Legal commentator Stuart Taylor has a good column criticizing various conservative pundits - including Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich - who accuse Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor of being a racist.
Both Taylor and I have been very critical of Judge Sotomayor's 2001 speech where she claimed that "a wise Latina" judge will generally make better decisions than a white male one, and argued that judges can often legitimately base decisions in part on their racial or ethnic identity. I believe her position is wrong. But it isn't racist. Sotomayor did not suggest that whites are an inferior race relative to some other group or that they should be denied equal rights or relegated to second-class citizenship. Conservatives often rightly denounce overblown accusations of racism advanced by leftists. For that reason, among others, it is important that they avoid committing the same sin themselves.
And while we are on this sorry subject, Limbaugh also did his reputation no favors when he said that "Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist" in the same statement (quoted by Taylor) where he accused Sotomayor of racism. I think Obama is wrong about a great many things. But he pretty clearly isn't a "reverse racist," much less "the greatest living example" of such.
UPDATE: I have taken the very unusual step (for me) of closing down comments on this post since I think that the thread has gone well past the point of diminishing returns, and some of the comments exceed even the very broad limits of what I consider to be permissible civility.
UPDATE #2: The original version of this post incorrectly identified Gingrich, rather than Limbaugh, as the one who called Obama "the greatest living example of a reverse racist." I apologize for the error, which has now been corrected.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Supreme Court to Hear Oral Argument in Alvarez v. Smith - A Key Property Rights Case:
- Eduardo Penalver's Defense of Sotomayor's Didden decision:
- What the Didden Case Tells Us About Sotomayor's Attitude Towards Property Rights:...
- My LA Times Debate with Erwin Chemerinsky, Part 3:
- Sotomayor May be Wrong About Race, but She is No Racist:
- Understanding the Point at Issue in the Judicial Empathy Debate:...
- The Sotomayor Pick:
- Obama Chooses Sonia Sotomayor.
- Supreme Court to Hear Potentially Important Property Rights Case:
Cheers,
It seems like the italicizied portion describes the Judge's comments pefectly.
Racial superiority is not a necessary component of racism, although it usually is.
Really, it seems to me that the choice of "racist" is just to cut through the usual clutter of the news media. Otherwise, no one in the media will bother with a sound and rational argument. It's all just crying wolf anyway.
Gingrich pretty clearly said that Obama was a "reverse racist," not that the electorate engaged in reverse racism by electing him. If he did say the latter, it would hardly be much better.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
She didn't say that such would necessarily pertain.
Neither did I say she did. I noted that she thought that the Latina judge would "generally" make better decisions, which means that she would not necessarily do so in every case.
I've italicized a narrower part of the definition used by green-grizzly above to support his argument that Sotomayor is a racist.
It's not at all clear to me that Sotomayor believes that there are inherent differences between the races. I would take her to mean that there are socially constructed differences between the races that, at the moment, mean that the judiciary would benefit from the input of those on the receiving end of said social constructions.
You may be cynical about whether said special voice/inclusion would ever end (a la affirmative action), but that's a separate issue.
Cheers,
I wonder if something like the term "racialist" isn't more appropriate for people like Sotomayor and Obama who, if not believers that some races are inherently superior, can fairly be argued to view most or all matters of public policy and even the law primarily through the lens of race.
Whatever debate there is on the racism accusation--I believe those like Taylor dismiss it far too quickly, and it is entirely relevant to cite the standards applied to white people asserting like statements--I'm comfortable that the life stories of both the judge and the President (La Raza, Trinity United, et al) support this last characterization, for better or for worse. I'm not even entirely sure Sotomayor would reject such a characterization herself.
Lets try this sans sex and race.
I would hope that a wise man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than an man who hasn't live that life.
is there anything wrong with that statement?
"A Random Thought on the Segregation Cases" was much clearer and more on-point than any decontextualized quote of Sotomayor's, but I don't recall Newt Gingrich ever calling for the ouster of the CJ, nor would he have been right to do so on those grounds, because William Rehnquist was a person whose views on the Constitution and the role of the Judiciary compelled him to oppose certain policies related to race. That may have made him wrong, but it didn't make him racist.
Legitimate differences in legal philosophy--how judges should decide cases, what standards should be applied in given contexts, etc.--are grounds to oppose a nominee, not to smear them. Trumping up false accusations of racism in order to score cheap political points is far more reflective of the accuser--be they Left, Right, or Center--than the accused.
