CNN Tutorial On How To Say Sotomayor And Other Ugly Americanisms
27 May 2009, 6:15 PM. By Cindy Casares
We try really hard not to hate white people. Well, okay, that’s not really true, but anyway today CNN made it especially hard when they produced a hilarious news piece on how to say the funny Puerto Rican name belonging to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. “Not to be confused with that other dark person,” Some fucking high jumper we’ve never heard of. “He’s Cuban! That’s another country. We’ve checked.” Okay, we’re paraphrasing, but you’ll see.
We have no problem with the fact that most Americans can’t pronounce Spanish correctly. We’re sure just about every name in the United States is technically mispronounced compared to its original inception. But, there’s a whole lot of code going on with reference to this candidate for Supreme Court Justice that is getting a little annoying. Everyone’s talking about her “experiences” growing up poor and her “background” as a Latina woman and how these things might taint her judgement. Doesn’t every human being on the planet bring with them a set of experiences that automatically biases them in some way? Since when did white become the standard, generic experience? Oh, right. Since always. Our mistake.
Interestingly, Gawker points to an article in the National Review by Mark Krikorian entitled, “It Sticks In My Craw,” that claims Sonia’s pronunciation of her last name is “unnatural in English” and therefore something we “shouldn’t be giving in to.” Or what? We’re all going to turn brown? Whoops. Too late.
One of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that’s not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options - the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there’s a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.
Her NEW COUNTRYMEN? What is this colonial Williamsburg? As Gawker’s John Cook responds, (articulating so well why the above video pisses us off):
Sotomayor was indeed a “newcomer” to this country when she was born, in the Bronx, in New York City, in 1954. Her parents were also “newcomers”—in the sense that Krikiorian intends—when they moved to New York from Puerto Rico before Sotomayor was born, which they were entitled to do as American citizens, which all Puerto Ricans have been since 1917.
This continues to be what sticks in OUR craw, Mark. The fact that Latinos have been in this country since day one. From the early Spanish conquistadors to those of us whose land America stole in the 1800’s to Sonia’s entire cultural group who became American citizens in 1917. And, still, in 2009, we’re your “new countrymen.” So, you go ahead and say our names wrong and we’ll go ahead and laugh at your fake, orange tan skin. That seems to be the real formula for success in our nation so far.
National Review Will Decide How Sotomayor Should Pronounce Her Own Name [Gawker]
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I like how you advertise that you’re a racist in the first sentence. It puts context to this overly sensitive, whiny blog post. Sotomayor will never be run through the ringer in the way a white male would be if he were a liberal Presidents pick. If anything Sotomayor’s sex and race will make things easier.
Also, Cindy, the phrase “We try really hard not to hate ____ people.”
would fit nicely in an article by the Klan or any other racist. Congrats on your achievement.
“Also, Cindy, the phrase ‘We try really hard not to hate ____ people.’ would fit nicely in an article by the Klan or any other racist. Congrats on your achievement.”
I don’t think that’s true, actually. You see, Cindy’s statement has built into it something called ‘Irony’. One of the effects of ‘Irony’ is that it [implicitly] suggests a perspective wider and richer than the explicitly manifest one proper to its order. Funnily enough, the right doesn’t understand this at all: they tend to be very literal — like small children or animals. Incidentally, that is why the right can’t produce a single good comedian, or artist of any kind, and they have to get, like, the Charlie Daniel’s Band to play at their jamborees.
This said, it’s really great that you’re trying to think and participate in this discussion: keep up the good work!
Oh give me a fucking break, Krikorian! Nobody seems to flinch when having to learn how to pronounce Schwarzenegger, Stephanopoulos or even your own funky sounding last name.
Let me see…
You Latinos moved into this country, populated mostly by white people, and otherwise were ALLOWED to stay by the people who WON your land (Mexicans) in a war.
Those who were unfortunate enough to still be on the other side of the border, ignored the border and crossed into this country.
You have babies which the white taxpayers pay for–because Latinos mostly do NOT declare earnings.
You send the kids to the schools paid for by white taxpayers.
You learn English–the language of the original white people of the land where you live and raise your kids, all paid for by whites–and meet people from many different countries whose names YOU can NOT pronounce.
You create gangs.
You vandalize the places where you live.
You have more kids than you can pay for–again, the white people will foot the bill for kids you can’t properly raise.
You smuggle drugs into the country and sell the drugs.
You set up illegal food sales and pirated DVD sales all over.
You create all sorts of crime.
And you hate white people.
By the way, you hate black people too–and Chinos (Asians).
You are really despicable people.
Good luck on your future–using all of the inventions you have contributed to humanity…Oh, wait…you haven’t invented ANYTHING!!
Hmmm…I wonder why…