[AnimalMuppet]

I thought about this when Elena Kagan was nominated for the Supreme Court. I think that there's a four-step process society goes through:

1. She's female and hispanic. She can't serve on the Supreme Court.

2. She's female and hispanic, but she's nominated for the Supreme Court anyway! (See how enlightened we are?)

3. She's nominated for the Supreme Court. Nobody bothers to mention that she's female and hispanic.

4. People mention that she's female and hispanic, but only in the same way that they'd mention that she once did ballet or that she's an amateur fencer - as personal interest, not as a statement about her qualification to serve on the Supreme Court.

When Kagan was nominated, we were at step 2. (Which is progress - a generation earlier, we were at step 1). But we should be moving on to step 3, where nobody talks about such stuff because it's irrelevant. Ideally we should wind up at step 4, but I'm not sure that we can without going through step 3 first. And when we do start going to step 4, people are going to get uptight, because mentioning gender and race are going to raise fears that we're going back to step 2...

[bvc35]

If I were reading that article, I would want to read that she is female and Hispanic because the personal story of a Hispanic woman (probably) overcoming unique challenges to reach that position in the country is very interesting and notable.