That said, having lived in his district during his tenure as Speaker, I don't recall anyone ever accusing Mr. Gingrich of a surfeit of character.
Cheers,
Get rid of affirmative action and this presumption disappears later that same day.
I don't think this presumption is limited to public figures, or even conservatives. I'd venture it's a majority position in the public at large. Such is the harm caused by racial preferences.
That's not an equivalent statement.
The focus of her statement was on life experience
Representing her statement as simply "a wise Latina judge will generally make better decisions than a white male one." is a pretty gross misrepresentation of what she said.
She said "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."
Therefore, the equivalent statement isn't "A white male judge will make better decisions" but something more equivalent to "I would hope that a judge with a wide variety of life experiences, who happens to be a white male would more often than not reach better conclusion than a Judge who hasn't lived that life."
The only catch in her statement is that race is inextricably tied up with life experience. If you can honestly say that you think a minority won't have some differences in a life experience, you're being a little nieve.
But note, the whole point of the "stigma" argument is that racists will react in this way. When conservatives then turn around and deliberately apply the stigma, that's simple racism.
Further, the first thing a mature person learns about race is that you can't directly compare what whites can do and what minorities can do. The NAACP is not racist. A national organization for the advancement of white people would be. It's not racist for blacks to call each other the n-word informally. It is racist for whites to call blacks the n-word.
Similarly, it isn't racist when a Latina federal judge says the judiciarly would benefit from more Latinas on the bench. That's not an argument that whites are inferior or subhuman; it's an argument for diversity and inclusion and an argument that due to the oppression they face, Latinas bring something additional to the table.
Now note, I don't necessarily buy all the arguments for racial and ethnic diversity. They may not actually be well-founded. But they aren't racist, and saying that a white judge couldn't get away with saying the bench needs more whites ignores that it really is different when members of historically oppressed groups argue for inclusion than when a white argues for white supremacy.
And one last point-- conservatives who have no history of condemning actual racism against minorities simply have no standing to accuse liberals of racism. Simple test-- if you think most of the racism in the world is against whites, you need to stop using the term.
Asked and answered. And note that Alito made a statement essentially equivalent to SS's much-derided statement.
Only a surfeit of wives.
Care to offer any quote from Sotomayor that says that?
Racism is a belief in the INHERENT superiority of a particular ethnicity. That is not at all what Judge Sotomayer is suggesting. She is stating - quite correctly - that life experiences, including the (common to Hispanic women in this culture) experiences of overcoming difficulty and understanding both sides of the power structure in this society, could serve to prepare a judge for good decision making. Note that her phrasing leaves open the door to the idea that a white male WHO SHARED THOSE EXPERIENCES would be just as likely, all other things being equal, to make good decisions.
Give it a rest, race-baiting Limbaugh drones.
(Her experiences don't sound all that rich to me. She's still a graduate of a privileged Ivy League university. She doesn't understand us regular people.)
How exactly does one interpret Judge Sotomayor's 2001 lecture "A Latina Judge's Voice" as anything but racist and sexist?
Let's apply Stuart Taylor's hypothetical of placing Chief Justice Roberts in Judge Sotomayor's shoes and have him deliver more of the Latina speech from the point of view of a white man:
Chief Justice Roberts contrasted his views with those of Second Circuit Judge Miriam Cedarbaum. Judge Cedarbaum "sees danger in presuming that judging should be gender- or anything else-based. Judge Cedarbaum believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices."
Chief Justice Roberts questioned whether that was possible, adding, "I wonder whether ignoring our differences as [white] women or men we do a disservice both to the law and society."
"Our experiences as [white men] affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that—it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others."
In rejecting Justice O'Connor's argument that a "wise man" and a "wise woman" should reach the same legal conclusions, Robert concluded: “I would hope that a wise [white male] with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a [Latina woman] who hasn’t lived that life."
One you transpose white male for Latina female, these passages sound like a screed from David Duke.
If Roberts expressed these views prior to his nomination to the Supreme Court, this conservative/libertarian Republican would have thought him a racist and sexist and opposed his confirmation.
