No, Newt, "Reverse Racism" Doesn't Exist And, If It Does, It Isn't Racism
The crazy right is now charging that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a racist because she has said that as a Latina woman, she brings something to the bench that a white man might not.
Newt Gingrich, the GOP's 2012 nominee (I'd put money on that) says that this is racism, pure and simple, as reported in the Washington Times.
"Imagine a judicial nominee said, 'My experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' New racism is no better than old racism," Mr. Gingrich wrote on Twitter, which he uses regularly to discuss politics or promote his television appearances.
Mr. Gingrich followed his initial tweet a few minutes later with: "White man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw."
Newt is full of it and he knows it. Here's why.
We do not, and should not, apply the same standard to the historic victims of hate that we do to those (usually the powerful) who have never suffered from it.
Take the Jews and the Catholics. When a Pope goes to Israel, he invariably expresses regret about the Holocaust and/or the church's role in perpetuating anti-semitism since its creation. He must tread very carefully. Jews, on the other hand, need express no special sensitivity toward the church. In fact, they often express contempt for it.
And they can because they never persecuted Catholics; Catholics persecuted Jews.
In Europe recently, I was meeting at the EU with various diplomats on how the EU can help advance the peace process. I learned very quickly that the Germans are the most reluctant of all Europeans to even consider pressuring Israel.
The reason is obvious. Germans have to be especially sensitive toward Jews. Jews, on the other hand, need show no special sensitivity toward Germans. And they don't.
There are many many examples of this phenomenon. It would apply (and should) to Mississippi whites and Mississippi blacks. Gays and straights. Men and women.
In fact, it applies to any situation where one group has held the upper hand and used it to hold down the other.
That is why nobody should care when Newt Gingrich and others of his pale male group argue that their kinsmen have suffered from discrimination against white men. There is no such thing and there never was.
Go Gingrich. Once again a misquote to make an invalid point:
"Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a racist because she has said that as a Latina woman, she brings something to the bench that a white man might not."
Which Gingrich turns into: "Imagine a judicial nominee said, 'My experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.'", or, in effect, implying that what Sotomayor said was: "My experience as a Latino woman makes me better than a white man". Something she did NOT say.
Implying that Sotomayor stated that what she was bringing to the bench as a Latino woman is better than what a white man would be bringing to the bench when all she said was that her experiences were different, not particularly better, is typical of the misrepresentations being fostered on Americans by the current crop of Republicans.
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May 28, 2009 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
My read on her full comment and her intent is that she hoped (expected) that her life as a minority woman would provide her with more than just an intellectual basis for making decisions on minority and women's rights issues. Whereas, someone ( a white man, for example) who has not had that life experience would be left only with their intellect to inform their decisions.
It's a question of how full and complete a judges understanding is of the rulings they make. It's not just an intellectual exercise, there is an emotional component informed by one's life experience to determining justice. Why else have a multiple justice court, or a multiple representative congress, for that matter?
May 28, 2009 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reverse racism = attack on white privilege.
And the paramount white privilege is to deny the effects of historic discrimination and claim we have a "level playing field."
BTW, MJ, your comment that Jews have never persecuting Catholics is wrong. All you have to do is talk to Catholics in East Jerusalem. (I know you prefer Tel Aviv.)
May 28, 2009 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Trust MJ to make a complete hash out of a very simple point.
First of all, I don't think Gingrich said that white men are suffering from racism. That was not his point. He was trying to claim that Sotomayor said she could judge the law better than a white man.
The issue here is not whether there is reverse racism. Of course there is reverse racism. You can find plenty of examples, from Jews or Asians who think they are genetically smarter than others (it's more common than you might think) to radical blacks who hate all whites and want to exclude them completely from their lives. Most people other than paleoliberals like MJ would argue that this sort of attitude is as obnoxious as white racism.
But that has absolutely nothing to do with what Sotomayor said. She was making a pretty simple point - that her life experience as a Latina gives her a different perspective on the law than a white male would have and the Court benefits from having a variety of perspectives that reflect the diversity of the country. This is so obvious that the Republicans making an issue out of it only shows how desperate and out of ideas they are.
May 28, 2009 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
By your logic, if Jews someday held a vastly outsize influence on banking (Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Madoff, etc, etc, etc),
media (Zucker- CEO of NBC Universal, Redstone- head of CBS/Viacom/MTV Networks/Paramount Films, Klein- President of CNN, Zuckerman- Publisher of NY Daily News and U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg, Financial News empire, Sulzbergers- NY Times, etc, etc, etc, etc),
and politics/policy/lobbying (let me know if you need examples, lol)
anti-Semitism will be completely justified (by your logic).
No, you say, because Jews have been historic victims? What if the powerful Jews helped destroy the lives of millions of Americans, helped enslave them in loan shark credit card rates, and helped export millions of their jobs overseas?
The hole in your logic (overlooked in an attempt to cause a stir) is that no number of crimes by rich pale white men justifies blanket racism against pale white men, just as no number of nefarious, greedy, Jewish supremacist, money grubbing cabal joining Jews justifies blanket anti-Semitism.
May 28, 2009 10:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is nice to see such a full throated endorsement of a double standard. You have not offered a single scrap of evidence that Sotomayor has ever been a victim of hate. As a matter of fact the Spanish did a pretty thorough job of subjugating Native Americans. So even by your own double standard Sonia would seem not to have an out.
BTW, now that Mr. Ricci would have been promoted but for his race, does that now confer the much coveted victim status?
May 28, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
If Hispanics have had it so good, why is she the first to make it to the SCOTUS?
