So, what are you suggesting the problem is?

The democrates played this well, they blocked Bush’s 2001 attempt to get a conservative Hispanic on the bench and then put a liberal, identity, pro-affirmative action one up — to be the first. So now of course any attack on here is, as Conig implies, racist — since, of course, that’s the only reason someone would criticize her. Not say, the evidence of her identity politics (La Raza, Ricci Case, said coments, college activism, ect), which conservatives have traditionally opposed.

Since ya’ll seem to like to put these comments in context, lets put them in context. Since criticisms of Sotomayor, are contextualized by the media as racist — why else, of course — its only logical to strike out at her at racist. Its the law of political smear — if somebody does it to you, you have to be willing to do it back. You throw it back at them, then when things settle down, you go on to articulate you principle point — in which case its that Sotomayor’s empathy judgments or identity judgements. This is the logical way — given that people are not particularly logical — to fight back.

Politically, this is problematic because many people will see this as racist, but as Conig shows us, those people already contextualize it that way anyways, so I don’t see much a loss. And if conservatives do not fight back, then they are just seen as prey to the liberals ‘minority’ politics, by which I mean the tired line of victimization as a unifier — we see used by the liberals throughout the west and by other not so liberal ethno-activist groups, that play the same line — whether or not there is even a meaningful claim to male/ white/ westerm/ christian/ conservative (or whatever else ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturism’ does not mean) persecution.

(Apologized for saying the obvious, but apparently some people here do not follow contemporary politics.)

“In 220 years, we’ve never had a single latino Supreme Court justice ..due entirely to a long history of blatanat, institutional raciism on the part of the white males who have dominated this country and the Court.”

Hmm… and what was the demographic composition of the nation during all but the last 40 of those 220 years? If you randomly picked people from the 1700′s to the 1970′s what were the chances of picking a latino? Might that explain some of this supposed anti-latino ‘institutional racism’ — which in sane terms, that is, as understood in any of the non-western countries I have lived in — translates to accumulated wealth and power do to inheritance and rooted background?

“Suddenly, we’re supposed to pretend all that is history, and any latina woman nominated to the court is both unfit, and if she claims to be fit, or maybe ever fitter, than others, she’s suddenly the racist.” T

No, suddenly, since we have already been pretending that no person or people is more fit than others, we expect other people the keep up the pretense. The racism or, more properly, racialism is the saying that it makes me better than those people, as opposed to better then I would have ben otherwise. This is just repackaging liberal sensitivity. At worst, the crime is playing the liberal victim game.

“have been the perpretrators of racism, and now they are the victims of it. Oh, cry me a river. When white men are actually underrepresented in government, the judiciary, the economic sphere, etc., then we can look into these charges of racism.”

Just because some guy or girl gets off the boat, and finds he doesn’t have everything that the natives have — doesn’t qualify as racism. It means he has yet to build up the political/economic connections. Institutional racism is when the opportunity is bared. Apparently, your point is that racism will only be over when everything is demographically proportionate — which it never will be since there will always be a new group coming and some groups outcompeting others. Not only is this a bizarre mentality, but more importantly the whole racism thing, hardly applies to the post-1970’s massive waves of immigrants. Where is the evidence of racism here? That 15% of the CEO’s or Supreme Court Justices are not Hispanic, when most the Hispanic population just came here within the last two generations?

“proclaiming pride in my race, is that it’s way too broad a race to have any personal identity with “whiteness” itself.”

I don’t know about you, but my parents were pushed to anglosaxonize , give up their language and most of their culture. I am glad to see you have something to identify with other then being ‘white’ = western. For the rest of us, we are about as ethnically ‘German’ as we are English, Irish, Polish, ect. Instead we see our roots in the Hellenized ,Germanized Christianity, the classics and what is generally know as western Civ, That was the trade of to fit in back them. Now that our society has agreed to become multicultural, of which western (ie European) is but one aspect, it is only reasonable to identify there with.
Those out and out racists like me, are open-minded to the ideas that now western ideals as but one component of this current society, and so do not have a problems with ‘white pride’ insofar as it means a certain historical identity. Those like me, and I hope some others on this forum, really don’t care how this is labeled or how this sounds to timid white people. They obviously have not got the memo — in the late 80′s and early 90′s this idea of not forming a ‘white sense’ was accepted under the pretense that other groups — ie minorities could be assimilated under more or less western ideas. With Multiculturalism, that project has been given up.
“But no one gets upset when an Irish-American, all of whom are white, takes pride in his Irishness”
Obviosuly that is because ‘people’ are afraid of a large majority block identifying one way. Given demographic shifts, that shortly will no longer be an issue. Those white priders are simply ahead of the times.

It does seem that way; which is kinda fascinating, since “riled” really appears to be the default state, regardless of the state of reality.

I think that all of the attention that is being paid to a speech she gave 8 years ago indicates the weakness of the case against her, and that the opposition is much more political than substantive. There’s little evidence that she’s particularly radical, given the range of judges that one could reasonably expect Obama to nominate. She’s written about 380 judicial opinions in the past 10 years and nobody has come up with a pattern of racism in her decisions or opinions (Larison has already talked about why Ricci isn’t proof of those things). But, a few quotes from that speech and her being a Latina provide a nice way to rile up the GOP base, which apparently requires perpetual riling.