Sotomayer's speech is in no way comparable to Teddy Kennedy slandering Bork as a racist and sexist based on a fictional view of "Bork's America." Instead, this is a nominee to the Supreme Court making a lengthy prepared affirmative argument in favor of racism and sexism. Her argument is that Latina women by virtue of their race and sex enjoy a life experience that is superior to white men and thus will, more often, employ legal reasoning that is superior to white men.
Apart from a double standard giving racial minorities and women a pass for their racism and sexism, how can anyone honesty think Sotomayer would be any less a racist or sexist than the hypothetical Roberts for expressing these reprehensible views?
Wow. In addition to being a law professor and a blogger, Ilya is a tap dancer...
Sotomayer is a racist.
Sotomayer will be confirmed because the zeitgeist doesn't care.
In either 10 years, or 40 years, another Sotomayer will make a similarly racist statement, and not be confirmed, because by then, the zeigtgeist will care.
Will the internet trip up the party in power more quickly than it would have otherwise? Democrats dominated for 40-50 years, because they had the compliance of the media. Republicans then dominated for 10-20 years, because they didn't had the hostility of the media. Today, will the media still dominate the national conversation enough to give the Democrats their 40 years, or will the internet break the monopoly on information, and allow the switch to occur sooner? Only time will tell.
Sk
What can you tell us about Bohemian Grove, or FEMA camps?
"The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity -- she doesn't," he said. "But she is a typical white person who, you know, if she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know, there is a reaction. That has been bred into our experiences that don't go away and that sometimes come out in the wrong way." Obama on his Granny
Of course Jesse Agrees with granny:
"Even Rev. Jesse Jackson once said, "I hate to admit it, but I have reached a stage in my life that if I am walking down a dark street late at night and I see that the person behind me is white, I subconsciously feel relieved."
And Sotomyer saying that white males have an inferior ability to judge also seems to be racist. Just apply the reverse test: Black males have an inferior intellect...yup that's racist.
Days of posts by the "intellectual branch" about "empathy" and "wise latina". The patent nutjob wing (Rush, Newt, et al) step up and call her a racist and now the intellectual branch quibbles, well she isn't necessarily a "racist".
Just wonderful. Keep up the good work.
Well that certainly makes more sense. Although isn't it racist to say that a black guy can only get elected because people are trying to demonstrate that they're not racist?
See, we can play this game all day!
I'm not sure how one argues that minorities cannot be racists. Now, you might claim certain statements and actions are justifiable racism, or even necessary racism, but they're racism still.
Me, I think racism is bad. Old fashioned, I know.
And levisbaby, the GOP was making the same posts as you were, about the Democratic Party, just four years ago. How'd that turn out?
The first is grabbing on the word hope. Could someone please explain to me the mindset of a person who hopes that a person of gender X performs better than a person of gender Y? Or who hopes that a person of ethnicity X performs better than a person of ethnicity Y? Seems curious that people wouldn't see that hope as a problem.
Consider someone saying "I hope that a white boxer would beat a black boxer." Note that like Sotomayor's quote this sentiment isn't about two specific individuals, but rather is a categorical statement about hope re. white v. black boxers.
The second defense is that she is saying a person who is wise and had rich, substantial life experiences would make better choices than someone foolish with little life experience. This seems an improbable interpretation since it doesn't need the qualifications she chose to include (Latina &woman) to retain its meaning. Why introduce those two qualifications if they weren't intended to add to the idea being presented. Additionally, the idea that there are judges, of any demographic group, who are foolish and that have lived experience free lives is a bit silly.
It's not enough just to paint Jindal/Palin 2012 signs in your basement - get out there and spread you ideas and let a thousand flowers bloom!
If you morons didn't just take what you were fed by the right-wing blogosphere, you'd have the initiative to go read the entire, original speech for yourself. But god forbid any of you exercise any independent thought or investigation. No, let's just continue to believe that whatever shows up on the internet is the full extent of the truth.
Pronunciation: \ˈrā-ˌsi-zəm also -ˌshi-\
Function: noun
Date: 1933
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination
How is Sotomeyer's statement with regard to white judges not prejudice or discriminatory and therefore racist? Her own language, "a wise Latina" judge will generally make better decisions than a white male one." Sotomeyer said it herself; a Latina makes better decisions than a White because of race and ethnicity. That statement fits squarely into the definition of racism because it is a prejudicial belief and is discriminatory towards whites.
.
