I'm dead serious.

The Estrada nomination is just the latest example:

...But to hear representatives from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and others tell it, the Estrada nomination should be killed not because of Estrada's alleged refusal to answer questions or because of constitutional obligations but because Estrada, who was born and raised in Honduras before coming to the United States and learning English at the age of 17, is simply not authentically Hispanic.



"Being Hispanic for us means much more than having a surname," said New Jersey Rep. Bob Menendez, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. "It means having some relationship with the reality of what it is to live in this country as a Hispanic American." Even though Estrada is of Hispanic origin, and even though he lives in this country, Menendez argued, he falls short of being a true Hispanic. "Mr. Estrada told us that him being Hispanic he sees having absolutely nothing to do with his experience or his role as a federal court judge. That's what he said to us." Menendez found that deeply troubling.

But Menendez was relatively kind to Estrada compared to the representatives of Hispanic interest groups. Angelo Falcon, an official of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, railed about the "Latino Horatio Alger story that's been concocted" about Estrada's success and, more generally, about the "concocted, invented Latino imagery" of Estrada's life.

"As the Latino community becomes larger and larger in the country, as we gain more political influence, as we become more diverse, the issue of what is a Hispanic becomes more problematic," Falcon explained. "It's not good enough to simply say that because of someone's genetics or surname that they should be considered Hispanic."

Any questions?

That one is not considered to be an "authentic" minority unless you are a good little buttmonkey for the leftist/socialist/Democratic agenda is so damned obvious I shouldn't even have to point it out. I could fill pages with examples, mostly on how black conservatives are treated.