May 28, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Home run.
May 28, 2009 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Cardozo.
May 28, 2009 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Descendants of Portuguese. Portuguese are not Hispanics.
May 28, 2009 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not in our legal system.
Emphasis added.
As you point out he has Portuguese origin. That makes him Hispanic.
May 28, 2009 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I should be clearer. I never said Hispanics "had it so good." Only that Hispanics are an historic oppressor class in the new world. By MJ's lights that means they cannot benefit from his double standard.
The other point is that no evidence, zero, has been presented that Sotomayor herself has been subjected to any kind of hate whatsoever.
BTW, Cardozo was the first Hispanic justice. Sotomayor will in all likelyhood be the second.
May 28, 2009 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's some debate about whether "Hispanic" includes those of Portugese descent like Cardozo, but that's apples and oranges.
Who cares whether it fits in to MJ's conception of what's ok and what isn't? The point is that the arguments being made by Gingrich and others seems to whitewash the entire history of the USA, which has been dominated, and still largely is, by a white male ruling class.
May 28, 2009 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to detract from your point, but more as a clarification, let me submit a statement.
Hispanic is a descriptive term that includes a very diverse set of people and histories. The people of northern New Mexico have been here longer than the Mayflower Anglos and are more Spanish by isolation than Texan or Californian Hispanics. California, Mexico, Central America, South America, Caribbian Sea, and New York City Hispanics all have distinctions in culture. And immigrants scattered all over the U.S. comprise a very diverse population.
May 28, 2009 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aw, c'mon AAA. Are you even trying to make sense? Sotomayor is a Nuyorican--a second generation New York Latina of Puerto Rican decent. Purto Rico is a longtime colonial possession of the U.S. She's not a Spanish-descended plantation owner in Argentina; she's the American daughter of a working-poor immigrant Puerto Rican couple who lived in public housing in the Bronx.
Why did they live in public housing? Well, besides being poor, maybe because in the 1950s, mortgage-borrowing, especially for properties in the suburbs, was largely LEGALLY closed to Blacks, Latinos and other "people of color." You know, "subjugators"?
People who argue as you do--dancing around with words and stereotypes only to deny the plain realities before our eyes--really piss me off, I must say.
May 29, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Guys like Newt can dish it out, but they can never take it.
As someone here asked yesterday, and it's a question I would love to ask Newt...Is the disproportionate number of White men in our corporate boardrooms, courtrooms and legislative chambers your proof of a healthy meritocracy? That's basically what Newt and these cries of "reverse racism", "affirmative action hire", etc., are suggesting.
Yes, Newt, we should seek a diverse, colorblind society, and not replace "old racism" with "new racism". But let's not pretend the Earth began the day we elected a black man President, and that we all held hands in racial harmony. There's a history of racism, sexism and discrimination in this country that will not be removed simply because we now declare it to be so.
So now, those that would deny people advantages based on their race or gender and those that have simply benefited from a society that does, are experiencing a seismic shift. No surprise that they don't like it much.
May 28, 2009 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"So now, those that would deny people advantages based on their race or gender and those that have simply benefited from a society that does, are experiencing a seismic shift. No surprise that they don't like it much."
Nice point, Dorn
In recent years I have sounded much like San Francisco Curt.
I find that I am changing.
I have to ask myself this question: do we really want a Supreme Court that is all white male? Truly, in the end, is not fairer and more just to have a Supreme Court that better reflects the larger country? And yes, that means, women, Latinos, African-American, Jews, and white Anglos. The Constitution is not some document of mythical perfection that is best interpreted by machines. It has flaws. It is ambiguous in places. It deals with real people and changing situations in a culture that is evolving. Just check out the demographics of the changing distribution of age, race, and national origin. That is what Obama means when he talks about Supreme Court justices understanding the problems of real people.
Obama is a thoughtful, intelligent president of mixed race, PRECISELY what we need just now.
Yes, Ms. Sotomayor will likely look at some issues differently than I do because she is a Latina. So what!
All Newt Gingrich is doing is attempting to fan the flames of cultural wars. He must certainly be disappointed that the President, a man of mixed race, is trying to avoid that nonsense.
May 28, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
What Sotomayor ACTUALLY said about a "wise Latina" versus a "white man who hasn't lived that life" can be found here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html/
"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."
Seems to me this is not quite a racist remark, because the Latina is "wise" while the white man is not, and the statement could be construed to mean that the richness of experience that a wise Latina experiences in her life, rather than her ethnicity of gender per se, is what allows the "hope" of her delivering a better conclusion. But it is damn close to racist. Just switch "Latina" and "white male" and change 'her' to 'his' in the sentence and see how extreme and in poor taste it sounds.
His towering and everlasting arrogance and hypocrisy notwithstanding, Gingrich has a point, for once.
I don't think this has any bearing on whether Sotomayor is qualified to be on the court, or she will be on the court. It may however, contribute to Republican success in defeating parts of Obama's agenda as "progressives" are sidetracked into wasting vastly copious amounts of time and energy tearing their hair out trying spin a very clumsy (at best) statement into something great and good.
Folks, this is a trap. Not the first, and not the last, but after eight years Democrats finally have the White House and both houses of Congress. The voters did not put them there so that they could spend huge amounts of time engaging in ridiculous political correctness pissing contests.
May 28, 2009 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, It's not "damned close to racist," largely for the reasons MJ ably laid out in his post. Your fallacy, and you've got lots of company here in this thread, is to unthinkingly accept that "White" and "Black" and "Latino" designate three separate, empirically existent, equivalent groups--like "bananas," "apples" and "mangos."
