nobody cares about: my opinion on sonia sotomayor

in 2001.

2001.

that is like, 8 years ago.

she said, after a lot of talk about wise old man making decisions, " I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

and now she is being accused of having made a racist remark.

here are my opinions on the subject, and this matters to the universe not one tiny bit, but i listen to npr when i drive to and from work, and so i have spent some time yelling at the radio on this topic.

1. absolutely it is racist.  if we were to flip that around, and a white male said that about a latina woman, that would be the end of that white male's political career.
2. if she knew in 2001 what she knows now, i suspect she would have said something like "i would hope that a court with a wise latine woman member with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than one without that voice" 
3. it was flipping 8 years ago, holy cow.  get a life 
4. i have been the person in the corner a few times when discussions on race are conducted, from college days through today.  it seems to me that the people who have fought against unjust tides to accomplish things very often do feel superior.  and they have a good reason to.  if two people run a 100 yard dash and finish at the same time, but one had a 50 yard head start, the runner who ran the longer distance knows something about themselves.  they might even want to claim, as a way of thumbing their nose at a racist society, that they succeeded because of their race, not despite it.
5. we should let them do that. 
6. it is still racist.  

 
i am saying that we should not have a double standard about what a racist remark is.  it is nonsense for two people of different color to claim that their heritage and  life experience gives them an advantage and for that to not be equally racist when spoken by both people.  both people are saying "the other lacks something that i have, that they can never have because of who they are and who i am"

in my dream world, people of all races would be able to say. "i believe my heritage gives me a unique perspective and i'm not apoloizing for that, in fact i feel like i see a lot of things more clearly than some people who don't have my perspective"

it is wrong for a white person to say that today.

i think it is ok for judges otomayor to say it.  if we are going to have a double standard, lets have it here.

and it will be a landmark day, when a  white mail supreme court nominee can say it.

finally the one thing nobody says is that it is impossible for the supreme court to look like america.  at some point, what makes a good justice is someone who can make a decsion which weighs fairly the voices of someone whos life experience is not represented on the court at all.  in fact that might be a more important question to ask about a supreme court justice than what life experiences they have had.

Comments

[Michael Mills]

Very nice. I especially like the juxtaposition of #1 and #3.

Also your last paragraph -- yes, of course that's more important. But try measuring that in a sufficiently objective way to get a majority of Senators to vote for someone. Picking at life experiences or demographic cohorts is way, way easier, even if it is mostly BS at the best of times.