To add to the subject of Justice Alito's comments during his confirmation hearings, I suggest Ethel C. Fenig's May 29, 2009 article as a counterpoint with substantially more in the way of context.
1. It wasn't a statement, it's a single line taken from a long speech.
2. SHE DIDN'T EVEN ACTUALLY SAY THAT. Try learning to READ FOR YOURSELF instead of having Rush Limbaugh doing it for you. I promise you'll learn things.
Constantin, you might want to re-read what I said, because I never said minorities can't be racist. Louis Farrakhan certainly is one. So is the guy (the name escapes me) who argues that blacks are superior because they descended from the Sun God.
What I said was that it is extremely common for conservatives to argue that the commonplace argument by ANTI-racist liberals for racial and ethnic diversity is racist, claiming that if you flipped the argument around and argued for inclusion of more whites, that would be racist. And that ignores that there's a fundamental difference between arguing for the inclusion of historically excluded groups and arguing for the advancement of historically privileged groups.
There's the third, rather effective, defense that she was quite specifically talking about cases involving race and gender discrimination when the quote is put in context. Whether or not you agree with that quote, in context, is one thing, but claiming that she thinks this to be the case "generally" regardless of the subject of the case at hand is dishonest.
Secondly, there's been a good deal of hay made out of the "wise Latina" remark - see "wise Caucasiana" above - which makes it sound rather pompous when she's actually just echoing a quotation attributed to O'Connor.
Why do only racists think this way? If I need a heart surgeon, and there are only two available, a black guy and a white guy, and I know that the hostpital has lower standards for black doctors, if that's the only information I have shouldn't I pick the white doctor?
You might want to check your quote there - or your medications.
Do liberals who never condemn racism against black conservatives like Clarence Thomas have standing to condemn other racism?
No, because (1) you don't actually know if the hospital has lower standards (the actual criteria of affirmative action programs is kept secret), (2) you don't know how much lower the standards are, (3) you don't know whether the black doctor would have been hired anyway even if the standards are higher, and (4) you don't know if the standards accurately reflect who is going to be the better doctor.
The reason why it is racism to attach the stigma is that the racist never dwells on questions 1-4 but immediately jumps to the conclusion that dark skin = unqualified.
I don't hate whites. I just really like Latinos.
Cheers,
What does better mean? If it means hewing more closely to the intent of law, I don't see how it is possibly true. If, on the other hand, it means that she is willing to put her thumb on the scale for minorites, I don't see how the sentiment can be considered abything other than extreme racism.
Expecting a rich black person to be held to the same standards as a middle class white/asian person is not realistic?
Sure they do (even though it is a serious fault not to condemn racism directed at black conservatives). Because the vast, vast majority of racism is of the sort that liberals condemn and conservatives excuse.
Seriously, the appropriation of the term "racism" by conservatives is a lie of Goebbels-like proportions. The conservative movement has carried the water for American racists for over half a century, has only grudgingly accepted the civil rights revolution, and has neither admitted error nor purged itself of those who got the issue wrong for so long.
These are people who will deliberately and maliciously deny any sort of racism directed at non-conservative minorities. But let someone else make an argument about race that they don't like and suddenly they are acting all offended and screaming racism, as if racism ever stirred their soul or bothered them or offended them.
Exactly. That's why I don't care if she is pro-life or not. Anything produced (even on issues I agree with) are fruits of the treasonous judicial policy tree.
Parse the first sentence, and see if the judge thinks the race of a person could result in differing job performance. She states that sex and race may have an impact. This may be through experience, culture or physiological difference. Given that the differing job performance could arise through simple physiology, that seems pretty clearly racist.
In the last sentence, she says that race (latina), sex (female) and experience result in superior job performance. So it is a bit of nature and nurture - you need to be both hispanic and a woman, which combined with your experience, will hopefully "more often that not" make you a better judge than a white guy. To interpret that as not being racist, you have to really emphasize the "hope" part. Does that just make her an aspirational racist? ;)
It is perfectly logical prejudice--in the Burkean sense--to use information like that in guiding decisions:
This seems quite wrong. There is no sense to fighting by the Marquis de Queensbury rules if the other side is using all possible tactics. Fight fire with fire, I think.
If the left wants to agree to a moratorium on overblowing marginal instances of racism, fine. Until then, I see no reason not to overblow marginal instances of racism on their side.
Only that motto is MECHA's, not La Raza's.