But they don't. "White people" is a social construct, and only has meaning as part of a binary social relationship of privilege/deprivation (of civil rights, material wealth, social priority) whose necessary counterpart is "Blacks," or "Latinos," or "Jews" or even "Catholics." (Full-membership Whites are Protestants--see, it's not really about skin color.)
"Whites" are not apples, or elm trees, or chickens. "Whites" are "Americans of the most privileged social group, in counter-distinction to Blacks, or Latinos, or Asians, whose deficit of social benefits exactly equals the surplus appropriated for Whites."
That's what "White" means. It doesn't mean anything else, except by people who are trying to kid somebody. "Racism," in the American context, is simply the name for the aggregation of actions, policies and beliefs (your confusion as expressed here is one such) that advances and maintains the above system of privilege/deprivation.
So, just as MJ says, there can be no such thing as Black or Latino racism. There can be Latino or Asian identity politics as a strategy toward neutralizing the psychological alienation effects of the deprivation, and even trying to undo it; there can be angry denunciation of Whites as beneficiaries of ill-got privilege.
But that's not racism, any more than it's a vicious attack for me to yell, "Hey, get off my foot!" when you tromp on it in the subway. Our relationship is inherently unequal, and without equivalence. Which, as I started off by saying, is exactly the self-justifying fallacy you're falling into. You're pretending "Latina," "Black" and "White" have equivalence, when exactly the opposite is true.
Funny how you didn't see that.
May 29, 2009 12:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
A quick add to my post above, also for PTroub. I think I lumped you in a bit unfairly with some of the other more full-throated protestors against "reverse racism" on this board. I do get it that you were trying for a more nuanced take on the issue, and applaud you for it. My above comment is directed just toward your "She's not a reverse racist but almost" take on her comments--and, as I say, is directed even more toward other similar posters who didn't even try for your nuance.
May 29, 2009 12:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I take your basic point, that "race" itself is fundamentally an ambiguous social construct having much more to do more with power, control, and psychological hang-up, than any fair-minded analysis of society and its issues. But, Sotomayor put her foot in her mouth with that remark which (regardless of whether it was racist, reverse-racist, or neither) was certainly sloppy, crude and boneheaded, and not just close to. She herself, not anyone else, choose to make a needless invidious remark about a whole group wholesale. "White" is an artificial category, for sure, but everyone who is "white" has to check that box over and over and over on forms, so there is nothing imaginary about being forced to put oneself into such scientifically dubious (at best) pigeon-holes. And this form-filling categorization is not quite the pure stupidity that it might seem either. Due the long history of discrimination and deprivation based on race -whatever "race" really is- there is a perfectly legitimate reason for collecting data to track the evolution of change (hopefully progress against) such past prejudice.
You have completed by-passed my main point, however, namely that this whole asinine discussion is a stupid Limbaughian trap that "progressives" are diving into like cliff-edge lemmings.
I am an admirer of MJ Rosenberg's many informative columns on this website, and I can quite understand if he wants to diversify away from commentary on the Mideast where he is very well-informed and adept at ferreting out the story behind the story. etc. But this is not one of his better pieces, indeed, I think it about the lamest I've ever seen. And the timing is unfortunate as well.
There is big news on the Mideast these days. Two or three front page stories per day in the New York Times quite often. Do we get any comment on this from MJ? Not nearly as much as we might. No Haaretz story on Obama's meeting with Abbas, no inside scoop on what AIPAC is planning next, no sharp analysis of the president's upcoming Mideast trip. Instead, this ridiculous trying to square the circle on one sentence of one long speech of many speeches by the clearly qualified and highly unlikely to be rejected Supreme Court justice nominee.
Who benefits from this long-winded sidetrack into the precise degree of politically correct semantics in one isolated sentence from 6 or 7 odd years ago? The West Bank settlers and their lobby who get a free ride, while "progressives" such as MJ step aside to hurl quixotic lances at linguistic trivia.
May 29, 2009 4:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm kind of talked out on this one. If you really think this topic is a sidetrack from things worth discussing, then we just have very different views of what "important" means.
More prosaically, MJ often writes on the politics of the moment. Mid-East stuff is just one part of his brief (I have noted).
May 30, 2009 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Newt Gingrich, the GOP's 2012 nominee (I'd put money on that)..."
Oh, we can only hope this is so. Then we are guaranteed four more years with President Obama at the helm.
May 28, 2009 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, your arguments break when they look at "victim" status and who gets to hate what group as a result.
I have no problem taking the weight for my own mistakes and bad judgments. I will not take responsibility for something someone else did, even if they have the same pigmentation or ancestry as I do, because I did not do - or condone - those acts.
And before you, or someone, brings up slavery, my ancestors didn't get to this country until after it was outlawed.
All your argument means at bottom is that everyone gets to oppress or disparage someone, just different someones.
And all that digression aside, Judge Sotomayor is a sterling choice.
May 28, 2009 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
The conservatives are unfortunately picking up on something that may have more legs than your typical liberal (like M.J. here) is likely to think.
I am a liberal myself, and I'm white, but I also grew up in a lower working class family. I was often surprised in college at how many of my non-white and politically engaged (from what they think of as the Left) friends were actually from successful, upper middle class and professional families, and aimed all of their political criticisms at identity issues, with almost no regard for more general economic and class issues (that span races).
I've found myself having to argue with friends like these to point out how bourgeois they are (not in a pejorative way) and that the hard pressing of ethnic identity issues above universal economic concerns by people who call themselves "Left" might actually lead to a disintegration of the progressive movement.
