Frankly, until Antle and all of the others who have been chafed by the “wise Latina” statement actually present evidence from the myriad of cases she has presided over, their interpretation is relegated to a straw-man argument.

As a side note, I think we have a duty to amplify Julian’s point that simply replacing the nouns in a sentence in a grammatically correct way does not a point make; i.e. substituting “white” for “Latina” and “woman” for “white man” stopped being an argument about the same time precocious high-schoolers stopped hypothesizing about a “White Entertainment Television”.

Now, as far as her record from the bench goes, Newt Gingrich has now acknowledged that her rulings have not shown any evidence of racial bias and walking back on his “racist” comment.

Rush Limbaugh’s legal eagles have done their research and told him the same thing (but his theory is that she had higher ambitions and knew that people would look at her actual decisions). He now says that even though he still believes she is a racist, he can be persuaded to support her if he can be convinced that Sotomayor, who is a Catholic, can help overturn Roe v Wade (since one can deal with racism and bigotry in other ways according to him, possibly canceling them out with help from other justices). He reconfirms again: “If she is a pro-life racist, I may have to change
my view.”

Such is the state of the Republican party today.

Judges often “evolve” in the Supreme Court, so no can positively assert that she is going to rule this way or that way from the Supreme Court or convince the other justices to make discrimination against a particular race the law of the land.

As an example in the other direction, here is a footnote Justice Stevens wrote in “Fullilove v. Klutznick”:

Indeed, the very attempt to define with precision a beneficiary’s qualifying racial characteristics is repugnant to our constitutional ideals… … If the National Government is to make a serious effort to define racial classes by criteria that can be administered objectively, it must study precedents such as the First Regulation to the Reichs Citizenship Law of November 14, 1935, translated in 4 Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Document No. 1417-PS, pp. 8-9 (1946):

That was in 1980. Now he essentially says that he has “learned on the job” and his position on affirmative action has “evolved.”

I do not know why the senate Republicans are urged to pick a fight with a formidable political opponent on the confirmation of Sotomayor. This is something they are going to lose should they chose to fight it tooth and nail. I do not believe this particular battle is worth it. It could have been worse from Obama. If one purely goes by her record today, she may not do much worse than Souter.

I’m sorry, but it is difficult for me to accept Jim Antle’s objections as a good-faith reaction to possible racial-ethnic prejudice. Sotomayor is a statist, generally status quo judge. The fact that she is being attacked on such ridiculous grounds is indicative of rank partisanship and tribal identity, rather than any genuine concerns about her judgment.

It would be a different matter if critics were pointing out multiple problematic or controversial passages from opinions or dissents that suggested that her actual decision-making was seriously flawed. Instead there is this endless parsing over the possible implications of what she said in one speech, in a specific context (the context of which is largely ignored).

I am moved to respond, not because of deep-felt support for this nomination, but in spite of it. Bring on serious objections; try to educate the general public about what positive goals you wish to achieve, and why this candidate falls short. Ultimately, anyone arguing against her because they think she will be unfair to Whitey is either a paranoid racist, or trying to incite the outrage of paranoid racists. I am not familiar enough with Mr. Antle’s writings and opinions to determine to which category he belongs.

I think this makes sense in terms of explaining things to an audience, or putting your own experiences and perspective in a context that other people can understand. I’d be wary of it as a judicial philosophy, but so far no one’s been able to present a shred of evidence that Sotomayor’s actual conduct as a judge is negatively affected by her (accurate and benign) sense of herself.

Yeah that’s exactly what we need more of, especially in the government. Are you an inner-city public school administrator by any chance?

As a practical matter I do think there are limits to how much you can accomplish by appealing to facts and figures. Trying to find common ground with opponents (and even friends) can be a tricky process. Demagoguery and sentimentality aren’t good, but trying to explain where you’re coming from seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I don’t think that means throwing logic out the window, but some acknowledgment that your opinions are informed by your experiences is helpful.

Again, I don’t think that’s an appropriate judicial philosophy but, also again, there’s no indication that Sotomayor has ever decided a single case based on ethnic solidarity, a desire to stick it to the man, etc. If there’s some allegedly sinister pattern to her jurisprudence that someone wants to bring to our attention I’d be happy to take a look.

Yeah that’s exactly what we need more of, especially in the government. Are you an inner-city public school administrator by any chance?

However, if you take the “wise Latina” and the “white men” out of her speech, it is nearly identical to Alito’s.

I have also noticed that if you take the “meat” and the “cheese” out of a cheeseburger, it is nearly identical to a plain roll.

What planet are you from?

I think the answer often lies in turning from logic to storytelling. If we can find a way to explain our POV in terms of a story, we can often more clearly illuminate our agreements and our differences, and perhaps find a common framework within which we can discuss them.

For me, the Alito reference is that kind of story. Both people spoke to their experience as affecting their judgment, and for me, I see Allito more clearly now. Yet, for others, the “white men” reference is a complete road block to seeing Sotomayor’s words as comparable in intent.

When I look at the privilege represented historically on the SCOTUS, I think Sotomayor is completely correct – she will have a better POV with which to assess the difficult questions addressed by the SCOTUS. It is possible, now that I see a bit of Alito’s story, that I will be more inclined to believe that he, too, has an enriched POV because of his background.

Not having read Antle, I can’t comment on his frame of reference for Sotomayor’s speech. However, if you take the “wise Latina” and the “white men” out of her speech, it is nearly identical to Alito’s. Perhaps, and maybe you have done this already, you can focus on your’s and Jim’s differing interpretations of those few words, and talk about how you each create from those words a story of how Sotomayor will act in the future. If you can share stories, maybe you can reach understanding, if not agreement.

Sometimes, understanding is all we can achieve.

Jake

This can be understood entirely at the level of culture rather than nature. Despite our many points of agreement on politics and policy, I keep getting the impression that Jim and I aren’t just reading a few statements in different ways, but that we are pitting significantly different frameworks against one another and so we inevitably end up going round in circles.

It seems that you read the Sotomayor sentence, or particularly the word “Latina,” as referring to an ethnicity or local interest). Antle and the others read the sentence, or the word as referring to a Race. They see “Latina/o” and “White” to be equivalent categories, and because they don’t question that someone who says they’re wiser because they’re white is a racist, that makes Sotomayor a racist.

I would personally say that I don’t think Latino is a “race,” (if race is defined completely by what your parents are, as innate and immutable) and that you can’t really be born into it like you can be born White or Black (by the US experience of these terms), and that “Latinos” generally share a lot more than mere congenital attributes, and that by reasonable definitions they would constitute an “interest” or “ethnicity.” “Local interests” are allowed to talk about how good they are, superior to other interests even. This is something we’re not allowed to do when we discuss race, or other plainly innate and personally irrelevant qualities.