Of course, if you've seen one Latino organization, you've seen them all, right?
If you live in California, where over half the 18 and under population is Latino, and many of its most powerful politicians are of the same demographic, then Sotomayor looks like an ethnic bully who believes the majority should oppress the white and Asian minorities.
The fact that she directly compared "a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience" to "a white male who hasn't lived that life" suggests strongly that in her mind, the ethnicity is directly linked to the richness of the experience. Had it not been, the explicit mention of "Latina woman" and "white male" would have been unnecessary.
So either she's not that good at saying what she means, or else she's got some fundamental racist assumptions coloring her attitudes.
I just don't see how you can defend that statement as non-racist without twisting yourself into intellectual knots in the process.
True. And the secrecy of these programs cuts both ways.
But that doesn't mean that ALL affirmative action programs give that big a push to minorities. And since you are talking about a COLLEGE ADMISSIONS program, it further doesn't mean that you should assume that minorities that MADE it through college (meeting the same standards as whites) and are now in the workplace are less qualified. And most importantly, you should never assume that ANY PARTICULAR minority is actually less qualified, as for all you know that person would meet whatever higher standard might have been imposed.
If one skips past all of these assumptions, yes, that person is a racist.
Are you familiar with hospitals that hire less qualified black surgeons or are you just making things up? Literally the only places I can find reference to affirmative action in hiring surgeons are bitter screeds against affirmative action. It's idiocy like this that leads to black doctors being disrespected in the workplace, passed over by patients, etc; unlike reverse racism, this is an actual problem.
If you're interested in something other than uninformed bigotry, here's a study that actually investigates the effects of racism on physicians - Impact of Race on the Professional Lives of Physicians of African Descent.
This has the virtue of being honest. Conservatives were sick of being labeled racist so they decided to turn the accusation on liberals. That's one way of putting it, but it demonstrates why we should take conservative accusations of alleged liberal racism with a grain of salt.
But:
1) I know the hospital doesn't have lower standards for white doctors
2) I don't care how much lower the standards are
3) I know the white doctor would have been hired without the AA program
4) I just need the standards to corralate r > 0 with the better doctor.
Therefore, poof, AA just transformed an ignorant racist decision into a logical racist decision.
'course, if I was in a hostpital run by bigots I'd be better off with the black doctor.
I haven't ruled things "off limits". The term racism is associated with invidious racial discrimination and the theories of white racial supremacy that supports them. That's where it comes from.
When the NAACP says they want to advance the interests of colored people, that's simply not the same as when David Duke says he wants to advance the interests of white people. And conservatives want to pretend that it is (or, in fact, that advancing the interests of colored people is the "real" racism!).
You guys decided that you didn't like being called racists so you set about to redefine the term. It's not about "blacks can't be racist"-- they can-- but that typical liberal appeals for INCLUSION of minorities are not racist. And Rush Limbaugh-- himself a demonstrated racist-- doesn't get to redefine the term.
It's tough to be so wrong in such a short span of words, and I commend you for your accomplishment. And you receive bonus points for the degree of difficulty inherent in both mistranslating an organization's name AND wrongly ascribing a quote to it.
No, seriously, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Constantin, conservatives WERE wrong on civil rights. I'm sorry, but that's not arguable. And that's my point in this whole thing. Instead of admitting that the movement was wrong and joining the fight against racism, conservatives decided to try and redefine racism to mean what liberals advocate.
Thank you for following this controversy and your dedication to accurate presentation of the issue.
I don't think Judge Sotomayor is an overt racist. I have taken the time to read the entire transcipt of her speech. In my opinion, her words were not chosen well. The first stage of her confirmation should be to allow her to explain in further detail her position regarding race, life experience, and legal decision-making. If (and I assume most likely) she assuages the fears of those she offended in the previous speech, then by all means confirm her.
However, if her defense of the previous speech does not win over the rational minds of the opposition... I am not a fan as is.
Says who? You're making this up yourself. There's nothing in the Constitution (re equal protection), or in the dictionary, for that matter, to support you on this one. And how can you use this definition, and then go on to say that minorities can be racist?
There's extensive academic literature on racism and what it means. Perhaps you ought to study some of it before commenting on this matter further.
Seriously, even anti-affirmative action conservatives from the academic arena like Bill Bennett agree with me as to what the term means.
