The 'Magic Latina'

Once again, life imitates art as farce. And irony prevails.

The Sonia Sotomayor candidacy for Supreme Court Justice is beginning to heat up. There is much to admire about her personal story and success. But she should not be confirmed as a Justice. Most commentaries discuss the optimal way for Republicans to lose the debate. Of course she will be confirmed, all agree. Democrats happily dare Republicans to attack her Hispanic–or is it Latina?–heritage. (As an aside, my wife, who is a Cuban born emigre, has been confounded many times as to which “box to check” on various forms we all confront from time to time.)

Republicans shiver in their boots as they debate the question of whether to attack Sonia Sotomayor for her “wise Latina women are wiser than white males” quote, or for her “the Appeals Court makes public policy” quote. All Republicans are warned vociferously–and they agree just as vociferously–to not make “personal attacks.” The fact that no one has made, or suggested Republicans make, personal attacks is seemingly ignored.

The predominant Republican strategy had been to focus on a “judicial merits based” approach and stay away from the “ethnicity issue.” But polling data must have been stronger than expected as some Republicans begin criticizing her racially oriented comments. Newt Gingrich has been the most aggressive prominent Republican in his critique, saying Sotomayor should not be confirmed. But even as people like Mitt Romney and Lindsay Graham are becoming more vocal, they are distancing themselves from Gingrich’s comments. As a result, he seems “extreme.” The Peggy Noonan wing of the Republican Party continues to be its own worst enemy. This group is clueless. It does not realize her “wise Latina women make better decisions” and her “Appeals Court makes public policy” comments are neo-Marxist deconstructionist ideas, not “off the cuff” remarks.

It is precisely her status as a racial “Latina” and her status as an “oppressed” minority that permits a double standard. Why does this double standard carry so much weight in our society? Republicans often go through the motions of expressing outrage, but their heart does not seem in it. If one is not going to oppose her nomination, then why bring it up at all? Beginning in the late1960s, our education establishment began the process of discrediting America’s “dead white male” American history, culture and politics. American values have been continuously “deconstructed.” (For a serious yet humorous discussion on “deconstruction in education,” I recommend Charlotte Allen’s “Why Can’t a Girl Have a Penis?”). This deconstruction attack by our education elites has had great success. Even the so called conservative intelligentsia has all but conceded the point, de facto, that the double standard is appropriate.

I also think there is a second reason for the strength of this double standard. Sotomayor’s “wise Latina woman” comment has weirdly tapped into a cultural archetype that appears frequently in literature and cinema. She ironically seems to be a believer in a self serving stereotype that has been criticized by both conservatives and liberals. Spike Lee and Richard Brookhiser, in two unrelated commentaries in 2001, called this archetype respectively, “the Magic Negro” and “the Numinous Negro.” Lee discussed the Magic Negro during a speech at Yale University in March 2001, and Brookhiser wrote of the Numinous Negro in National Review in August of the same year. American science fiction writer of Nigerian descent, Nnedi Okorafor, has also written about the concept of the Magic Negro. She has said;

“The Magic Negro, [although] typically black, can be [any] person of color. [They appear] in a story about predominantly white characters {and are} wise, patient, and spiritually in touch. Closer to the earth, one might say. He or she often literally has magical powers [and] seems to have nothing better to do than help the white protagonist, who is often a stranger to the Magical Negro at first.”

The implied racial politics of the Magic Negro construct is interesting and not obvious. Brookhiser, a conservative, and Lee, a liberal, not surprisingly, come at the politics of these characterizations differently, even as their views are more similar than different. Brookhiser’s Numinous Negro is a broader category which contains, as a subset, Lee’s Magic Negro. Lee has focused specifically on the appearance of Magic Negroes in the cinema. In his Yale speech, Lee critiqued several movies, including “The Green Mile” and “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” Lee’s main thesis, supported (later in 2004) by the more coherent and intellectual Okorafor, is such movies produce racial stereotypes which unconsciously represent “less savory beliefs about race in the American public’s psyche.” Lee said about “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” which is set in Georgia during the depression, that

“Blacks are getting lynched left and right, and Bagger Vance is more concerned about improving Matt Damon’s golf swing. I get mad just thinking about it. They are still doing the same old thing…recycling the noble savage and the happy slave.”

