Hi Everyone,
There is a lot of talk these days about the demographic changes going on in the United States these days. The future of America is one in which there is no racial or ethnic majority. There hasn't been an ethnic majority in the United States since its beginnings (despite our reputation as "transplanted Englishmen," Germans, Irish, Africans, Scots and French people etc have always made up large portions of our population - not to mention Native Americans). But racially, this country has long been one in which Europeans comprised well over 80% of the population. That is what is about to change. The day is coming soon when Americans of European heritage will make up less than 50% of the population. The big growth is coming from Asian and Latino immigrants and their descendants. The dominant theme of conversations about this future revolves around the changes "White" people will have to make.
But an exchange yesterday between Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Judge Sotomayor about her infamous "wise Latina" remark (in which she said that a wise Latina would make better judicial decisions than a white male) points out that groups that are now minorities in an America dominated by whites will have to make changes in their attitudes as well. Senator Graham pointed out that if he had come close to suggesting he would make a better Senator than a minority candidate because he was a caucasian male, he'd be - rightly - shredded. I think Senator Graham has a point here. There are statements that if white people say them are clearly and universally regarded as racist that if a Latina/o or African American say them are more often regarded as more or less innocent statements of cultural self-confidence.
The traditionally "political correct" way to respond to Graham's distinction is to say, "Well, white people are in power by virtue of their majority status so of course they can't say things that minorities can." But very soon, that won't be as true as it is now or was 30 years ago. The time is fast coming when people of color will have to more carefully consider the rhetoric they use to express their pride of culture. It's one thing to say "Latinas have wisdom to contribute!" It's quite another to say "Latinas are better than white people."
To be honest, I don't think Sotomayor understood or agreed with Graham's point. I think she deflected the topic with agility and diplomacy. But I think she is very much a product of her generation. I think her attitudes towards conversations about race is very much rooted in traditional political correctness with all its inherent double standards.
I don't think this exchange really disqualifies Sotomayor. Nor do I think her statement from years ago is all that important in of itself. But I think the point Graham was trying to make is an interesting topic for a conversation about race. Think of it as a kind of continuation of the dialogue Obama called for his race speech.
40 comments:
People kill me...whites can't say anything politically incorrect, not because we have been the majority but because whites made blacks and others slaves. Whites irradicated the native Americans, Chinese slaves built the railroads...and Hispanics pick the fields today...people like Graham and Sessions are pathological hypocrites and their deep south opinions are about as valid as the confederate flag. Why people continue to attempt an intellectual dialog with racist at this level is misguided at the least.
Anonymous 1:25, did you listen to what the man said in the clip or did you just start writing?
If you did listen to what Graham said, could you specify what about what he said in that clip you thought was racist?
Or are you defending the double standard? That it is OK for a person of color to say that their ethnicity/race is superior to other races?
RBR, I respectfully disagree with you. I think Sotomayor's comments have to be viewed in context. There are very few Latinos on the bench, and relatively few minorities, even relatively few women. The judiciary has been a white male dominated profession for more than two centuries. Yet their primary engagement is in cases involving the racial underclass. White males like Robets and L. Graham pretend that they can be impartial, that they have no biases.
Sotomayor was mocking that view. Of course they have biases. And white males tend to have the same biases because they ahve the same expereinces. When O'Connor said that a wise old man and a wise old woman should reach the same judgment, she was implying that a woman's experience - new and different than her male colleagues on the bench - would not give them any insight that they lacked.
Sotomayor disagreed. So do I.
To say to a group of minority law students who look on an old white male conservative judiciary that their more diverse experiences might even make them better judges is inspirational, not racist. It was perhaps not artful to phrase it as a "wise old Latina" without adding "who has had the experiences that I have had yadda yadda" but that was understood and inferred. Nobody, until the right-wing got hold of it- thought she was saying that a person's race would automatically make them a better judge.
If she was truely mocking the view that White men are better judges than other demographic groups, then I see no problem in what she said.
What I object to is not the "wise Latina" bit. Of course I would love see wise judges - Latina or otherwise. Nor did she say "Latina judges will bring new and different insights." She specifically and without qualification said, "Latina judgement is better than white judgement."
What I object to was the word "better" (this is the point Graham was making I think but it got lost in the fuss over the "wise Latina" stuff).
Imagine - as Graham asked her to - if a white male had said, "A wise white man will nine times out of ten make BETTER decisions than Latina." The sentence is exactly the same but with the ethnicities reversed in the word order.
If you think it's OK to say Latinas > Whites but not OK to say Whites > Latinas then you are defending a double standard.
Indeed, your defense of Sotomayor in your comment was very much along the lines of the traditional politically correct double standard that I mentioned in my original post. It's OK for her to say some things that may be racist coming from other people because there are so few Latina judges.