Like I said, I wish I was amazed that so many people are so willing to be dishonest about this and also so unaware of their own deep-rooted dishonesty. It's not amazing anymore, and that's depressing.
The Goebbels-level lie is on the part of Democrats. The 1964 Voting Rights Act would NOT have passed the House without Republicans - it WOULD have passed without Democrats. All filibusters were by Democrats. The Civil Rights argument was between two factions of Democrats while Republicans stood on the side saying "Duh, we've been saying this all along." They -still- haven't purged Robert "KKK" Byrd. Whenever you hear liberals claim Republicans did something racist, 99% of the time it is a hegemonic lie. Their claims that Republicans bear some collective guilt re: racism are complete and utter fabrications that fall apart on the most cursory examination, but notice they avoid giving specifics until you call them on it. Winston Smith on his best day could not have rewritten history the way liberals project their vile history of racism on its opponents. What's worst of all is that a supposed law blog lets posts like that stand without correcting the record of how the votes passing those laws actually went. Inexcusable.
And of course Sotomayor is racist as all hell. And I say this as a Latino male with rich life experiences, which of course makes my argument better than yours.
Qwinn
Cheers,
Keep reading beyond what's being quoted here. She's talking about cases involving race and gender discrimination. If Judge Brown had spent the richness of his experiences growing up drinking from the Colored fountain, I doubt he could have written this: "Laws permitting, and even requiring, their separation in places where they are liable to be brought into contact do not necessarily imply the inferiority of either race to the other."
Her point is that someone with a similar experience can be more likely to see injury than someone else. To empathize, if you will. It's absurd that there's any debate about that, let alone whether it's racist (whether it actually makes for better decisions certainly is something to debate). Complaints about unqualified black surgeons ought to be Exhibit A here; talk to anyone actually involved in medicine and they'll tell you that the problem is actually the other way around, on account of the richness of their experiences practicing medicine.
I think your arguments are strong but you seem to minimize the fact that too many on the right fringe actually believe in black inferiority. They actually believe this.
I mean they view lower test scores as an indication of inferiority even though these some views were being used before testing. They view blacks as morally bankrupt b/c of social data even though those some arguments were used to justify oppression before such data even existed. The ordering of people is essential for some. That the country was based and constructed on white supremacy is an inconvenient truth.
It isn't that difficult for the fruit of such a tree to have morphed into such ratinal thought. Thus it is not at all strange for such people to claim that minorities who assert their view as being a threat to a certain concept of fairness.
Fair enough. But here's the central point: If a white male had made comments similar to Sotomayor's, his comments would be considered summarily disqualifying in a Supreme Court nominee. You don't deny that, do you?
Thanks for the condescension (which I'm sure informs your compulsion to treat minorities as mere children not to be held to the same standards as everyone else) but I'm fine.
Instead, I'll leave you to torture the English language and the Equal Protection Clause to maintain your claim--you can deny it all you want, but it's your explicit position--that racism is good if black people do it, and Dilan Esper thinks it's the right kind of bigotry.
Qwinn, notice I said "conservatives", not "Republicans".
The Civil Rights Acts passed because of people you would now call RINO's. And the conservative MOVEMENT, including Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley, Ronald Reagan, and other conservative heroes, opposed civil rights legislation. Meanwhile, a VERY liberal President got it through Congress. And the filibusters came from Southern conservatives who were later assimilated into the Republican Party and conservative movement.
Cheers,
I never mentioned the Equal Protection Clause. We are talking about the misuse of the term "racism".
Does it matter in your hypo that over 99% of Supreme Court Justices have been white males? Does that track record say anything to you about how society allocated that position?
I tend to doubt it.
Some of us just believe that everyone should be treated the same regardless of their skin color. In a progressive's 1984 world, people who believe in this ideal are the racists.
It's a brilliant pick because he knew the right simply couldn't help themselves with their hyper-racially-focused reaction and now they've proved him 100% right.
Good luck winning the Hispanic vote for the next few decades, Republicans!
Pure unadulterated bullshit on every level.
Qwinn
He said conservatives, not Republicans.
In precisely the same way, the KKK believes that the white race gives whites special insight that Ms. Satomayor cannot have because she can never be white.
Ms. Satomayor has not YET advocated the natural progression of her way of thinking in the way that the KKK has (the extermination of the lessor species).
