By university and government diversity standards, Zimmerman could be characterized as a “minority.” That bothersome fact threatened to undermine the entire hyped narrative of white-on-black crime. So the panicked media coined a new hybrid term for Zimmerman: white Hispanic.
Sometimes a trivial embarrassment can become a teachable moment. It was recently revealed that Harvard professor and U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren had self-identified as a Native American for nearly a decade — apparently to enhance her academic career by claiming minority status. Warren, a blond multimillionaire, could not substantiate her claim of 1/32 Cherokee heritage. (And would it have reflected any better on her if she could have?) Instead, she fell back on the stereotyped caricature that she had “high cheekbones.”
In the Trayvon Martin murder case, the media was intent on promulgating a white oppressor/black victim narrative as proof of endemic white prejudice that still haunts America and thus requires perpetual recompense.
However, a glitch arose when it was learned that Zimmerman had a Peruvian mother. By university and government diversity standards, he could be characterized as a “minority.” That bothersome fact threatened to undermine the entire hyped narrative of white-on-black crime. So the panicked media coined a new hybrid term for Zimmerman: white Hispanic.
Note that the media has so far not in commensurate fashion referred to President Barack Obama as a “white African-American” even though he, too, had a white parent. In Obama’s memoirs, we learn that well into his 20s he self-identified as “Barry.” Only later did Obama begin using his African name, Barack, which at some key juncture offered a more valuable cachet than did the suburban-sounding “Barry.”
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