Everybody's Got One.

I realize this has all been said before, but this really bugs me: Whenever a person of color gets nominated for something--be it mayor, president, or judge--people are always asking the question: Will they be able to do their job effectively without undue bias from their cultural background? It's a question that only seems to come up for the Sotomayors, never for the Robertses.

But why not? Roberts isn't raceless, he's white. He's not genderless, he's male. He has cultural biases and assumptions, the same as everybody has. But only minorities and women are called on to answer for them. Everyone else skates by because somehow "white" and "male" (and "straight") are the default settings for government officials.

But they're not default. No one's checking the "n/a" boxes for those areas. White and male have just as many cultural assumptions as any other combination -- and those assumptions are more insidious, because it's constantly implied that we don't have any assumptions or biases at all.

I don't know what can be done about this. I have no solutions, other than to be aware that this kind of double standard exists. And before questioning someone else about their cultural biases, make sure you have enough self-awareness to realize you have some of your own.

Rob