What I am suggesting is that that excuse for that kind of rhetoric is wearing thin. I'm not suggesting that Sotomayor can't say "I have something to contribute because I'm a Latina." But she didn't say that. She said, "I'm better than you are because I am a Latina."
Here is the actual text of the speech. The context matters here. Sotomayor is talking about cases of sex and race discrimination in this part of her speech. Here is the relevant excerpt.
"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.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage."
In light of the context of cases of sex and race discrimination, Sotomayor's words seem much more reasonable. She argues that personal experience matters when it comes to "understanding the values and needs of people from a different group." Women and minorities bring a particular "richness" of experience to the table unavailable to those "who have not lived that life." In the preceding and following paragraphs Sotomayor takes great pains to say that this kind of personal experience is actually not necessary, but that it takes time and effort to bridge the gap and as a practical matter not everyone does it. So in practice, having a diverse judiciary matters.
I agree with her.
I wanted to address the important question of symmetry that RbR raises. In this context I would say: if I argue that a woman or a minority judge, with the special experience she brings to the table, would be more likely to make a more informed (better) decision about race/sex discrimination issues than a white male without said experience... Can we turn it around? Does a white male bring special experience to the table on certain other questions (like perhaps "reverse" discrimination) and therefore would be more likely to make a more informed decision about those issues?
I argue this is not so, and it arises because of the asymmetry of the majority/minority relationship. Simply put, the "majority" culture is by definition the socially pervasive culture. (This is why we refer to women sometimes as a "minority" even though technically there are more of them.) So a "wise Latina" judge not only has access to plenty of the predominant white male culture--she probably could not get away from it if she tried. In other words, I believe that a member of a minority likely has a far better grasp of what it is like to be in the majority than vice-versa.
RbR indicates that, demographically speaking, we will soon approach the time when whites are no longer in the majority. But I remind him this is already true for men. The more important issue is not the statistical majority but the socially pervasive majority I referred to earlier. I fear that will persist long after the numbers have shifted. The social shift is coming, however, and it has already begun. A fair number of folks, formerly at the top of the social heap, are pretty unhappy about the leveling of it all. (This is why they cling so bitterly to their guns and religion... [wink, wink!])
RBR writes "She specifically and without qualification said, "Latina judgement is better than white judgement."
Actually, that's your paraphrase. She didn't say that at all. That's a fox news talking point, and shame on you for repeating it. Here's what she said, which came with PLENTY of qualification and context:
"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"
Notice that: (1) it is qualified by (a) having a richness of experience and (b) the idea that they would only "more often" reach a better conclusion
(2) it is in the subjunctive ("I would hope that...") - i.e., it is not delcaratory of a fact, and
(3) it comes in a context of discussing CIVIL RIGHTS cases - i.e., exactly the kinds of cases where experience as a minority might matter - before a white-male dominated Supreme Court.
Your assertion, RBR, that Judge Sotomayor categorically declared Latinas always better judges than whites is totally wrong. Totally wrong. I don't know where you got it. Fox News? Seriously?
In fact, her comment is totally mainstream and is a pretty standard justification for diversity on the bench.
It's got nothing to do with whether minorities can "get away with" stuff that the majority can't. That's what they've tried to spin it as. Sorry for being so worked up, but I just can't believe someone as smart as you was taken in by this farce.
By the way, people like Graham say that non-white judges are unqualified all the time. They say that they are picked only because of their race or because of "affirmative action," implying (falsely) that such people are unqualified.
Sotomayor understood Graham perfectly. She understood exactly that he was engaged in doubletalk and twisting her words. She also realized that if even a smart professor like RBR could be taken in, she'd rather not fight it. So she just apologized and moved on.
By the way, I also completely agree with Sotomayor about the role of race and gender in judging. If you are not aware of your biases and do not struggle to overcome them and understand others, you will not necessarily do justice. Conservatives who believe they are impartial and scorn the need to understand others are particularly susceptible to this.
We all know people whose life experiences are circumscribed, and who therefore lack understanding of certain other people and issues. All of us have life experiences to some degree circumscribed, but some limitations are more harmful than others.
Empathy, as Sotomayor and Obama should have explained, is about the ability to see other groups as more than just "them." When Ross Perot prattled on about "you people" to the NAACP, it was so obvious that he couldn't get past the otherness of black people. Getting past that otherness is beyond the capacity of many conservative appointees. Roberts in particular with his insistence that the USA is now "colorblind" (so that we can now smugly blame African-Americans for being poorer and less well educated) is such a problem.
Actually, LTG, I got it from the exact quotation you use to excuse her.
Let's look at it. "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"
The phrase "with the richness of her experiences" does not qualify the comparison she is making between Latinas and White males. I don't know where you got that it does? What it does do is elaborate on the value/definition of "wise Latina." It does NOT qualify the word "better."
