Sotomayor and My Rosie Perez Fantasy

From someone else, this could be misconstrued as racist, but I'm a card-carrying (not literally, unfortunately now that I reside in Logan Square) Puerto Rican, so I think it's okay: whenever I see prospective Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on camera in front of the senators who will, eventually, confirm her, I have a Cartman-esque caricature that goes through my head. He used Jennifer Lopez, but I see only Rosie Perez, complete with her grating voice (it's funny for about ten seconds, and then it just burns).

Earlier, I watched Stephen Colbert steal the bit I'm talking about, whereby a fist with drawn-on eyes, etc., talks with a thick Latina accent. I don't really mind comedic plagiarism if it's done well, which is one of the reasons I like Denis Leary but revile Carlos Mencia. In fact, when I saw Colbert's mustachioed fist, I realized that I have had the same caricature flash through my head. Sotomayor is amazingly eloquent and prudently guarded in her remarks, but I cannot help but think that I half-expect her to shout "no you di'n't" whenever she has to answer an idiotic question from a Republican senator like Jeff Sessions.

Sessions is from Alabama, so his voice is already written off as valid in my opinion. Call me what you will, but I hate the South, and 95% of its denizens shouldn't be allowed to vote. What amuses me about Sessions, though, is that he reminds me of EB Farnum, the hapless and pathetic innkeeper from Deadwood (I've said it numerous times, but that is my favorite show of all time), when he talks. A Southern accent alone makes me think you're legally retarded as it is (sorry but it's true), and his muddled, high-pitched, shit-eating voice does not raise his IQ in my mind. It doesn't help that he actually is a moron. He's a white male Southerner, which thankfully is a distinction that is becoming so passe that most logical Americans think of the whole caste as "out of touch."

Still, though, when I heard Sessions talk, and I will not quote him because doing so would nauseate me, I could not help but wish Sotomayor would turn to him with her eyebrows raised, lift her left hand with fingers akimbo (you know, like they do--and I hope her nails are short, because that means she's ready to swing), and call him a "cracka" or some facsimile.

She's much too stately for that, unfortunately, so for now I'll just have to amuse myself with reveries of her removing hidden big gold hoop earrings and handing them off in order to do battle unencumbered.

R