The fact that Lee has completely misunderstood “Bagger Vance” is beside the point. (“Bagger Vance” author, Steven Pressfield, wrote a forward to Hinduism scholar Steven Rosen’s book on Bagger Vance, “Gita on the Green,” which discusses the parallels between the Will Smith character and the Hindu god Lord Krishna.) We all recognize the cinematic and literary characters Lee and Okorafor discuss. The website, A.V. Club, lists 13 movies featuring “magical black men.” Examples of Hispanic or Latin “magical” characters in literature include the supposedly real Don Juan Matus, the Yaqui Shaman immortalized by Carlos Casteneda in his Trilogy written in the late 1960s; and the clairvoyant Clara in Isabel Allende’s, House of the Spirits.

Okorafor explains the attractiveness of the idea of the Magic Negro for whites when she quotes producer Damon Lee; “I truly believe that white people are more comfortable listening to black people when they are cast in a magical role.” In 2007, David Ehrenstein of the LA Times, reprised Damon Lee’s argument when he said;

“Like a comic-book superhero, Obama is there to help, out of the sheer goodness of a heart we need not know or understand. For as with all Magic Negroes, the less real he seems, the more desirable he becomes. If he were real, white America couldn’t project all its fantasies of curative black benevolence on him.”

Ehrenstein’s argument is that America is still racist; does not want to be; but the only way we could avoid it was to project “Magic Negro” status onto Obama.

Brookhiser perceives the same phenomenon in cinema and literature as Lee and Okorafor, but his “Numinous Negro” also includes actual people. He believes that our modern culture has quasi-deified certain individuals who are black. Also, where Spike Lee, Damon Lee and Nnedi Okorafor see these as unconsciously negative black racial stereotypes, Brookhiser sees these characterizations as racial stereotypes against whites. Who is the Numinous Negro? Says Brookhiser in 2001;

“The Numinous Negro is a presiding divinity. The place he presides over is America, and contact with him elevates us spiritually. You see him in the gooey prose of white liberals whenever a Negro appears (“Negro” was the accepted word when blacks first became Numinous). Dozens of examples could be culled from the work of the late Murray Kempton, though his humor operated as a brake on his piety. The work of Garry Wills, who has no humor at all, would yield thousands of examples. The Numinous Negro need not be a man. Toni Morrison and Oprah are Numinous Negroes (Ms. Morrison is a seer; Oprah is a sage).”

Brookhiser agrees that “The Green Mile” and “The Shawshank Redemption,” for example, have “Numinous Negros” as their main characters. Conservatives are rebuked as well. He rhetorically and sarcastically asks; “Who is the black man at a Heritage/AEI/Manhattan Institute pow-wow? Answer? The Speaker.” Interestingly, Brookhiser was heralding the “end” of the Numinous Negro back in 2001. He clearly wishes race consciousness would disappear. As he says:

“There have long been more German Americans than Black Americans, but the former have made no impression on the national mind greater than the Katzenjammer Kids…..Maybe when the Numinous Negro has gone away, more Black and White Americans will meet each other. We should not hold our breaths, nor despair.”

Sotomayor’s now famous comment; “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” fits the narrative of the “Magic Negro” perfectly. She seems to believe she is a “Magic Negro,” as she proudly asserts her ethnicity as a cause of her wisdom. Barack Obama emphasizes the importance of “empathy,” clearly implying her background gives special insight into the law. The left, as always, want it both ways. Frankly, the Lee/Brookhiser/Okorafor arguments are pretty persuasive. Movies and novels featuring “Magic Negroes” have become almost cringe inducing. But don’t expect Spike Lee to criticize Sotomayor any time soon.

A strong anti-American strain is becoming increasingly calcified into the American body politic. The Sotomayor candidacy is a great opportunity to bring this strain to the forefront and force a debate through her nomination process. Two fundamentally anti-American ideas have surfaced as a result of her nomination:

1) Identity politics are more important than both “the law” and the traditional American “melting pot.”

2) The judiciary’s primary role is to subjectively do what is “right” rather than make a good faith effort to follow the law.

Sitting back and being afraid to be called racist is not what is needed from the Republicans. They should disband rather than follow that route. Sotomayor should be compelled to explain her past statements for the public to hear.

We don’t need Magic Negroes, Magic Latinas, or Magic Caucasians in politics or our judiciary.