Ethnicity and Gender in the Coverage of Sotomayor

Embedded video from CNN Video
It’s been interesting to catch up to the Sotomayor coverage this morning. I really like this clip from CNN, which features Erica Gonzalez, the opinion page editor for El Diario/la Prensa, the third largest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the country. She actually manages to position Sotomayor’s accomplishments in the history of Hispanic people contributing to this country in diverse ways. (It’s incredibly difficult to say such complex, historicized statements on our soundbite news shows.) It also has “man on the street” interviews with folks talking about how her roots are inspiring, and of course the requisite America Dream talk from the pundits.
My personal feeling is that the American Dream stuff always gets oversimplified and overplayed when exceptional political leaders like Obama or Sotomayor get their due. It’s important that we not lose sight of the fact that though our government, at the highest levels I might add, is becoming less white, male, and less historically privileged, that doesn’t mean that the majority of barriers have been smashed or the majority of Americans of color given truly equal opportunities to become the next Obama or Sotomayor. Will it be easier? Probably. It’s hard to aspire to be what you can’t even see. But will it be easy? Absolutely not–especially with our failing public education system, health care inequities, rampant environmental racism etc. etc. None of these things are eradicated just became Sotomayor steps into her rightful place of power. Neither does her election eradicate the sexism–both institutional and social–that still prevents so many women from living the lives they want to live.
On that note, I find it interesting that a lot of the coverage I saw while surfing around this morning seems largely focused on her ethnic background with just a mention of her gender identity. Perhaps it is still easier for the mainstream media to figure out how to talk about ethnic “uplift” because it fits so nicely into the American Dream narrative than to explore the ongoing gender issues still so implicit and insidious in our daily experiences.