If we can agree that the statement on its own does not have any qualifications of the comparison between Latinas and white males then what we are left with is "I would hope that a wise Latina woman ... would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life"
The operative part of this statement is "reach a better conclusion than a white male." That's offensive and if ANY White male made a similar comparison that favored whites over Latinos or women he would be roasted alive and rightly so.
As for Graham's past. I know he's a jerk and that he's exploited racism in his political career. I was just pointing out that he made a reasonable point IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE.
In this case, Graham did NOT twist her words. She got caught being lazy about how she talks about race. And that's my point. It's not that Sotomayor is not qualified to be a judge. It's not that I don't support her confirmation. It's not that Latinas and other previously excluded groups don't have something to contribute and that they should be encouraged to do so. It's that Sotomayor - an otherwise smart person - got lazy about how she talks about race and she got called on it.
Where do we go from here? I think we need to recognize that it's OK, no, desirable to say that people of various backgrounds have something to contribute. It's NOT OK to balance years of exclusion by adopting - out of laziness if not malice - the racist comparative language of old school white racists.
Frankly, LTG, I think you will have to concede that it's not "totally wrong. Totally wrong." to come to the conclusion I did about the meaning of her statement and I think you owe me an apology for the way you addressed me in your angry posts. Seriously.
Leaving aside Judge Sotomayor's partiular comments, RbR's larger point remains that America is moving toward becoming a no-majority society (although I would add the social movement lags the statistical movement) and as society transforms we must also transform how we speak of race and racial issues.
In particular, RbR notes that it has been considered acceptable for minorities to speak in terms of race in certain ways that would be unacceptable for the majority. There have been good reasons for this, in that minorities have felt the need to band together for defense against the pressure of the majority. Thus we celebrate "Black Pride," but not so much for "White Pride."
When minorities are no longer underrepresented, we will have to speak on a more even footing. The question remains whether the language we use should lead or follow... In other words, should we try to start using colorblind language now, in hopes of hurrying that along, or would insisting on colorblind language undermine ongoing attempts to redress economic and social disparities? For example, we see this in the census, which has to figure out how to count people by race. Some conservatives argue that such counting is racist in itself, but I argue that it is necessary to quantify and then fix the underrepresentation issue.
I do not yet believe we are in a "post-racial" era, and trying to squeeze race out of the language at this point would bury the problem instead of solve it. But I hope perhaps the next generation will be able to do that.
Yes, Dr. S I thin you and I on the same page more or less.
I was talking to a friend about this earlier this week. He said, "In the so called 'greatest generation' racism was simply the way the world was. Among the baby boomers it was how the world was but it was wrong. Now the attitude among the young is that racism is stupid."
The future is on our side on this one. But one of the last things we'll have to do is recognize that racism is not just about power and who has it and who doesn't. It's also about making broad judgements about categories of people without regard to their individual natures.
Actually, RBR, I couldn't disagree more. First you put in quotes a statement you said she specifically said. You now concede she did not say those words, but that it is your take on the words.
Second, you disregard the phrase "with the richness of her experiences" as if it were meaningless. It's not at all. In fact, it's the whole purpose of her statement. What would make a wise Latina a good judge, perhaps even a better judge, would be not her race, but her rich experiences. It is a sort of deliberate blindness on your part not to see this.
Third, to take a single sentence out of context and give it a meaning it did not have is what Fundamentalists do with the bible (it's called "proof-texting") and it is an illegitimate form of argument. In larger context, it's very clear that Sotomayor is saying that she thinks that the richness of experiences that some minorities have can sometimes make them better judges, particularly in cases involving minorities.
Fourth, what you call her being "lazy" about talking about race, and what you tie into a a whole strain of unrelated and sometimes racist comments that minority leaders sometimes make, is nothing of the sort. She was keying off Justice O'Connor's comments where she implied that diversity added nothing to the bench at all. That is part of a significant ongoing conversation in legal academia. That is the reason for what you term "laziness." That phrase "a wise Latina" was the corollary to "wise old woman" and "wise old man." You imply that Justice O'Connor's comment that a "wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same decision" is the only acceptable comment. That if she had suggested otherwise, she wouldhave been per se sexist. I disagree,a nd I think so would O'Connor. Others argue that,in the context of dealing with women's rights, the experience of being a woman may be important. That is what Sotomayor was saying in the context of race, with the specific qualification that it depends on the differential experiences, not the color of skin.
What Sotomayor was categorically not doing was asserting that Latina judgment is better than white judgment. She specifically and absolutely did not say that.
The real point of argument for Sotomayor is not the straw man race argument, but the question of whether experience provides learning that cannot be matched through reason and education. I tend to agree with Sotomayor; privileged white folks tend to disagree.