But she'll (and her kind) always eventually advocate the extermination of the lessor species. Always. They merely wait until they wield the power to do so - so as not to upset their chance at gaining that power.
The KKK is stupider than Satomayor. They advocate from a position of inability to execute. She won't make that mistake.
She's just a smarter brand of racist.
The reality is that I don't think many of the conservatives who espouse the "Sotomayor is a racist" argument actually believe that. I don't think they support efforts to do away with racial profiling by police departments or airport security. I don't think they support vigorous enforcement of the civil rights and voting rights laws. I don't think they support nondiscriminatory immigration policies. And when any study comes out claiming racial differences in IQ or the like, they trumpet it.
I am actually quite skeptical of affirmative action and diversity arguments, and can think of much I would say in response to Judge Sotomayor. But arguments for racial diversity simply aren't racist, and the people advancing this proposition have little real support of actual colorblindness.
Perhaps I don't understand your question, but no, I don't think so. That's not relevant to my point, which is that a white male couldn't get away with saying anything similar to what Sotomayor said. (In fact, as others have noted, if a white male made Sotomayor-like remarks, he couldn't remain in polite society.)
There isn't a single white male faculty member here -- tenured or not, judicial aspirations or not -- who would be stupid enough to say anything close to what Sotomayor said. They couldn't get away with it, and they know they couldn't get away with it.
Qwinn, I look forward to your detailed analysis of the political leanings of the Republicans who supported the civil rights acts. Please post it in this comments thread. It's easily found on the internet, so you will have no problem supporting your contention that movement conservative Senators and Congressmen supported the Civil Rights laws.
Yes, I believe that William F. Buckley and the staff of the National Review were brutalized in Birmingham by that liberal Bull Conner's police dogs.
That's a lovely idea. I expect you're spending a lot of time working on the far more prevalent cases of discrimination against minorities than the minor and rare cases of discrimination against white people.
Because when a Republican just says that everyone should be treated the same regardless of their skin color, and doesn't actually do anything to address discrimination, minorities know they're full of shit given that they built their modern party on the Southern Strategy.
MAM's point, I believe, is that white males and their worldview don't need to seek inclusion because they are already extremely overrepresented.
There have been 110 Supreme Court justices. 96%.
I think it does matter b/c in majority/minority dynamics, the majority doesn't need to say anything, whereas minorities, particularly oppressed minorities, do. That statistic is a very emphatic statement about white supremacy, even for those who are not in the least bit racist.
Should illiterates have been appointed to the Supreme Court?
Non-voters? People without law degrees? People who had no desire to be judges? Should there have been a draft, to ensure exact minority representation?
You can point to the institutionalized racism that prevented certain people from becoming literate, voting, taking initiative, etc, but to do so without admitting that there would have been no institutions or indeed country at all without white males is just silly. Of course the vast majority of SC justices were white males. So were the vast majority of ex-Europeans, colonists, revolutionaries, settlers, farmers, slave-owners, abolitionists, etc etc.
Certainly "society" made it difficult for a black man to achieve up until recently. So should we have expected a qualified black candidate for the SC before recently? Should we now forget about qualifications and simply appoint people who ensure a palatable racial makeup?
But her "wise Latina statement" was indeed a racist statement. And Prof. Somin's insistence that "Sotomayor did not suggest that whites are an inferior race relative to some other group" is pathetically counterfactual, requiring us to perceive "wise" as something other than an aspect of superiority. It's the single silliest thing I've ever seen any author at this blog write.
But if you're a Democrat, then you can say "I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
And you can be the primary filibusterer of the Civil Rights Act. And you get "unpurged" so long that you're in fact the senior member of the majority party in the Senate and 4th in line for the presidency, right behind Obama, Biden and Pelosi.
A Republican concerned for states' rights can never be forgiven for his "code", but Byrd's "race mongrel" comments and filibustering is -perfectly- okay. And Christopher Dodd can explicitly wish that Byrd had been President during anytime in our history, explicitly including the Civil War, and no one cares, while Lott (no fan of him me) was raked over the coals for a much much less disturbing remark.
Nah, I'm not going to bother. We're wise to your tactics. They're sleazy, disgusting, misleading and flat out BS, but they work. That's the saddest thing of all.
