What’s in a name? Liberal guilt, apparently, when the name is Hispanic

It’s spring, so I had a graduation to attend (which was just one of the many reasons I haven’t been able to get any blogging done). It was a very nice graduation, in a pretty suburban setting. The students were shiny and happy. I’d say roughly 70% were some type of white ethnicity (WASP, Jewish, Greek, Russian, etc.), another 15% were Asian, and the remaining 15% were everything else. This is, after all, one of those nice affluent suburbs Obama wants to destroy.

I should add here that you’d look long and hard to find a racist in this community. What’s keeping minorities away isn’t redlining and bad attitude (no crosses being burnt on lawns here). Instead, it’s simple economics. Despite 60 years of Democrat-led or -inspired social and economic policies being directed towards minority uplift, few minorities are being uplifted to my highly Progressively white enclave.

Anyway, back to the graduation. When the speeches and songs were over, and it was time to hand out diplomas, the task went to two of the school’s multiple vice principles, both women with Anglo names. The women began reciting the students’ names — Anglo, Jewish, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiian, etc. — all in flat, totally American accents. That is, they did this until they got to students with Hispanic names. Every time that happened, the women suddenly sounded as if they were applying for a job on one of Rosetta Stone’s newest “Learn Spanish” video. Every “R” was rolled, every guttural consonant was coughed out. And then, after the student with the Hispanic name accepted his or her diploma, that flat, American accent returned.

I’ve commented before (although I can’t find my earlier comment) about the exact same phenomenon on NPR — and I can guarantee you that two administrators at a public school in Marin regularly tune in to NPR. The NPR talking heads make no effort with German names (it’s “Munich,” not “Munchen”), or Russian names, or French names (it’s “Paris,” not “Paree”), or Chinese names, or American-black names, but when it comes to Hispanic names, they all sound as if they’re trying to outdo Mel Blanc’s over-the-top Speedy Gonzalez accent.

I swear to you that when you get Progressives near Hispanic names, they suddenly turn into the white liberal equivalent of Key and Peele’s famous substitute teacher: