Tweet
Ta Nehisi Coates raises the issue of Sotamyor's remarks in his own perfectly confused way:
The crux of Ta Nehisi's opinion appears to be Sotomayor buys into certain prejudices about what "white" people, but because these prejudices are now very fashionable, that makes Sotomayor perfectly suited for an appointment to the Supreme Court. Of course, if a white judge were to remark (for example) that he had the kind of high-powered commercial business experience that minorities didn't have, and that this qualified him for the judgeship and made him a better decision-maker, well, that would be racist and tremendously horrifying. But if a wise Latina says she knows things white people don't, that's fine. I mean, it's racist, but doesn't past oppression and racism "justify" her racist actions? Is she not merely an automaton impelled forward by the movements of racist "white" people, completely devoid of a conscience or ability to think independently and make moral decisions of her own? Isn't it wonderfully "tolerant" of me to excuse her racism?
The effect of affirmative action and "disproportionate impact" is to encourage racial divisions--the kind that brings about confessional politics and confessional elites. The Wrights, Jacksons, Farrakhans and Dukes of today may become the Jumblatts and Nasrallahs of tomorrow.
It's worth looking at the whole speech, and at least considering the statement in context:
'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.'
I think we can immediately dispense with the crazies who think this statement should disqualify Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. It's worth noting that William Rehnquist once endorsed segregation, and yet rose to be Chief Justice of the court.
That said, I think Sotomayor's statement is quite wrong. I understand the basis of it, laid out pretty well by Kerry Howley over at Hit & Run. The idea is that Latinos have a dual experience that whites don't have and that, all things being equal, they'll be able to pull from that experience and see things that whites don't. The problem with this reasoning is it implicitly accepts the logic (made for years by white racists) that there is something essential and unifying running through all white people, everywhere. But White--as we know it--is a word so big that, as a descriptor of experience, it almost doesn't exist.
Indeed, it's claims are preposterous. It seeks to lump the miner in Eastern Kentucky, the Upper West Side Jew, the yuppie in Seattle, the Irish Catholic in South Boston, the hipster in Brooklyn, the Cuban-American in Florida, or even the Mexican-American in California all together, and erase the richness of their experience, by marking the bag "White." This is a lie--and another example of how a frame invented (and for decades endorsed) by whites is, at the end of the day, bad for whites. White racism, in this country, was invented to erase the humanity and individuality of blacks. But for it to work it must, necessarily, erase the humanity of whites, too.
Sotomayor, unwittingly, buys into that logic by conjuring the strawman of "a white male." But, in the context that she's discussing, no such person exists. What is true of the straight Polish-American in Chicago, may not be true for the white gay dude working in D.C. I'm not even convinced that what is true for the white dude in West Texas, is true for the white dude in Austin--or that what's true of the white dude in Austin, is true of other white dudes in Austin. There's just too much variation among people to make such a broad statement about millions of people.
'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.'
I think we can immediately dispense with the crazies who think this statement should disqualify Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. It's worth noting that William Rehnquist once endorsed segregation, and yet rose to be Chief Justice of the court.
That said, I think Sotomayor's statement is quite wrong. I understand the basis of it, laid out pretty well by Kerry Howley over at Hit & Run. The idea is that Latinos have a dual experience that whites don't have and that, all things being equal, they'll be able to pull from that experience and see things that whites don't. The problem with this reasoning is it implicitly accepts the logic (made for years by white racists) that there is something essential and unifying running through all white people, everywhere. But White--as we know it--is a word so big that, as a descriptor of experience, it almost doesn't exist.
Indeed, it's claims are preposterous. It seeks to lump the miner in Eastern Kentucky, the Upper West Side Jew, the yuppie in Seattle, the Irish Catholic in South Boston, the hipster in Brooklyn, the Cuban-American in Florida, or even the Mexican-American in California all together, and erase the richness of their experience, by marking the bag "White." This is a lie--and another example of how a frame invented (and for decades endorsed) by whites is, at the end of the day, bad for whites. White racism, in this country, was invented to erase the humanity and individuality of blacks. But for it to work it must, necessarily, erase the humanity of whites, too.
Sotomayor, unwittingly, buys into that logic by conjuring the strawman of "a white male." But, in the context that she's discussing, no such person exists. What is true of the straight Polish-American in Chicago, may not be true for the white gay dude working in D.C. I'm not even convinced that what is true for the white dude in West Texas, is true for the white dude in Austin--or that what's true of the white dude in Austin, is true of other white dudes in Austin. There's just too much variation among people to make such a broad statement about millions of people.
The crux of Ta Nehisi's opinion appears to be Sotomayor buys into certain prejudices about what "white" people, but because these prejudices are now very fashionable, that makes Sotomayor perfectly suited for an appointment to the Supreme Court. Of course, if a white judge were to remark (for example) that he had the kind of high-powered commercial business experience that minorities didn't have, and that this qualified him for the judgeship and made him a better decision-maker, well, that would be racist and tremendously horrifying. But if a wise Latina says she knows things white people don't, that's fine. I mean, it's racist, but doesn't past oppression and racism "justify" her racist actions? Is she not merely an automaton impelled forward by the movements of racist "white" people, completely devoid of a conscience or ability to think independently and make moral decisions of her own? Isn't it wonderfully "tolerant" of me to excuse her racism?
The effect of affirmative action and "disproportionate impact" is to encourage racial divisions--the kind that brings about confessional politics and confessional elites. The Wrights, Jacksons, Farrakhans and Dukes of today may become the Jumblatts and Nasrallahs of tomorrow.
Comment