In 1947, Jackie Robinson was allowed to play professional baseball, making him the first black man to play in the major leagues. In 1981, sandra day O’Connor was the first female justice appointed to the supreme court. In 1992, Madeline Albright became the first secretary of state. In 2008, Barack Obama became our first black president. And a few weeks ago the first female astronaut died young and my heart rejoiced.
I’ll tell you why.
I cringe whenever I hear about a new first. Well, at first I’m glad this new first thing has happened, and then I cringe.
For example,
Sonia Sotomayar is the first Hispanic on the supreme court. I always feel privileged to witness one of these historic firsts because it makes me aware I’m living through history, and then upon a moments reflection I become furious that that first wasn’t something I studied in history.
The second, third, fourth and fifth Hispanic justices will be heralded for being the second, third, fourth and fifth Hispanic justices, while the next white male justice will only be heralded as a supreme court justice, because no one cares he’s white and male.
The reason I’m upset is that the world moves far too slowly.
Lets get back to the Jack
ie Robinson thing and it will show you why I’m happy. Today, when a new black ballplayer is hired, I don’t have to hear that he is the four thousand and seventy-ninth black guy hired to play in the major leagues. No one cares what number he is, because black people being seriously underrepresented in baseball is no longer a problem.
Similarly, while women only make up 17 percent of congress, which is a problem of thirty-three percent, when a new woman gets elected to congress I do not have to hear that she is the hundred and fiftieth woman elected to congress, because clearly female participation in politics is trending upward. Slowly.
I’m glad whenever we hit one of these firsts. First Asian elected to congress, Dalip Singh Saund in 1956. We can cross it off the big list of injustice that started the day our country was founded.
The next white rapper isn’t going to get his whiteness talked up. Eminem broke through that barrier once and for all. The first black cop was deputized long ago. The first Jewish CEO of a fortune five hundred company was appointed so long ago that no one of my generation remembers who he is. When the next Jewish CEO is appointed, we won’t mention he’s the three thousandth Jew in a similar position, and we probably won’t even mention he’s Jewish, because his religion is a complete non issue.
But when the fifth and sixth and seventh women are appointed I’m going to hear about it.
And this really bothers me.
I should clarify. I am not bothered I’m going to have to hear it, I’m annoyed that we haven’t already moved past this point.
every Historic first is a sign of how much more work must be done if we want to live in a society without bigotry. Because a first, by itself is only a crack in a glass ceiling. One black congressman does not mean everything’s good. Just as to use a less important example,
Carole Simpson, the first woman to moderate a presidential debate did not usher in anything like gender parity in that job. fifty black congressmen would basically mean everything’s good at least in that aspect because there membership in congress would be equal to there proportion of the national population.
Every “first” you see shows you the legacy of our dying bigotry.
Because the only reason we’re on female justice number four when the total number of justices is one hundred and twelve is sexism. There was a point where women were not allowed in law school, and then a point where no one wanted to hire a female lawyer, and then a point where finally the idea of a female justice was seen as acceptable. Once we came around, our previous sexism was the direct cause for why the pool of qualified women was much smaller then the pool of qualified men. That’s what comes from telling chicks “we don’t want you doing that,” for hundreds of years.
So we needed tons of women to go to law school and start clerking for established justices, etc.
Similarly, the reason we haven’t had a black president until Barack Obama took office four years ago is not because he was the first black man who was properly qualified, it was because people were rabidly racist. Racism was an American institution. As evidence, you ever hang out with some dude in his eighties and look on as he casually says stuff about niggers or jigs or makes a weird comment about a woman at work being a lesbian? I have. Everybody over the age of-seventy five is old enough to have adult memories of official government racism, not just towards blacks, but towards all nonwhites which was actually progress because their grandparents had problems with Italians and pols and the Irish.
I don’t want you to think I’m indifferent to quality in this respect. If Jacky Robinson had been an awful baseball player, whose proper place had been in the miners, then it would have been good we finally let a black guy play pro ball, and bad that the guy was Robinson.
O
nly recently have we become just civilized enough so that a black guy can hope to win an election outside of a black district.
If you don’t believe me picture how a flaming homosexual would do in 2012. He’d have a few problems in the youth vote, but not to the point where if everyone voting was under thirty he couldn’t run. The older the voter, the bigger issue his homosexuality would become and our wonderfully bigoted and backwards over seventies would not even consider him.