I do not believe that Sotomayor should be denied confirmation, but I do see the problems of emphasizing identity politics (over economics) over the past thirty or so years coming back to bite liberals here.
I supported Obama so enthusiastically in part because I feel he recognizes this as one of the problems with the contemporary Left.
May 28, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep - my experiences in college were the same. The conclusion I came to was that 'middle class' transcends other factors. By middle class I mean the hard-working, aspirational folks who are financially, socially, and economically in the middle, who want a better life for their children, who believe in the importance of education and who expect to live carefully but in relative comfort. You know, those of us most hurt by the last 30 years of Republican rule.
May 29, 2009 11:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
You have a vald point. Unfortunately, it isn't a point that lots of folks who fancy themselves progressive are willing to hear because they prefer the identity approach. They fail to see how that approach (if implemented to the exclusion of the concerns you raise) only reinforces, in the long run, biases that we all agree we would like to put an end to. Identity has it's place, but when it trumps other concerns to the point of becoming an end in itself problems inevitably arise because it isn't the act of inclusion/access based on identity alone that is most important but the broader ideas of equality for all including based on class, etc... that matter in the long run. Lots of folks tend to assume the kinds of concerns you raise will work themselves out though I think there are plenty of historical examples of the Iron Law of Oligarchy being far more likely to prevail unless those concerns are specifically addressed and perhaps even if they are. The Iron Law of Oligarchy is that all revolutionaries inevitably become the oligarchs they replace.
May 29, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a wonderful side discussion that deserves its own thread... hell, it's own political science analysis.
Identity politics have allowed the kind of arguments that MJ posits that create an unspoken code of silence... and allows identity to become a tool of the privileged.
I couldn't walk my way into a country club, even as a caddie. The only way my ass could be seen at a golf event is in my dress blues in order to make the contemptible yuppie scum feel like they support the troops.
I may be white, but I am of the wrong class, the wrong heritage, and a product of the wrong education system. But according to traditional identity politics, I am by virtue of my skin color a member of the elite race.
And turns us all into victims.
The main problem is that none of this can be clearly defined, and is thus manipulated by tribal emotionalism. Old limbic system feelings-oriented ancestral crap that is crafted by the patriarchs to divide us from our own best interests.
May 29, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think the problem is that this is all a very complicated and thorny situation. Identity has it's place and needs to be taken into account. So too, does class and economics broadly speaking and there are other factors as well.
The biggest danger is ignoring one or the other and/or over-symplifying. The most difficult task is to make sure appropriate amounts of consideration are given to each factor that bears on a problem. People don't like complicated, subtle distinctions. They tend to want and choose simpler, black and white, good or bad schemes for making decisions and for understanding the world and human activity. It would be nice if that simplistic approach really worked all the time, but we all know it doesn't and can't.
May 29, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. All his argument means is that racism is mainly a systemic phenomenon, not an individual one. Just because you didn't start our longtime and currently flourishing system of White privilege doesn't mean you don't benefit from it--if you're called "White" in this country you certainly do, as if you're honest you'll readily admit. And since that privilege, even if only relative (your last name probably isn't Rockefeller or Astor) is deeply damaging to millions of others, not to mention profoundly un-democratic, not to mention un-Democratic--yes, you do have a responsibility to work to end it.
You could start, if I may presume, by giving MJ's post another, more reflective read.
May 29, 2009 12:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I tried to point out above, Sotomayor did NOT say that a Latina BECAUSE she is a Latina WOULD reach better conclusions as a judge that a white male would BECAUSE of his skin color and gender.
It was a politically-incorrect misspeaking for her to even drift that far in that direction, however, and I would not be surprised if some kind of "apology" comes out somewhere down the line. But who really cares? No one, not even a highly trained constitutional lawyer is perfect. Just look at what gibberish CHIEF JUSTICE Roberts (mainly) and PRESIDENT Obama (secondarily) uttered in front of X billion viewers while botching the recitation of a passage WRITTEN DOWN in the Constitution for the oath of office!
But MJ is not saying -as he might reasonably if trivially said- that Satomayor made a well-intentioned slip that is barely on a microscopic scale of importance compared anything real, including her very solid qualifications for the job. MJ is trying to justify an unjustifiably clumsy and on-its-face inappropriate remark. No amount of reading, re-reading or reflective re-reading can rescue MJ's post from its hopeless attempt to attain that impossible to reach goal. The more he goes on trying in the post, the more he relies on a two-wrongs make a right argument. It doesn't wash, never has, never will.
May 29, 2009 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
My comment here was in response to the Old Grouch, but anyway--as I posted to your other post--I disagree with you that Ms. Sotomayor misspoke. What she said was "politically incorrect" only if you believe that the idea of equal citizens' rights in America is fiction, and should be, and that actually only the views and interests of that ethnic and gender group that happens to line up with that of the original power/money elite in the U.S.--White male Anglo-Saxon Protestants, less than 1/3 of today's U.S. population--will, and properly will, have any standing in our current political system.
Judge Sotomayor, I think, strongly disagrees with you. She knows exactly what she said, I'm guessing, said exactly what she meant to say, and likely has little interest in easing your anxieties at the expense of speaking truly out of her own American experience.
If she chooses to mollify the ruffled feelings of clueless racist/sexists like Jeff Sessions and "walk back" her comment, as you suggest she should--well, that would be her business, but I devoutly hope she doesn't.