I'm sorry reviewing my posts that my tone was so angry. It is hard to translate being flabbergasted into black and white.
Statistically, non-hispanic Whites may not be in the majority in a couple generations. That depends on the continuance of a lot of trends that may or may not continue, specifically a much higher birthrate among Latinos.
But the majority status of whites will prevail for other reasons too. Geographically, whites are a big majority in the vast majority of places nationwide. Other races are concentrated -one might say segregated - in certain rural and urban areas. In terms of power, you need only look at Congress to see how very very white America still is, and how white it will be for a long time.
In addition, the multi-racial phenomenon exemplified by our President is no small thing. While we still tend to the "one drop" rule to classify these people as nonwhite, that is a habit we should break. How they count themselves among the majority or minority will be up to them and to the rest of society (whether it breaks from the one-drop rule or not).
After all, we could call Barack Obama a white president whose father was black just as easily as a black president whose mother is white. We don't for three reasons: the one-drop rule, his skin color, and his own affirmative choice. The latter should matter more and more, I hope.
LTG,
I don't think my switching from a paraphrase to the direct quotation is a "concession" at all. Given the strong similarity in meaning between my paraphrase and the direct quotation in question, I don't think I've changed positions at all. Indeed, I think my argument is made even stronger by her direct quotation.
Please educate me about how "with the richness of her experiences" modifies the second part of the sentence. You ignored completely my assertion that this passage ellaborates on "Latina" and does not - as you claimed - qualify the expression "reach a better conclusion than a white male." The only phrase that qualifies "reach a better conclusion than a white male" is the words "more often than not" which isn't much of a hedge.
You have not. Instead, you are the one who is bringing loads of context from outside the actual quotation about which this discussion between Graham and Sotomayor revolved. I'm trying to look at exactly what she said and only what she said.
Your attempt to change the subject to overall power relationships in society is exactly what I was hoping to avoid. I do not believe that you can say "I would make a better judge than you because I'm a member of group X and you aren't" if you are in a group in power and you can't say it if you are in an excluded group either.
Sotomayor even admits that her statement was a poor choice of words. It was. Why are defending it so angrily?
I think you have to admit that my interpretation of her statement is reasonable even if you don't agree with it. So I want an apology from you to me for saying "totally wrong. Totally wrong. I don't know where you got it. Fox News? Seriously? .... I just can't believe someone as smart as you was taken in by this farce." "Sorry but" doesn't count because you didn't really mean it. You intended to say that I was being stupid and or a racist and I want an apology.
The longer excerpt from her speech (see above) clarifies her intent. Within the context of race and sex discrimination cases, Sotomayor is saying that she would hope a judge who has a firsthand understanding of the minority experience would more often than not be able to make a better, more informed decision than someone who lacks that experience.
Incidentally, it is also quite evident from the context and construction that she intended to contrast a "wise Latina woman" with a "wise white male," but the second instance of 'wise' was accidentally omitted, either in her delivery or in the transcript.
But this exculpatory context was provided by LTG not by any quoted text. So I won't concede that such context is obvious or clear. And in any case, Sotomayor has not chosen to defend herself by saying, "I was only talking a particular type of case not judging in general." Rather she conceded that it was a poor choice of words.
True, I believe that if we were to sit down with her and ask her, that what you and LTG say is what she would agree with but that's not what she said in this quotation.
I think LTG in particular is mistaking my wish to discus implicit double standards in racially sensitive rhetoric for a wish to bash Sotomayor personally. And he's reacting with A LOT of anger directed at me personally in response.
I merely wanted to point out that Graham was correct that if a white male had said, "White males, given their experiences would, more often than not, make better decisions than Latinas." Suppose he later put it in the context of decisions about white collar crime or liability in corporate contexts (situations that white males are far more likely to find themselves in than other demographic groups). The context wouldn't matter. It's the comparison itself that is offensive regardless of the context.
Let me add this. If Sotomayor had said, "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 DIFFERENT conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
Then I would have no complaint and indeed, I would not have tolerated Graham accusing her of being insensitive.
It is the word BETTER that is offensive - REGARDLESS OF THE CONTEXT.
BTW: For some reason Dr. S.'s longer post of several paragraphs of the speech did not appear on my computer until this afternoon even though it is clearly way back in the thread. But it doesn't change the core of my argument about Sotomayor's statement. She didn't say "different" she said "better."
I still want an apology for being accused of an unintelligent position on this and having been duped by FOX News racists.