But I’ve started to notice such a positive, heartwarming trend recently. A lot of the “firsts” are dying!
every time this happens I’m sad because I hate death, we really need to do something about it, but also extremely happy because the “firsts” I see dying are firsts I had never considered until I read the obituary.
For example, I read a few weeks ago about the first black man with a nationally syndicated radio show. His first was in 1939. He’s dead now. But I could not tell you how many black dudes have hosted a nationally syndicated radio show since then. The number is too high, to find out I’d have to like, do research. But at one point there was a second, a third, a fourth. But they have now been lost to time, and that, in short, is my point.
The reason we’re getting an explosion of firsts is because we are less bigoted and less racist then we once were. Guess how many female and nonwhite cabinet members there were before 1932? None. And again this is not because no nonwhite or female was qualified, it is because our great grandparents were racists.
As our morality and sense of fairness improve, the diversity of people in positions of power grows. There
was a first Italian American senator and a first Jewish senator, and when those firsts happened they made the news because the bigots from a hundred years ago were on a hole other level of hating mother fuckers. They’d hate people who looked exactly like them, on the basis of a last name.
My point here is this. The reason we haven’t had a female president, the reason we’ve had two black supreme court justices, and the reason we still see firsts is because we used to be horrible and are now, in a word, not.
What you are never going to see is our first retarded president because someone with an IQ of seventy is incapable of running the country.
But if our republic goes on for long enough we shall see female and gay presidents.
What the constant list of firsts you see all the time are is a long waiting game. The reason gay people can’t get married right now
in forty-three of our fifty states is because too many bigoted people are still alive. But the majority of those bigots are old, just like the majority of bigots who appose women being in positions of power are old, and the best part about these people being old is that they will be dead soon.
I am not the first blind guy with a blog. I doubt that I’m anything less than the thousandth. But I’m sure you could find the first blind guy to have a blog. Someone probably pointed it out.
I did not write this post to complain. Well, that’s a lie. I did write it to complain, but I also wrote it because I feel extraordinarily privileged to be living through the shedding of our old identity and our assumption of a new one which
lives up to the promises we made ourselves in our founding documents. Because a child born today will not have to hear about the same list of firsts I had to hear about. In a hundred years we’ll be done with all of this.
If you enjoyed this post, follow the blog. It only makes sense. Also, in the spirit of this post, be the first to like this.
Pages & Rages 
An Endless List of Firsts
In 1947, Jackie Robinson was allowed to play professional baseball, making him the first black man to play in the major leagues. In 1981, sandra day O’Connor was the first female justice appointed to the supreme court. In 1992, Madeline Albright became the first secretary of state. In 2008, Barack Obama became our first black president. And a few weeks ago the first female astronaut died young and my heart rejoiced.
I’ll tell you why.
I cringe whenever I hear about a new first. Well, at first I’m glad this new first thing has happened, and then I cringe.
For example,
Sonia Sotomayar is the first Hispanic on the supreme court. I always feel privileged to witness one of these historic firsts because it makes me aware I’m living through history, and then upon a moments reflection I become furious that that first wasn’t something I studied in history.
The second, third, fourth and fifth Hispanic justices will be heralded for being the second, third, fourth and fifth Hispanic justices, while the next white male justice will only be heralded as a supreme court justice, because no one cares he’s white and male.
The reason I’m upset is that the world moves far too slowly.
Lets get back to the Jack
ie Robinson thing and it will show you why I’m happy. Today, when a new black ballplayer is hired, I don’t have to hear that he is the four thousand and seventy-ninth black guy hired to play in the major leagues. No one cares what number he is, because black people being seriously underrepresented in baseball is no longer a problem.
Similarly, while women only make up 17 percent of congress, which is a problem of thirty-three percent, when a new woman gets elected to congress I do not have to hear that she is the hundred and fiftieth woman elected to congress, because clearly female participation in politics is trending upward. Slowly.
I’m glad whenever we hit one of these firsts. First Asian elected to congress, Dalip Singh Saund in 1956. We can cross it off the big list of injustice that started the day our country was founded.
The next white rapper isn’t going to get his whiteness talked up. Eminem broke through that barrier once and for all. The first black cop was deputized long ago. The first Jewish CEO of a fortune five hundred company was appointed so long ago that no one of my generation remembers who he is. When the next Jewish CEO is appointed, we won’t mention he’s the three thousandth Jew in a similar position, and we probably won’t even mention he’s Jewish, because his religion is a complete non issue.
But when the fifth and sixth and seventh women are appointed I’m going to hear about it.
And this really bothers me.