For the record, Judge Sotomayor simply stated the obvious: that given the social inequalities that are a plain fact of past and current U.S. society, and given the experience she has of growing up Latina, the daughter of working-poor Puerto Rican immigrants living in public housing in the Bronx--a woman and a "person of color"--she has a deeper, fuller experience of many American social/economic/legal realities than a White male--particularly (my thought) the economically very privileged sort that tends to end up in the senior judiciary. And that that fuller experience of American social realities and received hierarcies, invisible to many White men, would often give her a greater experience-based "wisdom," as she put it, to draw on when weighing legal cases.
The comment is more than fair, and I'm sure screamingly obvious to most of the solid majority of American citizens (again, over 2/3) who are neither White nor male.
May 29, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and forgot to add, just to be clear--I think your anxiety that Sotomayor's comment and the brou-haha on the Right about it will hurt her confirmation chances is simply misplaced. Big time. Again, you're projecting White maleness onto the rest of the universe. Most people are in her corner, and even most White folks, certainly White women, get what she was talking about.
Let Jeff Sessions grill her about her "reverse racism." Let Limbaugh and probably next week Cheney spout bile about her. They're just rallying more people to her side.
She didn't misspeak. She just didn't say what you think she should have.
May 29, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
With all due respect, and at least some is due, you are completely full of baked beans, jcd.
Here is what SOTOMAYOR HERSELF NOW THINKS ABOUT WHAT SHE SAID:
White House: Sotomayor says she chose word
poorly AP
By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer Ben Feller, Associated Press Writer – May 29, 2009
WASHINGTON – The White House says Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor acknowledges she made a poor word choice in a 2001 speech in which she said that a Latina judge would often reach a better conclusion than a white male judge who hasn't lived the same life.
That's according to presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs. He says he has not talked directly to Sotomayor about it but has spoken to people who have.
Critics have singled out the 2001 comment by Sotomayor for criticism. She was describing how personal experiences can affect judging. She said a "wise Latina woman" with her experiences would more often than not reach a "better conclusion" than a white male."
As I have said all along, she is highly qualified for the job. No intelligent and so highly qualified person could fail to instantly recognize such a boneheaded blunder. She wanted to say something that sounded more like 'a Latina would offer a diversity of experience to a court of mostly white males' instead of saying something that sounded more like 'Latinas can make better decisions than white males.'
It is now time for you, jcd, to come off the high horse and do the thinking that you have been admonishing others here to do.
May 29, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub: My thought, expressed as clearly as I can, is in my posts. We just see Sotomayor's comment differently. Thanks for your posts.
May 30, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make some perceptive observations along the way, jcd, but they are colored by a rather warped view of the world. This discussion, despite the trivial word parsing at its core, has however opened my eyes to a discourse based upon a weird and essentially racist perversion of the dictionary definition of racism. Gratuitous unfounded PC-mumbo jumbo jargon about "projecting white maleness" being among the more ridiculous examples thereof. It makes me all the more grateful that America has found people such as Obama (and hopefully Sotomayor herself) that can help the country get over such ingrained and ultimately counterproductive resentments.
May 30, 2009 2:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
jcd:
I don't see why you are trying so hard to defend her remark. Even Obama is saying now that she probably should have phrased it differently. And for a very good reason -- he knows that she was speaking to a strong academic left-wing audience at UC Berkeley where the atmosphere welcomes a little 'stick it to the old white guys' jabbing. So what?
It's totally forgivable, but let's not be oblivious to the fact that there is a strong element of this 'spirit of revenge' in left-wing academia! I know because I have a lot of non-white friends in sociology and literary theory circles!
May 29, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the same reason everybody else is posting: to say what I think makes sense. I'm not "trying so hard" to defend Sotomayor's comment, I'm defending what she said, period, with (I think) a cogent argument. I guess you don't get what I said, or don't want to get it, or just disagree. If the latter, do what I did: argue it out.
And--"Even Obama?" No, Obama first, obviously. She's his nominee, this is his fight, and I think we all know that a) our President is a master politician and b) he always leads with conciliation, compromise--when it doesn't cost anything. The comments you note are the least surprising of the week.
Sotomayor may say something similar at her confirmation hearing, if not before. I hope not, but I'm not a politician, nor a nominee to the Supreme Court.
If she does, she'll make a lot of people on this board happy.
Isn't that sad? This is supposedly a progressive board. And you're asking me why I'm "trying so hard" to defend Sotomayor's comments?
Why don't you try a little bit hard to figure out why her comments ought not to need any defending?
May 30, 2009 12:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I argued before, she was speaking to a strong left-wing academic audience at UC Berkeley where the comment was a little red meat for the crowd, but wouldn't be appropriate in broader context.
May 31, 2009 12:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
jcd: I don't see why you are trying so hard to defend her remark. Even Obama is saying now that she probably should have phrased it differently. And for a very good reason -- he knows that she was speaking to a strong academic left-wing audience at UC Berkeley where the atmosphere welcomes a little 'stick it to the old white guys' jabbing. And you know what? This is totally forgivable, but let's not be oblivious to the fact that there is a strong element of this in left-wing academia! I know because I have a lot of non-white friends in sociology and literary theory circles!
May 29, 2009 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure... After about 16 years of experience and reflection on this sort of question, and having worked (hard) my way up from very humble working-class roots, I don't know that I really see how being white has given me a significant advantage. And I am very concerned (again from a lot of experience) that it is only more highly privileged white liberals (like author M.J. here) who assume 'we all' benefit from being white.