Even given what Sotomayor said in context, I'd say that it was still a generalization that certain types of people (not just white men) would not be allowed to make. It seems to me that she's saying that the justices who presided on the court previously were devoid of rich experiences. So in effect what she was saying was a bit ignorant and to certain people mildly insensitive. However, I don't think stigmatizing people's insensitivity does us any good. Dr. S, you asked if we should color-blind our language, and while it's a noble goal to seek out a more egalitarian method of conflict resolution, I don't think it's going to help much. Most psychologists agree that when you're trying to resolve the damage created by some kind of psychological trauma, you need to confront the trauma directly rather than avoid it. We need to be more comfortable with the fact that people are going to be insensitive, ignorant, and occasionally hateful. Blacklisting, banishing, and penalizing these people (Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock are in danger of being subjected to this) does not help, it only engenders more hatred. In my opinion, a truly tolerant society is one in which a person can make a statement and either everyone laughs at how foolish you are or everyone laughs together. A classic example is the post RbR made about the Swedish doctor who went on about racial purity and mixing with other species. I'm surprised no one found that funny, if not hilarious. Here's a clip from Dave Chappelle's stand-up to help me explain: On Open Racism
I think there is another issue underlying this too.
Implicit in the assertion that since Sotomayor was arguing that we all have biases she will judge while being aware of hers is fine. If she had continued to say that others will undoubtedly judge with regard to their biases and the reason there are 9 justices is to provide a mix of these backgrounds/biases, that would be fine.
But that's not what she said. She said, in effect, that her biases are better than someone else's biases. Assuming she actually meant to say that (she's since said it was a poor choice of words so I'm not convinced she believes that), it assumes that there is an objectively identifiable perfect policy and her biases get her closer to that ideal policy than the biases of a white male. But that is a fundamentally anti-democratic position.
Democracy depends on the widespread acceptance of the validity of opposing preferences for policy outcomes. I may want a higher tax rate on rich people but I would not be so arrogant as to say it was objectively superior to believe that than to want to keep the tax rate the same or lower it.
Again, the problem with what Sotomayor said is not that she brings a different set of biases to the table but the assertion that she brings a BETTER set of biases to the table.
Well it seems we have narrowed the disagreement down to a single word. That's progress! But I'm afraid I'm going to continue disagree anyway. :-)
Given the context, I believe the word "better" is quite appropriate here. In the very next sentence Sotomayor reminds us that several otherwise wonderful and wise white male jurists nevertheless voted to uphold race and sex discrimination laws. She implies those votes were errors (a value judgment I agree with) which a woman or minority would have been less likely to make... And I find that an easy proposition to accept.
Now as for the reverse sort of comparison... You turn the statement around and ask if there are situations where wise white male judges might be expected, based on their experiences, to make "better," more informed decisions than their Latina counterparts. While the framework I have been using implies there probably are such situations, at least in theory, in practice they will be few and far between.
That is because there is a fundamental difference between minority and majority. While those in the majority need to spend time and effort to learn about minority culture and experiences, minorities are exposed to the majority culture all the time--they can't get away from it. It is pervasive. I submit to you that a Latina knows more about white male culture than a white male would know about the Latina's culture because the white male culture is everywhere, in your face, all the time.
For example, if we compare Sotomayor and Roberts, it is fairly clear that Sotomayor experienced life in the Bronx as well as Ivy League life, whereas Roberts had only the Ivy League. And somewhat similarly, as a gay man I am willing to bet that I grok "straight" culture better than your average straight guy understands the gay community.
So I think you are correct that there is an underlying issue here. I believe race and sex discrimination is objectively unconstitutional and morally wrong. A bias against such discrimination is better than a bias in favor of it. There need not exist an "objectively identifiable perfect policy" to say that some policies are better than others! It is not anti-democratic to reject some aspects of "relative morality."
OK, it is possible to select extreme cases where there are objectively superior policies. Certainly any key component of democracy (including the absence of racial or gender discrimination) is objectively preferable.
But look at what you wrote and think about the implications of it in the context of this discussion. You implied, rather directly actually, that all white males would be expected to favor racial and gender discrimination. That in itself is offensive. I do not support racial discrimination. Nor do you or LTG or Bell Curve and we're all white males. Indeed, we're all middle to upper class white males. We are in a position of enormous privilege and yet we do not have the expected policy preferences. So you can't say that the assertion that Latinas are better on this issue than white males based only on their racial and gender differences.
But let's get away from the extreme cases and look at the kind of cases we are actually seeing go to the supreme court now. We don't see states claiming the right to arbitrarily discriminate against racial or gender groups. Gays are an obvious exception to this but there is no openly gay nominee in play right now so let's leave that aside for now.
Think about affirmative action cases. Affirmative action, which I support, is not about whether or not this or that race or women is equal to whites or males. Rather it is about a particular method of redress for past exclusion. It's not the only method to redress that exclusion. It's not obviously superior to all other alternatives. It has distributive consequences. And it is possible to abuse it as well. It is not true or just to say that in every claim of reverse discrimination, the plaintiff is automatically in the wrong.
I also think having a variety of biases is critical to a just judicial system.
