If the title of this post sounds ridiculous, wait to you see what it refers to.

The above is an editorial cartoon circulated by Creators’ Syndicate that appeared in The Oklahoman’s Tuesday editions. It depicts President Obama’s Supreme Court Justice nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, as passive, docile human piñata, hanging from a tree while a cartoon Obama in a Mexican sombrero invites GOP elephants to take a hit.

The image is so racist and sexist in multiple ways that even some members of the GOP were offended enough to demand an apology.

“This grotesque insult requires a formal editorial apology from both Creators’ Syndicate and The Oklahoman,” said Jose Niño, a former President of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce who, besides co-Chairing the conservative Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute, has been a major fundraiser for the campaigns of President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain and other Republican candidates and conservative causes.

The image reminds me a little of how Isabel Garcia was portrayed as a piñata by John Justice. Equating any woman with a piñata likens her to a child’s party toy, willing to be beaten and broken and violated by men, including a black men. Ah talk about bringing people together. Add to the mix the history of lynchings in the United States, that yes overwhelmingly happened to African Americas but also to Latinos as well, especially Mexicans. And then we have the confusion of Latino groups, with Obama’s Mexican hat when Sotomayor is Nuyorican.

These attacks on Sotomayor must be condemned because they are an attack on Latinidad as a whole but we cannot let these attacks blind us from being critical on Sotomayor’s record.

Via / ConfirmSotomayor.org