May 29, 2009 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gingrich's charge of reverse racism is ridiculous, but your standard, declared here, is about the most backward, blinkered idea I've heard this year. And living in America, that's saying a lot. No, it's a terrible, potentially dangerous idea to authorize double standards on any basis. There are no officially certified "victim class" and "oppressor class", and it's absurd to endorse them. That stealth motive propelling "hate crimes" laws - establishment of specially protected classes - is one of the chief reasons this legislation is so crapulent. How about judging each other by our individual actions, instead of our "class" and thoughts? Better idea? Sorry, Mr. Rosenberg, being a good citizen shouldn't require anyone to volunteer as second-class.
May 28, 2009 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't be silly. Oppressor class = white men. Victim class = everybody else. Jesse, the millionaire, Jackson is in the victim class. Mr Ricci, the blue collar fire fighter who was denied promotion because of his race, is part of the oppressor class.
May 28, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Save the histrionics.
May 28, 2009 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, I didn't get into Harvard Law School because of quotas....and maybe because I didn't apply.
May 28, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
AAA:
Ricci was denied promotion because the local government determined that the test was oriented towards a specific race. The results were thrown out. The LAW was upheld. The flaw, if there is one, is legislative not judicial. If there is the political will to change it, then legislation is the course of action.
To have overturned the law would have been activism.
Second, as a white male, I can say that I saw many of my oppressor class brought home in flag-draped coffins... victims of an imperial adventure. The real oppressors aren't necessarily white males (although they happen, thanks to reasons primarily geographical/anthropological, to consist primarily of them), but in fact dynastic land-owning wealth-hording power-mongering families and their legion of sycophants who apologize and agitate on their behalf.
May 29, 2009 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"How about judging each other by our individual actions, instead of our "class" and thoughts? Better idea? Sorry, Mr. Rosenberg, being a good citizen shouldn't require anyone to volunteer as second-class."
I like this. I said bad things about you earlier, Curt. Maybe I misread you. Sorry if I did.
May 28, 2009 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
White males like Newt and Rush are going to be lashing out more and more. They are terrified of losing the power that they have had all this time. We have a Black man in the White House, a steadily growing minority population, another minority on the bench (with more to come if Obama has his way),etc. They see the status of the White male slowly eroding and it scares them.
May 28, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Careful, all of us White guys out there, we only control 80% of all seats on Corporate Boards, 75% of Congress and 6 out of 9 seats on the Scotus....And all this from a group that equals about 1/3 of the population.
Oh yes, White Men, we need to be afraid, very afraid indeed.
May 28, 2009 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
So... this country's long struggles weren't intended to eliminate double standards... but to supplant them with new double standards? VivaEstupida.
May 28, 2009 2:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, genius, how DO you remedy historic and institutional racism, or do you simply deny such a thing exists, and white men run everything due to their innate superiority?
May 28, 2009 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's remedied by the success of people like Obama.
May 28, 2009 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
And Sonia Sotomayor.
May 28, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
First of all, I don't think Gingrich correctly interpreted Sotomayor's remarks. All she was saying was that people with different backgrounds have different perceptions and, in a diverse country, most of those perceptions should, somehow in some way, be represented, or at least be well heard. Hardly controversial. In fact, it's at the heart of free speech, freedom of assembly, and democracy.
Second, Rosenswine, as usual, gets everything wrong. Catholics were persecuted by Protestants in this country. Should they be accorded special treatment? Protestants were badly treated in France, Kurds and Copts in Arab countries. The list is endless. What you'll get if you follow Rosenberg's advice is a culture of endlessly screaming victims - all able to prove that they are descendants of those who suffered "historically". That shouldn't happen. The best that can and should be offered is equal treatment under the law.
I am, however, willing to make one exception. The Rosenberg family knowingly purchased stolen property, land stolen from American Indians. I think they should be forced to give it back.
May 28, 2009 11:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
The central point of this post that racism or discrimination only works one way is ridiculous though. Talk about identity politics. No doubt there are more biases and unconscious residual prejudice extending from institutional racism, but bigotry is first the personal view of individuals within groups. When views are widespread throughout a society and racism is prevalent (institutional or covert) the group discriminated against has legitimate grievances but that does not excuse discrimination against individuals from the oppressive group.
Was Kraut and Jap- baiting okay because those countries were waging an aggressive fascist war against the world? I’m not asking about expedient propaganda in wartime, but the spreading of racial hate (locking up Japanese-Americans comes to mind).
May 28, 2009 2:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
She was referring to cases involving claims of racial or gender discrimination. Your [snips] conveniently left that part of the quote out.
May 28, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, obviously I messed up throwing this together quickly and wouldn’t intentionally repeat one of the ‘snips’ three times. Second, they're not my snips of her quotes. They're my snips of Charlie Savage's snips of her quotes, and I was trying to include context. But, even in the context of her speech and especially considering the audience, it is still a biased remark.
At that point in her speech, she’s not talking about gender/racial discrimination cases as much as judging in general and minority representation on the bench. There is a big difference there. It’s really a political speech, and that quote is impolitic to say the least. That doesn’t mean there’s not some truth to it under some circumstances. But do you like the fact that Chief Justice Roberts, a wealthy white guy, tends to side with corporate interests more because he can empathize? Would he be skewered if he admitted it out loud? Her quote is a refutation to the quote from O’Connor (or whoever) “that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.”
She says objectivity is just an aspiration. That is not what you want to hear from a SC nominee. But this is just one statement from a long speech years ago arguing for minority representation.I agree that more minority views are needed. As I said, I think we should admit that other perspectives are needed both practically and politically. It is identity politics but it should be admitted and argued for as such. But the argument of this post, that only white men can be called on statements that exhibit subjective bias, just doesn’t hold water.