Well thats kind of my point. Most of what gets railed against as “multiculturalism” is idiotic decisions done by school administrators or other public officials, just like how every holiday season the war on Christmas revolves around a handful of minor decisions in public school districts. It hardly ever rises to the level of nefariousness that many people ascribe to, though I imagine considering your response to alot of Republican caterwauling, you are not enthused by O’Reilly’s Christmas shenanigans either.

But again your statement that “inclusion” means ignoring the majority or being outright hostile presumes that culture, or more specifically, cultural/historical education is a zero-sum game. In a sense it is, since there is a finite amount of time in the classroom or funds for cultural activities. I don’t think however incorporating newer literature, or deviating from a kind of Cleopatra’s Nose form of history, is bad. Its also hard to imagine how “activist” it is; it mostly reflects honest to goodness demographic changes, and an attempt to keep good relations between disparate groups.

It seems petty to point out that plenty of hispanics are blond, blue-eyed caucasians, as a trip to Venezuela will demonstrate. But it seems like some folks these days have forgotten that the distinguishable terms “hispanic” and “latino” are cultural terms only, and barely rise to the level of ethnic markers. So talking about hispanics as a race is knda bizarre.

Sotomeyor’s comments seem fairly unremarkable to me, i took them to mean ” I know what it is to be in an ethnic group that is ‘first fired – last hired’. I know what it is to run the risk of being disproportionally prosecuted. I will give those people a fair shake”

The lady is an ex-prosecutor, for cripes sake. She is the epitome of the status quo Judge. The hyperbole about her being some kind of racist firebrand or, hilariously, some super-leftist is just madness.

Unless I’ve read someone else’s statement: your pejoratives did not come from Sotomayor’s mouth; and the context is “in a situation where the experience is relevant.” You’re certainly entitled to prefer Alito’s experience and the manner in which it informs his judgment. It’s equally reasonable to work for/against a politician or judicial nominee based on your preference. Pretending there’s some significant difference between the two, rendering one “pure” and the other “impure,” isn’t going to lend much weight to your argument.

Well, les, it seems to me that most people wouldn’t let that fly if it had been reversed–even in full context–and you pretty much admit that by reading all sorts of things in Alito’s statement. Mind you, I wouldn’t normally give Sotomayor a hard time over this, but given the changing demographics we face these double standards need to be pointed out.

No, Alito didn’t speak to race; but neither did Sotomayor, in the sense you seem to mean it.

That’s just flat denial of what’s in front of your nose. The weird thing is that you may just believe it. “Rich” Latin experience was contrasted favorably with blank white breadness. The contempt implied in her statement is plain to all but those who refuse to see.

Complaining about multiculturalism always seemed to be a case of some sort of Freudian sour-grape’s, but this quote lays it bare. I remember making German chocolate cake for a project in 1st grade revolving around selecting a type of food that represented one’s ethnic heritage. I don’t remember running into any problems nor being called a fascist. And I grew up in a fairly racially diverse, immigrant full school district where one would imagine political correctness reigned.

But most of the complaint’s about multiculturalism seem to be a laundry list of poor, idiotic choices from the hands of administrators or public officials and don’t represent any sort of real sort of cohesive ideological platform to rail against. Many diversity efforts or celebrations are often ham-fisted, and there is a lack of sincerity sometimes, but most are an honest attempt by people to be more inclusive of others. Which can only be viewed as threatening if one imagine’s culture as a zero-sum game. Maybe I was brainwashed by PBS, but I do think most attempts at diversity and inclusion are valuable, no matter how awkward they can come out sometimes.

Derek, I find the two statements almost totally comparable. It seems to me that most people, including our host, read Sotomayor’s statement in context as “a wise person with experience of a situation, will make a better judgment than a (similarly placed) person without that experience.” And Alito said his experience will improve his judgment in areas where his experience is pertinent. He didn’t specifically say “improve over a judgment lacking experience;” but what else does it mean? No, Alito didn’t speak to race; but neither did Sotomayor, in the sense you seem to mean it. She said her experience as a Latina will make her judgment better, where that experience is pertinent. I really think it’s a stretch to read it as some kind of “Latina judgment is better than whitey judgment, everywhere and always.” In fact, I think you have to start there, to get there.

Physician, heal thyself. Anyone comparing the Irish to the problems were having in the Southwest is in no position to accuse anyone of stupidity.

Also, the major problem with a white man, such as myself, proclaiming pride in my race, is that it’s way too broad a race to have any personal identity with “whiteness” itself.

Because Hispanics are narrow tightly defined group? It’s a group every bit as diverse as Europeans when it comes to nationalities. She was appealing beyond her Puerto Rican nationality to a larger racial group.

Of course, the rules are different for minorities than whites, and that’s the problem. You like to identify with your German forbearers. That’s nice, but what about whites in my situation? I don’t identify with some specific foreign heritage. I have way too many antecedents from too many different areas in Europe to do that. If you want to say I should identify myself as simply American, I say fine, but that goes for everyone else. No more dual loyalties. Otherwise, given the demographic drift, I suggest you get used to whites identifying themselves as an ethnic interest group and acting on that identity.