{"id":1314863,"date":"2019-09-20T22:12:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T04:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/cepeda-column-backlash-against-castro-spotlights-americas-double-standard-for-people-of-color\/"},"modified":"2019-09-20T22:12:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T04:12:00","slug":"cepeda-column-backlash-against-castro-spotlights-americas-double-standard-for-people-of-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/cepeda-column-backlash-against-castro-spotlights-americas-double-standard-for-people-of-color\/","title":{"rendered":"Cepeda column: Backlash against Castro spotlights America\u2019s double standard for people of color"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CHICAGO \u2014 As I was chatting with the young man ringing up my purchases at a big-box store last week, he forgot to scan the microwave in my cart. I told him that although I would love his mega corporation to give me a free appliance, I\u2019d be paying on this day. We shared a chuckle.<\/p>\n

Moments later, the greeter stopped me at the exit and asked to check my receipt. My husband, who is white, said to me, \u201cWhat are the chances that the greeter would have checked your receipt the one time you accidentally hadn\u2019t paid for a big-ticket item?\u201d<\/p>\n

I glared.<\/p>\n

My response to his naive comment was: \u201cOnly someone who rarely gets asked to validate a purchase would say that \u2014 I almost never get out of this store without having my cart items checked against my receipts. Do you want to guess why?\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t usually have to play a spirited game of \u201cSpot the White Privilege\u201d with my husband or sons \u2014 they\u2019ve seen the disparities in how we\u2019re treated in countless situations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s everyone else \u2014 those who aren\u2019t in a group that our president encourages his fellow white citizens to look upon with suspicion or plain outrage \u2014 who needs double standards and inequities pointed out.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the most annoying one of the past week: the uproar over former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Juli\u00e1n Castro\u2019s so-called attack on former Vice President Joe Biden during last Thursday\u2019s presidential debate.<\/p>\n

In a stunning case of projection by everyone from political commentators to \u201cstraight\u201d news reporters, Castro was accused of ageism for questioning if Biden was backpedaling his Medicare stance. At issue was whether Biden would require those who want Medicare coverage to have to \u201copt in\u201d to the plan or if they would be automatically enrolled and have to \u201copt out\u201d of the program.<\/p>\n

USA Today declared Castro\u2019s end of the back-and-forth an \u201cattack\u201d as did Politifact, MSNBC, The Washington Post and countless other media outlets.<\/p>\n

Several of those stories included quotes from scandalized innocents who couldn\u2019t bear to witness a youngster \u201ctalk back\u201d to an elder, on a debate stage.<\/p>\n

Paul Begala, who served as a senior aide to President Bill Clinton, tsk-tsked, calling Castro\u2019s questioning a \u201ccheap shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick called the instance \u201cunnecessary.\u201d The Democrat added: \u201cThere are differences in how the candidates view their policy choices and their policy proposals, and that is all fair game, but it doesn\u2019t have to be trivialized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fellow presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota piled on: \u201cI just thought that \u2018this is not cool.\u2019 \u2026 I thought that was so personal and so unnecessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk about making a mountain out of a molehill.<\/p>\n

The exchange wasn\u2019t even all that heated, frankly. But when Castro uttered the words, \u201cAre you forgetting what you said just two minutes ago?\u201d the commentariat clutched its pearls, because it assumed ill will that Castro never explicitly voiced, and subsequently denied. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t do it differently. That was not a personal attack,\u201d Castro told CNN the next day.<\/p>\n

Would anyone have even blinked had former Texas Rep. Beto O\u2019Rourke or South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg couched their comments similarly?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s doubtful. So much candidate-to-candidate pushback has gone on for the past few months that most people hardly notice or care when it happens.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m here to cheer for the Latino backlash to the non-Latino backlash against Castro, which clearly illustrates that the moment a person of color fact-checks someone in real time, they will have projected onto them sinister intentions, unfair play and aggression.<\/p>\n

Mayra Mac\u00edas, executive director of Latino Victory Project, which has endorsed Castro and works to get Latinos elected to public office, told NBC News that Castro\u2019s role in the primary campaign has been to push the conversations deeper and hold candidates accountable. Macias noted that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has done it time and again, without scandalizing the masses, as have other candidates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a brown man is calling out a prominent white man, why is there this backlash that I don\u2019t think would have happened if Sen. Sanders was the one telling Vice President Biden if he forgot?\u201d Macias said.<\/p>\n

The answer is clear: A double-standard against brown people.<\/p>\n

In this country, people of color hold certain places in the collective mind. If they aren\u2019t criminals, they are subservient; glorified if they \u201cwork hard\u201d to overcome systemic racism to scratch out a living.<\/p>\n

Rarely are they perceived as smart, energetic and powerful.<\/p>\n

All I can say to that is: America, get ready for your worldview to be rocked.<\/p>\n

Esther Cepeda\u2019s email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com<\/a>, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 As I was chatting with the young man ringing up my purchases at a big-box store last week, he forgot to scan the microwave in my cart. I told him that although I would love his mega corporation to give me a free appliance, I\u2019d be paying on this day. We shared a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1314863","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-27 19:40:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1314863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314863\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1314863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1314863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1314863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}