May 28, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are quite right about the context, brewmn61, which is spelled out nine sentences earlier: "seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases."
But she failed to reiterate that context, nine sentences later, in her Latina vs white male remark.
A case not of racism or prejudice (necessarily) but certainly of sloppy speech-writing(especially for a lawyer) - and probably also of "red meat" as noted below by mcdonald928 May 28, 2009 11:17 PM.
FULL PASSAGE:
"In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, 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."
‘A Latina Judge’s Voice’ in "Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation", Berkeley La Raza Law Journal.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html/
May 29, 2009 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad that M.J. Rosenberg admits that anti-racism is really anti-whiteism.
The title, by the way, is horrible: "No, Newt, "Reverse Racism" Doesn't Exist And, If It Does, It Isn't Racism"
Translation: It's not jsut that he think that white racism is a bigger problem than black racism; he denies that hatred of whites should be called racism at all.
May 28, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unfortunately,Glaivester, it appears that you are correct. What a terrible headline!
May 28, 2009 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Predudice is against individuals. There are some who are preduiced against whole races and we call that racism. Still, the harm is done because one suffers from predudice, right?
I don't believe the average black, or latino, or jew suffers near the predudice as does the obese white girl with no education working at McDonalds.
May 28, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
The conservatives are unfortunately picking up on something that may have more legs than your typical liberal is likely to think.
I am a liberal myself, and I'm white, but I also grew up in a lower working class family. I was often surprised in college at how many of my non-white and politically engaged (from what they think of as the Left) friends were actually from successful, upper middle class and professional families, and aimed all of their political criticisms at identity issues, with almost no regard for more general economic and class issues (that span races).
I've found myself having to argue with friends like these to point out how bourgeois they are (not in a pejorative way) and that the hard pressing of ethnic identity issues above universal economic concerns by people who call themselves "Left" might actually lead to a disintegration of the progressive movement.
I do not believe that Sotomayor should be denied confirmation, but I do feel I see the problems of emphasizing identity politics (over economics) over the past twenty years coming back to bite Liberals here.
I supported Obama so enthusiastically in part because I feel he recognizes this as one of the problems with the contemporary Left.
May 28, 2009 10:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I do feel I see the problems of emphasizing identity politics (over economics) over the past twenty years coming back to bite Liberals here."
Nice. The conservatives claim this is an affirmative action pick, in spite of the fact she has a professional record superior to that of the most recent (white and male, BTW) appointee, and you want to blame liberals.
Should Obama have denied this clearly qualified nominee the chance to sit on the court simply BECAUSE she's female and and Puerto Rican? What, exactly, have "liberals" done wrong here?
May 28, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps I should clarify that I do mean the academic left (more than liberals in general) as being largely at fault for cultivating a distorted sense of 'whites' as a homogeneous mass.
May 28, 2009 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Case in point: Sotomayor was speaking at UC Berkeley (strong left-wing academic environment) when she made the comment, which sounds like a little red meat for that particular audience, about hoping a wise Latina woman's judgment would be better than a white man's. Honestly, I don't think this disqualifies her whatsoever (I support her without knowing much yet because I trust Obama's judgment), but that kind of comment just strikes me as the kind of leftist resentment (ressentiment as Nietzsche calls it) that is cultivated by academic left culture.
May 28, 2009 11:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Nice. The conservatives claim this is an affirmative action pick, in spite of the fact she has a professional record superior to that of the most recent (white and male, BTW) appointee, and you want to blame liberals."
But Sotomayor "is" the "identity politics/ affirmative action" appointee. The first I, and probably many of you--if you're being honest--heard about her is the following:
1). Obama should pick a woman, preferably a woman of color: How 'bout this Sotomayor?
2). Sotomayor: Woman, Latina
And that was about it. Within hours of the news that Souter was leaving, and for days afterwards, this circulated in the liberal punditocracy and there wasn't much more to it than that, followed by the hit piece in the TNR and still more wrangling over not much more than that.
Given that *you know* the right wing lynch mob is going to be out in full force, why market candidates in this way rather than "Sotomayor for X, Y, Z substantive reason"?
I'm sorry, but this is *stupid* and this should end. Clarence Thomas is giggling in his cups going "I told you so."
Liberals *were* the first to cut her down to size, and yes, I certainly blame liberals for playing into a well known right wing spin.
Dogmatic and robotic liberals can and will be questioned and called on their stupid baby-shit.
May 29, 2009 8:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. (But I do think that Obama was the greatest beneficiary of those same identity politics).
May 28, 2009 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary Clinton got way more Hispanic votes in the California primary than Obama did. Obama, as someone above already suggested, deserves praise for trying to go above beyond narrow identity politics.
May 29, 2009 5:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
"someone" = mcdonald928 May 28, 2009 10:48 PM
May 29, 2009 5:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
He did preach "post-racialism" but that doesn't mean he wasn't the beneficiary of ID politics (water under the bridge). I think Obama deserves praise for some things at this point, and will have achieved a lot before he leaves officewhile he has disappointed on a number of fundamental issues.
I respect this SC nomination. His nominees (I expect at least two) will probably be very significant. This was one of the important reasons to me in electing Obama. Sotomayor is a good choice, but she looks fairly moderate and if the right can manage to smear her as radical, well, it will be interesting to see Obama's reaction.
I do wonder what her stand on executive powers is since I believe Bush stacked the Court with allies to exonerate his abuse of office. Then again, if Obama retains Bush unitary war-time executive policies with just a few tweaks and doesn't push for prosecution of crimes, it doesn't matter anyway.
