Bob Herbert in his opinion column today in the NY Times notes that “it’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled” by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, and Tom Tancredo. Says Herbert, “Oh, they tell us, this racism is a bad thing!”
But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Is Sotomayor a racist? Her quote from a 2002 speech troubled me. The quote is, “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.” So I thought, oh really? Does she mean in some cases? Or does she mean in all cases? Because that would be absurd. Was her comment taken out of context? So today I provide the full text of her speech here (once again, courtesy of the NY Times): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2 Was her comment taken out of context? Not much, is the answer. At best, it was an unfortunate choice of words. And don’t we expect judges to be pretty astute about, and careful with, words?
Let me just define for a minute what I think racism is. It’s an attitude, a belief. You can’t make a law that says someone can’t be a racist. But what you can do (and we did) is make a law against discrimination. Discrimination is different from racism because it isn’t an attitude, it’s a behavior. And in the end, that’s really all that matters–behavior. I don’t give two hoots how you feel in your deepest heart of hearts, I only care how you act. And let me also say that while people say you can’t legislate morality or attitudes, we legislate behavior all the time. And that, particularly the anti-discrimination laws, has led to forced contact, and forced understanding, and that, in my opinion has led to….changes in people’s deepest heart of hearts. It has also led to hardening of hearts in some cases and many absurdities have proceeded from those laws.
Among those absurdities is the Court of Appeals decision (which Sotomayor sits on) that decided against the white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut. In case you’ve been living in a cave, New Haven administered a test for promotion, which some white firefighters passed, but no black firefighters did. The City threw out the test, and to date (I believe this happened 7 years ago) no one has been promoted. Talk about lose, lose. The white firefighters sued the city, saying they had been discriminated against by virtue of race. And that seems patently obvious to me. But it brings up another question…can you ever discriminate against the majority? Sure you can. Happens all the time. Discrimination is about power. Who has it, and who doesn’t. Incidentally, one of those “white” firefighters was Latino.
David Brooks makes what is probably the best point, which is that he has for some time now been reading books about cognition, and he understands that you cannot make decisions devoid of emotion or divorced from who you are as a result of your life experiences. If only that’s what Sotomayor had said. But it isn’t. No, she said she was better. I feel about Sotomayor kind of like I felt about Hillary Clinton. It would be cool to have a Latina on the Supreme Court, and it would be great to have a woman as President–just not this one.
Is Sotomayor a Racist?
June 2, 2009 · 15 Comments
Bob Herbert in his opinion column today in the NY Times notes that “it’s hard to fathom the heights of hypocrisy currently being scaled” by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, and Tom Tancredo. Says Herbert, “Oh, they tell us, this racism is a bad thing!”
But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it? Is Sotomayor a racist? Her quote from a 2002 speech troubled me. The quote is, “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.” So I thought, oh really? Does she mean in some cases? Or does she mean in all cases? Because that would be absurd. Was her comment taken out of context? So today I provide the full text of her speech here (once again, courtesy of the NY Times): http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2 Was her comment taken out of context? Not much, is the answer. At best, it was an unfortunate choice of words. And don’t we expect judges to be pretty astute about, and careful with, words?
Let me just define for a minute what I think racism is. It’s an attitude, a belief. You can’t make a law that says someone can’t be a racist. But what you can do (and we did) is make a law against discrimination. Discrimination is different from racism because it isn’t an attitude, it’s a behavior. And in the end, that’s really all that matters–behavior. I don’t give two hoots how you feel in your deepest heart of hearts, I only care how you act. And let me also say that while people say you can’t legislate morality or attitudes, we legislate behavior all the time. And that, particularly the anti-discrimination laws, has led to forced contact, and forced understanding, and that, in my opinion has led to….changes in people’s deepest heart of hearts. It has also led to hardening of hearts in some cases and many absurdities have proceeded from those laws.
Among those absurdities is the Court of Appeals decision (which Sotomayor sits on) that decided against the white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut. In case you’ve been living in a cave, New Haven administered a test for promotion, which some white firefighters passed, but no black firefighters did. The City threw out the test, and to date (I believe this happened 7 years ago) no one has been promoted. Talk about lose, lose. The white firefighters sued the city, saying they had been discriminated against by virtue of race. And that seems patently obvious to me. But it brings up another question…can you ever discriminate against the majority? Sure you can. Happens all the time. Discrimination is about power. Who has it, and who doesn’t. Incidentally, one of those “white” firefighters was Latino.
In yet another take on it, Gail Collins (the resident liberal) and David Brooks (the resident moderate) have had another one of their frequent “conversations” about Sotomayor’s nomination. http://theconversation.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/sotomayors-life-matters/?ref=opinion
David Brooks makes what is probably the best point, which is that he has for some time now been reading books about cognition, and he understands that you cannot make decisions devoid of emotion or divorced from who you are as a result of your life experiences. If only that’s what Sotomayor had said. But it isn’t. No, she said she was better. I feel about Sotomayor kind of like I felt about Hillary Clinton. It would be cool to have a Latina on the Supreme Court, and it would be great to have a woman as President–just not this one.
Categories: Politics · Social Commentary
Tagged: discrimination, racism, Sotomayor