Can we get back to the different vs better thing? Or are you finally realizing that you guys were wrong to accuse me of stupidity, racism and lord knows what for daring to criticize Sotomayor while still supporting her.
Er, I don't think I accused you of stupidity, racism, or anything else.
RbR, I did not imply that, "all white males would be expected to favor racial and gender discrimination."
Dr. S. LTG pretty clearly accused of it and you piled on.
As for your implying that all white males are expected to favor discrimination...
I think it's a fairly logical conclusion in the context of this thread. I'm sure you didn't intend it but that's how the words came out.
In response to my assertion that no person's judgements based on biases and background is objectively BETTER than another, you asserted that racial discrimination is objectively wrong. OK, fine. In isolation that statement is certainly true. But in response to a debate about what Sotomayor meant you seem to be suggesting that it's OK for Sotomayor to say what she said in that context because on matters of discrimination her biases would in fact be objectively better than a white males.
Again, can get back to this distinction between saying that different peoples' background and biases bring beneficial diversity to the judiciary and saying that one set of biases and backgrounds is BETTER than another? Why do you and LTG so consistently avoid discussing that key point to this whole debate?
OK, I'm not going to insist on an apology when it's painfully obvious I won't get it anyway.
I will however continue to insist on some acknowlegement from LTG that it is possible to have made the initial point I made about Sotomayor's statement about making better judgments than white males without:
A) having suffer momentary stupidity
B) having been duped by Fox News
C) being an actual racist myself.
You don't even need to agree with my point. You just have acknowledge that a sane, intelligent person who means well in the area of race relations could make it.
Sheesh!
Going back to this comment for a moment: "After all, we could call Barack Obama a white president whose father was black just as easily as a black president whose mother is white. We don't for three reasons: the one-drop rule, his skin color, and his own affirmative choice. The latter should matter more and more, I hope."
I agree totally that calling him white is just as valid as calling him black. However, I wanted to add that particularly in the context of the US, I would hope that the latter option (his choice) will matter less and less - in line with the two former options also mattering less and less too (I personally assumed that the 'one-drop' 'rule' was dead and buried). I say this because I am looking forwards to the point where someone can say simply "I am American", and have everyone understand, and really see, that yes, they are American; rather than having to label them as Latino/a / African-American / black / white / purple etc. This is of course an issue in plenty of other countries too.
I guess what I'm really getting at is that people feeling like they must strongly identify with a particular culture/group, based on what they are, as opposed to who (i.e. a person of x colour skin, as opposed to a rock&roll fan), means that they're not strongly identifying with their country as a whole - they are choosing, for whatever reason, to identify with just a small part of it. I would rather see a situation where people identify with the entire country, in the knowledge that all of their fellow countrymen will see them as "one of us".
[the example that often springs to mind here is footage I saw from the Cronulla riots in Sydney, where a person of Lebanese descent was being shouted at by a bunch of morons of white descent to go home, eff off, get out of 'our' country. He went up to them, touched the Aussie flag they were carrying, and shouted that he was Australian, he was born here, this was his flag, and he loved this country. They thumped him. This idiocy infuriates me - there are people of Chinese descent whose families moved here in the 1800s, yet the average person would pick me as the Aussie rather than them, and I'm not even a citizen yet!!!]
Other points: LTG, I think you do owe RbR a proper apology. Just a "sorry I was so angry and insulting at you, it was uncalled for, I expressed myself badly". And yes, you have to do it, you can't just leave it to Dr.S. In future, if you want to express that you are flabbergasted, may I suggest use of a phrase such as "I am utterly flabbergasted that ...", perhaps followed with "you appear to think...". References to people believing Fox News are probably best avoided completely - too insulting.
Now, the use of the word "better" in Sotomayor's comment. I think 'better' is the wrong word to use, as it is very subjective - what is better for one person will be worse for another. Had she said something along the lines of "wise old Latina... probably more understanding of a case such as this ... average white male without these experiences", that would have been alright. But "better" is a judgement call, that can't be proved, and does have racist undertones when used in certain ways, as it implies that all of one group (in this case, the wise Latinas such as herself), will make better judgements than all of another group (the white males).
Of course, there are times when using "better" is not necessarily racist/sexist/whatever, but it's tricky. For example, generally speaking men are better at weight-lifting than women, due to greater strength, due to physiological make-up - this is not a sexist comment, it is a fact. It is by no means definitive though - I very much doubt any of the men on this blog can lift as much as the female weight-lifting medallists in the recent Olympics for example (no offence guys!).
RbR, I did not pile on. Please look back through the comments and you will see that mine have been completely separate from LTG's! (For example, there is one supportive comment back there to which you even replied we appeared to be on the same page.) If it helps, let me be clear that your initial take on Sotomayor's statement was neither stupid nor racist. Obviously, many people were disturbed by it. I hope your views on her comment have become more favorable in light of this discussion.