May 29, 2009 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Supreme Court appointment are important, no doubt about that. They are for life, so she is likely to be rendering decisions for decades to come. But the endless trivia-based headlines are really disgusting, since all they really do in the end is feed the lunatic fringe trash media talk shows. If you supported Obama, you should support his helping to restock the court with his people, period, end of sentence, no need for the slightest attention to Gingrich or other foamers. 60 votes to end debate, 51 votes to confirm. Done, and move on to cleaning up the hundreds of messes left by W's administration, prosecuting Cheney for corruption, restoring sane and normal American economic, social, environmental policies, etc.
May 29, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tell it to MJ. I have just been responding to this post. I haven't heard one Republican Senator say these things about Sotomayor (though one way or another, I'm sure it will be brought up in the confirmation process). The Republicans would be outright idiots to alienate women and Hispanics, while Limbaugh makes a habit of it.
May 29, 2009 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
"For man to be redeemed from the spirit of revenge, that is for me the bridge to the highest hope, and a rainbow after long storms."
- Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
May 28, 2009 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of MJ's less well thought out posts.
May 29, 2009 12:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
On the contrary, one of his best, and most important. Read it again, give it some serious thought.
May 29, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, I think it's true...sort of. But it leads to all sorts of circularity because one condition doesn't end neatly and another take up where the other left off. And there are all kinds of counter examples. Times moves on and changes things.
For example, mythbuster remarks on Catholic Palestinians being oppressed by Jewish Israelis. Do these Catholics have the right to call their Jewish oppressors "oppressors" given the millennia-long oppression of Jews by Catholics? Or are they just getting a taste of their own medicine? Or do they have this right as Palestinian, but lack the right as Catholics? And how DO you divide one person in half that way? I'd say...it's hard to say.
OTOH, arguments about reverse racism are pathetic, because they assume a true level playing field when one doesn't exist. OTOH we are working for a level playing field, and how will we know when we have one? When there's absolute numerical or proportional parity? Will blacks be the underdog in America "forever"? I'm not sure it's so easy to decide when parity has been reached.
And what if we had a one-state finally and the Palestinians used their numerical superiority to do all sorts of unfair, or even horrible, things to Israelis. Would we say they had it coming? Would we say that Jewish underdog suffering reaches back much farther back in time than Palestinian suffering? So that, yes, Jews had 60 years "on top" but that hardly makes up for 2,000 years of terrible discrimination?
I'm not drawing conclusions here, but it seems to me that MJ's thesis cracks open a Pandora's box of problems which he ignores. His answers are far too pat for my taste. He doesn't attempt to tease out the intricacies of the problem I think are there.
May 29, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
jcd: The premise of M.J.'s article is Politically Correct dogma: only whites can be racists. "Four legs good, two legs bad". You suggest thinking - logic says racism means prejudice based on race.
May 31, 2009 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Read my post to PTroub above --apples, bananas, etc. You sound to me like a good example of a (by your own description) working class White guy who knows life in this country is a struggle for anybody working class, and who thinks his own record of hard work will be devalued if he acknowledges that life is a lot tougher if you're Latino or, especially, Black (unimaginably tougher). You say you haven't had any advantages for being born White. Okay, look us all in the eye and say, "I'd be fine if I woke up Black tomorrow. No problem. And my kids--my son, my daughter--yeah, let's make them Black. They won't suffer any disadvantages--I'm fine with that."
Well?
May 31, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Well-written but poorly thought-through.
May 29, 2009 5:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also agree that the one dimensional demonization of "white men" by fat-ass babyboom academia to a captive group of first generation white college students was inappropriate and ill considered, and caused more trouble than it was worth.
May 29, 2009 8:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Especially since that first generation were primarily culled from the upper middle class... thus creating a class firewall that would perpetuate flawed ideas.
May 29, 2009 1:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
"fat-ass babyboom academia to captive... white college students"
"(O)ne dimensional demonization" indeed.
May 30, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do believe that white male is a misnomer... speaking as a white male.
Any white male who has been in jail is not a white male but a convict.
Any white male who is KIA is not a white male but a dead soldier.
Any white male who is laid off is not a white male but unemployed.
In other words, there are categories that are social black holes regardless of race or gender. If you join the Communist party, you are a commie in this country, and skin color becomes a secondary prejudicial characteristic. A commie doesn't become more privileged because they are white. They are equally maligned.
So what I am saying is that their is a prejudicial veil that exists beyond race categories, but race does play a factor in terms of an increased rate of falling into these voids.
Now, race/gender present good initial categories for activism because they are historically valid victim groups that require advocacy above and beyond the norm. But to presume a wholecloth advantage to white males is invalid without the proper context of class, region, and other more taboo categories. Perhaps if we were more united in opposing the oppressive system instead of drawing straws for the victim lottery, we could dissolve some of these arbitrary prison bars.
May 29, 2009 2:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Newr she was your parties choice first. Bush Sr. first nominated her, then clinton made her a federal judge. Justice Sotomayors first order of business whould be to deport lou dobbs..Just a suggestion..
May 29, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
in our society just being white has its own privileges.
in our society just being male has its own privileges.
in our society just being a wasp has its own privileges.
these privileges are so part of the social fabric that if you are a white, male, and wasp you are not even aware of them.
FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD
orwell
May 30, 2009 11:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
All interested in this topic should check out Roland Wolf's post in Recommmended Reader Posts.
May 31, 2009 12:43 PM | Reply | Permalink