Monday, June 13, 2016

Let the Blind Lead.


Ann Coulter is a Cornell University Alumni with a Law degree from the University of Michigan. She's a fierce conservative, who seems to speak the language of the white minority ( white Americans who feel their rights and freedoms are trampled on to serve those of illegal immigrants, liberals, and generally those who don't share a particular flavor of American values). Coulter recently wrote a blog titled "STUNNING NEW DEVELOPMENT!!! MEDIA CALLS TRUMP RACIST" (she's a fan of caps-lock) on her website www.anncoulter.com, condemning the media, liberals and conservatives for calling Trump's comments on judge Gonzalo P. Curiel "textbook racism". Ann contends that for decades "we" have been complaining about white juries or judges being to blame for unfair treatment of minorities, yet now seem to be blind to the double standard created  by absolving judge Curiel from bias.
Trump thinks that because judge Curiel is of Hispanic decent, he is inclined to be unfair to him as a repercussion for Trump's anti Hispanic rhetoric and calls for a wall separating the southern US border from Mexico. So there are two counts to deal with, 1) judge Curiel disagrees with Trump's policy solely or mostly as a result of his Mexican heritage and 2) he will let his personal feelings toward Trump influence his job as a judge. If there is evidence of this, then Trump is clear of wrong doing, without evidence, his statement is racist.
Ann takes as evidence for 1) the fact that Curiel is member of "The San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association "a non profit organisation that doesn't seem to have any radical motives. On the second point, she takes the assertion for granted, seeing no need to justify herself. CNN checked out his record and found nothing to substantiate such a claim. 


But Ann won't let a lack of argumentative foundation prevent her from telling everyone how absurdly blind they are. Because what she is really frustrated about isn't Curiel or Trump. She's upset that we would dare call Trump racist when all he has done is what minorities have done to whites for time immemorial. (i.e suggest that race has an influence in judgement).  However, Ann only refers to juries when she argues about ethnic bias, and even then she misses the point. Although one would expect some sophistication in the rationale of an Ivy league graduate, she seems to think that the argument made against white juries is that non-whites are immune to dishonesty and thus should be appointed to juries instead of whites. In reality, the argument has more to do with the jury being able to understand the cultural background and environment of the person in court, as well as being a representation of the population, i.e a mix of ethnicities.
Ann offers no case where a systematic abuse of responsibilities by judges on the basis of race or ethnicity. She conflates her arguments of Curiel's association with SDLRLA and impartial juries to not only exempt Trump from being racist but also to condemn essentially everyone else to being racist for suggesting that people of color would be better served with a justice system that was representative of their background and culture.
In all,  Ann fails at making a coherent argument in defense of trump ( against the media?). At worst she sounds insensitive to racial tension and blind to institutional racism. At best,her arguments are dodgy, not wrong per-se, but just irrelevant to what she set out o prove. 

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