RbR writes: "Again, can we get back to this distinction between saying that different peoples' background and biases bring beneficial diversity to the judiciary and saying that one set of biases and backgrounds is BETTER than another? Why do you and LTG so consistently avoid discussing that key point to this whole debate?"
Whatever LTG may have avoid, note that I have not avoided that issue at all. I hit it square on:
Well it seems we have narrowed the disagreement down to a single word. That's progress! But I'm afraid I'm going to continue disagree anyway. :-)
Given the context, I believe the word "better" is quite appropriate here. In the very next sentence Sotomayor reminds us that several otherwise wonderful and wise white male jurists nevertheless voted to uphold race and sex discrimination laws. She implies those votes were errors (a value judgment I agree with) which a woman or minority would have been less likely to make... And I find that an easy proposition to accept.
It is clear to me that what I wrote above is the essence of what Sotomayor was getting at. Diversity matters, and not just in the abstract. It would have been better for her, in the long run, if she had not gone in for the rhetorically punchy line and instead had been painstakingly careful to include the nuances and reminders of context in every single sentence. But she is a great woman and her life and her lengthy judicial record make clear that she is not in the least bit racist. It is really a shame that so many Republicans tried to twist her words and claim that she is "really" a racist. Such a shame. She did not deserve to be treated like that. (Just to be 100% clear, I am NOT talking about you here, RbR!)
"In the very next sentence Sotomayor reminds us that several otherwise wonderful and wise white male jurists nevertheless voted to uphold race and sex discrimination laws."
But how many people of color or women were on the Supreme Court when it finally struck down Jim Crow? You simply can't make the argument that one's race is the only or even primary cause of being "better." Sotomayor came dangerously close to saying that if indeed she didn't actually say it (and I think a reasonable reading of her statements would allow).
I'm not saying YOUR reading is insane or duped or anything. I disagree with it but I think you are reasonable to posit it. LTG on the other hand has said that my reading of what she said was unreasoned, duped and likely to be merely parroted from Fox News. When I objected, you defended his position which I took to be "piling on."
As for how she was treated in general. I think that is a distinct issue (something that LTG from the start conflated with the rather narrow and abstract discussion I was trying to engage in). I think that in general, she was treated by the Republicans pretty much the way I'd expect them to treat any high profile Obama appointee - unfairly. In her case they went after her race and gender (accusing her of being intemperate and a bully has both racial and gender overtones). But on a very narrow slice of that - namely the issue of whether it is OK to say "I'm better than you because I'm of race X" when you really mean to say "Diversity is good and without it justice is hard to achieve" I think Graham had a point. Even a busted clock is right twice a day after all.
I really do think that all she had to do to make her point was say "different" in place of "better." For those who agree with her the "better" would have been understood. And it would not have appeared to be making a blanket statement about a causal relationship between race and judicial quality.
OK, this is twice now this has happened. As I scroll up, I see at least two comments inserted into the middle of the thread that were not there the last time I looked. One of them was a fairly long one by Pombat and the other was the one Dr. S pointed to as his addressing the "better" vs "different" distinction. So in my defense, from my perspective, Dr. S., you seemed to have avoided the issue at the time I wrote that you had avoided the issue. Clearly my computer is not helping communication here.
BTW, Thank you Pombat! I was beginning to think I was totally insane to have read Sotomayor's statment on Latinas vs White Males the way I did.
I think your comment about it is on the money.
Regarding the computer stuff, RbR... I notice that twice now you have chosen to defend your mistake rather than apologize for it. I wonder if LTG, who really ought to apologize to you, is just following that same unfortunate instinct?
Well, Dr. S. It really wasn't my mistake. The computer really wasn't posting all the comments. I had no idea that they existed.
What LTG did was to respond to a post by me with insults. I think you will concede there is a substantive difference here.
But if you think an apology for technical difficulties in order I will gladly give it. I'm sorry I responded to your comments piecemeal and out of order and with frequent delays.
Thanks for the conciliatory words, RbR. I appreciate it. Actually, though, I wasn't expecting you to apologize for the technical glitches--which are beyond your control, and for which you need not (indeed, cannot sensibly) apologize--but rather for that part where you wrongly accused me of avoiding the issues. You skipped over the bit where one ordinarily might have said "Oops, sorry about that!" and instead just went straight on to the defense of why it wasn't really your fault.
Getting back to the thread here... You wrote, But how many people of color or women were on the Supreme Court when it finally struck down Jim Crow? You simply can't make the argument that one's race is the only or even primary cause of being "better." Sotomayor came dangerously close to saying that if indeed she didn't actually say it (and I think a reasonable reading of her statements would allow).