I should clarify. I am not bothered I’m going to have to hear it, I’m annoyed that we haven’t already moved past this point.
every Historic first is a sign of how much more work must be done if we want to live in a society without bigotry. Because a first, by itself is only a crack in a glass ceiling. One black congressman does not mean everything’s good. Just as to use a less important example,
Carole Simpson, the first woman to moderate a presidential debate did not usher in anything like gender parity in that job. fifty black congressmen would basically mean everything’s good at least in that aspect because there membership in congress would be equal to there proportion of the national population.
Every “first” you see shows you the legacy of our dying bigotry.
Because the only reason we’re on female justice number four when the total number of justices is one hundred and twelve is sexism. There was a point where women were not allowed in law school, and then a point where no one wanted to hire a female lawyer, and then a point where finally the idea of a female justice was seen as acceptable. Once we came around, our previous sexism was the direct cause for why the pool of qualified women was much smaller then the pool of qualified men. That’s what comes from telling chicks “we don’t want you doing that,” for hundreds of years.
So we needed tons of women to go to law school and start clerking for established justices, etc.
Similarly, the reason we haven’t had a black president until Barack Obama took office four years ago is not because he was the first black man who was properly qualified, it was because people were rabidly racist. Racism was an American institution. As evidence, you ever hang out with some dude in his eighties and look on as he casually says stuff about niggers or jigs or makes a weird comment about a woman at work being a lesbian? I have. Everybody over the age of-seventy five is old enough to have adult memories of official government racism, not just towards blacks, but towards all nonwhites which was actually progress because their grandparents had problems with Italians and pols and the Irish.
I don’t want you to think I’m indifferent to quality in this respect. If Jacky Robinson had been an awful baseball player, whose proper place had been in the miners, then it would have been good we finally let a black guy play pro ball, and bad that the guy was Robinson.
O
nly recently have we become just civilized enough so that a black guy can hope to win an election outside of a black district.
If you don’t believe me picture how a flaming homosexual would do in 2012. He’d have a few problems in the youth vote, but not to the point where if everyone voting was under thirty he couldn’t run. The older the voter, the bigger issue his homosexuality would become and our wonderfully bigoted and backwards over seventies would not even consider him.
But I’ve started to notice such a positive, heartwarming trend recently. A lot of the “firsts” are dying!
every time this happens I’m sad because I hate death, we really need to do something about it, but also extremely happy because the “firsts” I see dying are firsts I had never considered until I read the obituary.
For example, I read a few weeks ago about the first black man with a nationally syndicated radio show. His first was in 1939. He’s dead now. But I could not tell you how many black dudes have hosted a nationally syndicated radio show since then. The number is too high, to find out I’d have to like, do research. But at one point there was a second, a third, a fourth. But they have now been lost to time, and that, in short, is my point.
The reason we’re getting an explosion of firsts is because we are less bigoted and less racist then we once were. Guess how many female and nonwhite cabinet members there were before 1932? None. And again this is not because no nonwhite or female was qualified, it is because our great grandparents were racists.
As our morality and sense of fairness improve, the diversity of people in positions of power grows. There
was a first Italian American senator and a first Jewish senator, and when those firsts happened they made the news because the bigots from a hundred years ago were on a hole other level of hating mother fuckers. They’d hate people who looked exactly like them, on the basis of a last name.
My point here is this. The reason we haven’t had a female president, the reason we’ve had two black supreme court justices, and the reason we still see firsts is because we used to be horrible and are now, in a word, not.
What you are never going to see is our first retarded president because someone with an IQ of seventy is incapable of running the country.
But if our republic goes on for long enough we shall see female and gay presidents.
What the constant list of firsts you see all the time are is a long waiting game. The reason gay people can’t get married right now
in forty-three of our fifty states is because too many bigoted people are still alive. But the majority of those bigots are old, just like the majority of bigots who appose women being in positions of power are old, and the best part about these people being old is that they will be dead soon.
I am not the first blind guy with a blog. I doubt that I’m anything less than the thousandth. But I’m sure you could find the first blind guy to have a blog. Someone probably pointed it out.
I did not write this post to complain. Well, that’s a lie. I did write it to complain, but I also wrote it because I feel extraordinarily privileged to be living through the shedding of our old identity and our assumption of a new one which
lives up to the promises we made ourselves in our founding documents. Because a child born today will not have to hear about the same list of firsts I had to hear about. In a hundred years we’ll be done with all of this.
If you enjoyed this post, follow the blog. It only makes sense. Also, in the spirit of this post, be the first to like this.
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