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"  In his response to Sonia Sotomayor&amp;#039;s comments about her disagreement on Michigan&amp;#039;s decision to ban racial preferences in university admissions, Heritage Foundation vice president of communications Mike Gonzalez had a few notable things to say about affirmative action. One thing that stuck out in his argument was his comparison of the Latino American experience to that of African-Americans&amp;#039;. Here&amp;#039;s an excerpt of what Gonzalez wrote in the New York Post earlier this week:\u00A0 There are many reasons to oppose affirmative action: It imposes the soft bigotry of low expectations on whole groups of people; it delegitimizes the hard-earned diplomas of minority graduates; it flouts simple principles of fair play, and, by rewarding characteristics that have nothing to do with talent or hard work, it contributes to national decline. Even after considering the above, some Americans are still willing to make an exception for the descendants of Africans forcefully brought here in chains in centuries past. The view is that they can make a case that they&amp;#039;re still suffering from the legacy of the horrible system of slavery, which is only four or five generations in the past. Hispanics simply have no parallel claim. There&amp;#039;s nothing in the Hispanic experience in America that compares with the repulsive system of slavery. Some Jim Crow laws did affect some Mexican-Americans living in the Southwest, but there was nothing comparable with the African-American experience. And the vast majority of today&amp;#039;s Hispanics either immigrated here or, more likely, descended from people who immigrated of their own volition. They chose to come here to better their lives. One writer for the site LatinoRebels.com responded by offering historical video clips and articles about the Mexican experience in the United States, particularly the segregation of Mexican children in schools in the 1940s and racial discrimination against Latinos.\u00A0    #WTF Quote: &amp;quot;There\u2019s nothing in the Hispanic experience in America that compares with the repulsive system of slavery.&amp;quot; @Gundisalvus \u2014 Latino Rebels (@latinorebels) April 25, 2014   Others seemed shocked that Gonzalez spoke out against Sotomayor in the first place and were offended by his comments.    RT @EspuelasVox @Heritage&amp;amp;#39;s very own House Hispanic Mike Gonzalez @Gundisalvus attacks Justice Sotomayor: http://t.co/EK6V3ovHLX @julito77 \u2014 Andrea Leon Grossman (@AndreaLeon) April 25, 2014      So, Mike Gonzalez from Heritage Foundation says #Latinos shouldn&amp;amp;#39;t seek #AffirmativeAction bc they hv no parallel claim to slavery. Oh. Boy. \u2014 BlancaVNYC (@BlancaVNYC) April 25, 2014    You can read Sotomayor&amp;#039;s full dissent, starting on page 51,\u00A0here. \u00A0 RELATED:\u00A0 Republican Congressman Not Sorry for Offensive Immigration Comment Follow Ariel on Twitter.\u00A0 Photo credit: Getty Images  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/news/a24177/mike-gonzalez-column/>