Actually, if you would re-read the four paragraphs I quoted, I think you will see that Sotomayor went out of her way to make that very same point.
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... [I] believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
(She also raised Clarence Thomas earlier as a counterexample, by the way!) Given all that, I think you will agree that Sotomayor was taking care not to make a blanket statement about race and judicial quality.
OK, fair enough on the extended quotation thing. But consider now how out of place the "better" statement looks. It really stands in stark contrast with the rest of what she is saying.
Of course, I never intended to say that I thought Sotomayor herself was a racist. Rather I wanted to say that it never OK to say "Latinas are better than Whites" even if you burry it with a lot of stuff that says something more reasonable.
Imagine I said a lot of stuff about diversity etc. Then at the end of said, "And so I would hope that given his experiences, a white male would, more often than not, make better decisions than a Latina." It would stick out like sore thumb. It really is a shockingly bad choice of words. And that was all Graham really said in that video clip I posted and regardless of what you think of Graham's other comments, my point was that it was a really bad choice of words that a reasonable person might take offense at.
RbR: I know you support the nomination of Sotomayor and I know you do not believe she is in any way racist. Thank you for repeating your original point here, that you were discussing the specific language Sotomayor used in that single sentence... That did kind of get lost in the shuffle.
And let me acknowledge clearly (because I see I failed to do so earlier) that by itself, that single oft-quoted "wise Latina" sentence does indeed strike most people as a somewhat racist statement. That is of course precisely why the Republicans made such a point of repeating those words--and only those words--over and over and over again. You are also totally correct that the word "better" is what drives the nail home. And I apologize for not saying this sooner... I could have avoided some unnecessary back-and forth, perhaps.
As a supporter of Sotomayor who believes she is not racist in any way, I see two main possible responses to all this--and they are not mutually exclusive. One answer is to say that sentence just came out wrong and she did not really mean to say that. I think this is more or less what Sotomayor said in the hearings. The other answer is to say that taking that sentence alone, out of context, twists its meaning, and that the full context of her remarks reveals the words mean something different--perhaps even something important. I think this is probably closer to the truth.
It would have been better for her politically (one might even say more politically correct) for her to have been more circumspect when discussing the issue and to have used the more neutral term "different" instead of "better." But I think the word "better" is important. Because she was trying to explain why diversity mattered. She was trying to point out that we do not merely desire diversity for diversity's sake, but because we believe that diversity ought to on balance lead to better judgments in certain situations. In practice, since it's largely white male now, that would mean bringing in a Latina voice ought to (statistically speaking) lead to better outcomes in those cases.
But I will fault her in two ways. First in this particular sentence she made the mistake of speaking of individuals rather than groups. Speaking statistically about the behavior of an individual ("more often than not") is not the same thing as speaking statistically about the behavior of groups. And I think Sotomayor should have been aware of that. In other parts of the speech, at least, Sotomayor was quite careful to say she was not talking about individuals but about groups.
No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects... Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance, but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging... Not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.
The other way in which I will fault her is that she did not need to make a direct comparison between Latinas and whites to make her point. Doing so was another aspect of that "rhetorical flourish" that fell flat. (She was addressing a group of Latinas and it was no doubt something of an applause line.) And it was totally unnecessary to her point. What she should have said was: As a whole, she would hope that a judiciary consisting of both wise Latina women and white men would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a judiciary consisting of white men alone.
Thank you for acknowledging that I'm not being unreasonable or a dupe. I appreciate that.
I tuned out of this thread a while ago and realized I missed a lot.
I should not have been so abrasive, yes. I apologize for the tone of my remarks. Email is a poor medium.
But I can't and won't apologize for my basic point. The basic content was that RBR's post was making an argument based on a misreading of Sonia Sotomayor's speech, a misreading proferred by the right wing press and apparently successfully too.
If Sonia Sotomayor's speech had been a dialogue rather than a monologue, someone might have said, "Sonia, did you mean that Latinas naturally have better judgment than white males?" And she would have said, "No, of course not, that's not what I meant at all. I guess I was trying to be too cute in playing off O'Connor's 'wise old woman' remark." To me, that's just too obvious.
Rather than belabor the point, since she realized it wasn't a perfect speech, Sonia Sotomayor just apologized for using awkward phrasing. So should I.
The real pushbutton for me was RBR's assertion that Sonia Sotomayor spoke the way she did because of the "double standards inherent in political correctness." The suggestion being made was that Sotomayor's comments were the same kind of racist-type comment sometimes made by black and Latino politicians that they get away with while similar comments by whites get pilloried. She never copped to that, nor should she.
I do think that problem of racist comments by minority politicians is a real phenomenon, but that is so NOT what Sotomayor was engaging in. If you want to key off someone on this subject, google Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, or MechA (for Latinos).
Leave the S-dog out of it.
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