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Could Sotomayor Be Right About White Men?
Sonia Sotomayor just might be onto something. This quote:
"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
just will not die.
But everybody from Newt Gingrich to Joe Lieberman to Lindsey Graham seems to be hell bent on proving her right. These guys, believe it or not, are just like the folks who run BET - both groups seem to be committed to pimping a distorted view of dysfunctional male misogyny.
Has Gingrich just totally lost it? Telling us that "Obama has failed" already is like calling the outcome of a football game before the first commercial break. It's like a teacher handing out blank test papers at the beginning of an exam with the grades already written on them.
That metaphorical "wise Latina" is looking smarter already.
Meanwhile, Lindsay Graham and Joe Lieberman are as angry as two spoiled little three year old toddlers who have been forced to share the toys their daycare provides with all the other kids. These two clowns have decided that they are just going to take their ball and go home...no, wait, they are going to SHUT DOWN THE SENATE. Brilliant. Just brilliant.
At the rate these guys are going, the "wise Latina" doesn't even have to be wise - just experienced.
What gets me hot under the collar about these buffoons is the same thing that gets my blood pressure up when I see some of the ridiculous images of black people BET keeps showing over and over - their total disregard for reality. Most of my drinking buddies and cigar buddies are white men. Granted, none of them are congressmen or political pundits, but by and large, these guys are all pretty decent, pretty humble...well, okay, most of them aren't humble, but neither are any of the African American guys who are my friends.
What I'm really trying to say here is that when you take the preening and the posturing and the politicking away, white men are just like any other men. Its the charlatans and fakers who insist on acting out, the way kids do when they aren't getting enough attention, who are currently giving the rest of America's white men a bad name.
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I can't remember that Earl Warren preened or postured. He certainly was political; as a tough prosecutor in Oakland, CA, early in his career, and then as governor, he had to be. Knowing what I do about him, he's about the last person I would define as charlatan or faker. He rose from working-class roots to be one of the most influential Chief Justices of the Supreme Court; his court changed forever the nature and soul of America.
Earl Warren was a white male. On the basis of Judge Sotomayor's quote, a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion (as a judge) than Earl Warren.
There is nothing in my life experience or our common national history that would make me believe that. Will Judge Sotomayor make as good decisions as did Earl Warren on the court? That remains to be seen; history will judge that on the basis of their respective records.
It was an unwise comment. She retracted it. No problem.
June 11, 2009 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
"On the basis of Judge Sotomayor's quote, a wise Latina woman, with the richness of her experiences, would more often than not reach a better conclusion (as a judge) than Earl Warren."
Yes, Earl Warren was a brilliant judge - I will always be grateful for his leadership in the 9-0 decision on Brown vs. The Board of Education, and the Miranda decision.
You've made a selective argument, picking one of the top justices in the Court's entire history.
But there are and have been 110 other Supreme Court Justices. Was every single one of the better than Sotomayor? I doubt it.
I certainly believe Sotomayor will make better decisions than the Supreme Court Justices made in the Dred Scott case or the Justices that decided Plessy v. Ferguson.
Personally I don't know why people get so bent out of shape about the comment. She only said she probably could make better decisions than a male without her background. Really! People act as if this is the end of the world.
As an woman and African American I've heard far harsher opinion of my abilities - Blacks have lower IQ's than whites, why there are no female Michaelangelos?, the 'feminization of America', and all that claptrap
I would be perfectly happy to hear a white guy say he could make better decisions than I instead of attacking the intelligence and abilities of my race and gender.
June 11, 2009 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the down side Earl Warren signed off on the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII - so as good as he was in some ways, he wasn't perfect (also, see the ludicrous Warren Report and its supporting volumes of supposed evidence).
June 12, 2009 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
She implied that she would be a better judge more often than every single one of them, assuming they're white and male, based simply on who she is. Nope. That's unacceptable nonsense.
June 12, 2009 10:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shouldn't you note that Sotomayor was referring to race and gender discrimination cases only, when she made that Latina vs. white man comment?
June 11, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
The United States, and to some degree, Canada, has a deep and largely unique-in-the-world misandrist culture. "Why are men such pigs?" Only in America is that disgraceful kind of thing regarded as excusable.
Oh, and they mean white men, by the way. So your post will get a lot of support. At Smith College it should be 100% in favor, except that you didn't go too far. Happily, once one gets beyond the U.S./Canada, one doesn't have to put up with this culture of gender abuse. And one doesn't much look back, you can best believe.
BTW, what Sotomayor really meant was probably that a Latina woman who happens to be wise and experienced will likely have a better perspective that a white guy who is neither wise nor experienced. It's really a tautology.
June 11, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
She probably meant it as self-promotion at the time, "look at me/us, we're better than some strawman". All the rest is people reading stuff into different parts of it and then pronouncing what she must have meant or how they think some people might take it.
It says that she expects that RICH experience is important as a ground of judicial wisdom. A young sheltered white male judge would not as often produce better verdicts. That may seem obvious but it's not a tautology.
June 11, 2009 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I want to be clear here.
For me, if she meant that Latina who is both wise and experienced will have more to draw upon that somebody who is neither wise nor experienced but is white, then it's totally unoffensive (and yes, tautological). If she meant, though, that a Latina would like have all these experiences and be wise and a white guy wouldn't, so she'd make better decisions, then it's very troubling. To me and not only to me. And all the never-ending stuff about the context does not help in any way. I think she meant something basically like the former, and I agree with you that it would have been mainly self-promotion, which is not exactly judge-like by the way but I can live with it even if I don't approve of it.
June 12, 2009 2:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"mainly self-promotion, which is not exactly judge-like "
You do know that some judges have to run for office, they are elected?
I think looking at the larger context of her remarks makes them completely unoffensive even if one has doubts from looking only at the oft-quoted sound bite.
June 12, 2009 4:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't want to argue with you -- I know you are a smart, reasonable, and insightful guy. I know that some judges have to run for office, yes, and you know that such doesn't include Federal judges.
I think what she said was neutral. If my interpretation is wrong, though, context doesn't do anything for me and I regard it as one of the world's great cop outs. People said if you looked at Nixon in context, his Watergate break-ins didn't matter and if you looked at Clinton in context, lying under oath didn't matter. If she was saying that Latinas judge better in general because their rich Latina experience (and I *DON'T* think she was saying this although at first I did), context does not help me in any way -- it's bigotry. I don't believe that was it, again. We'll see what other exuberant statements she did or did not make as the hearings unfold; I hope nothing damaging.
June 15, 2009 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
If a person is mugged, would that add to his/her life experiences and make for a better justice when the issue before the court is mugging? I think so. Justice Sotomayor meant only that her personal experiences regarding racism will help her when issues of race come up. Who knows, she might, on occassion, be more lenient than a standard issue liberal white male.
Justice Sotomayor's comment, I think, is true, even self-evident. What she did wrong, I suppose, was not wording it quite delicately enough and crossed the line of our modern day political correctness.
She should have said: Please excuse me, but I have been the victim of racism, and by God, that makes me more of an expert on that issue than Newt Gingritch.
June 11, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink