Noble offers apology for comments
Mayoral candidate responds after op-ed called statements culturally insensitive
Santa Fe mayoral candidate Kate Noble this week apologized for remarks she made at a January candidate forum that had been criticized as culturally insensitive.
At a panel hosted by the radio station KSFR, Noble, a Santa Fe native and former city employee, contrasted herself with a colleague she described as a “very bright Hispanic woman” raising seven sons. Noble, also a mother, said she had had her son “late because I followed, really, my cultural upbringing; I went away; I went away to college; I went to an Ivy League school. She stayed here and has a strong family. It starts with understanding different cultural values; it starts with understanding, without judgment, that different people have different priorities in their lives, and as mayor, I know we know we need to start with what we agree on.”
Darlene Castillo, a research scientist at The University of New Mexico, critiqued Noble’s comments in an opinion piece published Sunday in The New Mexican, calling them “nails on a chalkboard.”
“The assumption driving Ms. Noble’s statement, that Hispanic women and/or women of color do not yearn for personal success or the Ivy League and that our cultural upbringing only encourages us to raise children, is hurtful at best, but dangerous left unchecked,” Castillo wrote.
On Facebook, Noble, in response to a post which linked to Castillo’s op-ed and echoed her sentiment, wrote Tuesday that she deeply regrets her remarks and “should not have attempted to address such a complex issue as ethnicity, cultural foundations, and values in such a brief format.”
“I work everyday to listen deeply and better understand the many layers and centuries of privilege which have ben-
efited me,” she wrote. “I have spent my entire life in Santa Fe trying to understand some of the cultural identities and foundations from a variety of friends in this community. I appreciate the voices calling out the problems with my statements and am listening hard, with every fiber of my being.”
Noble, in an interview, added she values “the conversation that has been generated over this.”
“Part of what I hope is that we don’t get too afraid to talk about these things,” Noble said. “Because it’s hard. And having hard conversations is part of the point and it’s much easier to give generic platitudes. To truly do the work I think we need to do, we need to have hard conversations.”