stinging denunciations, the exposing of distressing conditions and passions which find their outlet in expression are in fact assimilated by the occupying power in a cathartic process. To aid such processes is in a certain sense to avoid their dramatisation and to clear the atmosphere. But such a situation can only be transitory. In fact, the progress of national consciousness among the people modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of the native intellectual. The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go farther than his cry of protest. The lament first makes the indictment; then it makes an appeal. In the period that follows, the words of command are heard. The crystallisation of the national consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes, and also create a completely new public. While at the beginning the native intellectual used to produce his work to be read exclusively by the oppressor, whether with the intention of charming him or of denouncing him through ethnical or subjectivist means, now the native writer progressively takes on the habit of addressing his own people.

— Frantz Fanon

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