Qwinn
First, I don't particularly agree with Sotomayor, I'm just not so naive to deny that life experience influences one's judgment. A judge with personal experience in germane banking matters would likely have a different view on those sorts of cases than one who didn't. Would this mean he'd make better decisions? No clue. The Plessy opinion is certainly an example that backs Sotomayor's remark. Someone who had actually experienced segregation on either side would not be so naive as to write that segregation doesn't imply inferiority.
"Certainly "society" made it difficult for a black man to achieve up until recently."
I didn't know that slavery, making it illegal for blacks to learn to read, and setting up institutions that not only actively denied access and opportunity but effectively disrupted progress merely made it difficult for black men to become doctors, lawyers, police officers, firefighters, etc.
Do you explain that statistic as merely natural selection?
Qwinn, I asked you for the backup for your statement that the Republicans who supported the Civil Rights Acts in the 1960's were conservatives rather than what you would now call RINO's. The backup would be easily available, as you can find the lists of the members of Congress who voted for civil rights through google.
You decided not to do so and instead went on a rant.
Apparently, at some time, you heard the talking point that conservatives can't be racists because Republicans provided a majority of support for the Civil Rights laws and never questioned that talking point. You never investigated the longstanding and deep conservative movement support for racial discrimination. You never considered the realignment of the parties that occurred after that legislation passed which moved some liberal northeastern Republicans into the Democratic Party and many conservative southern Democrats into the Republican Party. And you never considered that the prime mover behind the Civil Rights revolution was LBJ, a classic and strident liberal.
It never crossed your mind that perhaps the talking point was obscuring more than it was clarifying. Why would it? It was too convenient. It was a get out of jail free card for conservative racism.
At this point you have zero credibility on this issue.
Of course it's racist. Her point is that her race will dictate the quality of her life experiences such that she'd make better decisions. That is obviously racist. A person's race says absolutely nothing about what their life experiences will be like, at all. It does not mean you will be priviledged, or unpriviledged - and at any rate, Sotomayor was clearly in the former category from at least age 18 on.
If you think race dictates the quality of your life experience, you are a bigot. Plain and simple. Dance all you want. It won't change that.
Qwinn
Implying that minorities are stupid (for voting Democratic), trying to blame Democrats for modern racism, and then actually defending claims of "states rights" in a racial context might be the optimal trifecta of racial insensitivity.
Honestly, that argument, the 'quota' argument, is about as logical as demanding that 10 million Germans be put into the gas chambers tomorrow.
One of your claims in your initial post was that -we- had failed to "purge" our racists and that makes us vile beyond words. You've got Robert "Grand Kleagle of the KKK" Byrd 4th in line to the Presidency because you haven't purged him in 6 freaking decades, and -I- lack credibility? Heh. You stay with that.
And I didn't evade your question, I merely cited that I already know what your response would be to my answer. A conservative that made states' rights and federalism a priority in -every- aspect of their political philosophy, not just in regards to civil rights, is undoubtedly in your world a racist who didn't give a crap about states rights and just used it as code for racism. That will be your reply to my reply to you. We all know it. So what's the point of doing a dance that's already been choreographed by liberal revisionists?
Qwinn
RE: Yeah...Right....
And if I say that....
....I think that a wise white man, with the vast amount of experience would be more than likely to come to a sound decision than an hispanic woman....
....I wouldn't be called a 'racist' either.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[You recognize rank hypocrisy by simply changing the nature of the argument and seeing if there is a reversal in the opinion. -- CBPelto]
P.S. Anyone wanna place a little 'wager' on my being called a 'hypocrite'?
How I read your argument is that white males were the dominant political group for most of our history (oh, wait, they still are) is that they could read and were educated, not because they were white males. And then you (understatedly) acknowledge that the reason they could read and were educated is because the were white males, not because they were inherently better at reading or being educated. Which if you follow the argument, just leads us to they were in power because they were white males.
Does it really matter whether or not you deny someone entry to political power at the schoolhouse door or at the capitol steps, when the result is the same? And if it is, how does that bolster your argument against diversity as a good thing?
Cheers,
See....
www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=99420
Who here is calling people racists who are really just federalists concerned with states rights?
And, yes, as a liberal I concede that Robert Byrd was a racist and is now a senile, walking anachronism who alternates between being progressive on race issues and saying backwards, idiotic garbage. He should've been forced into retirement long ago if only to avoid seeing rants like yours for the millionth time. However, Strom's retirement didn't stop idiots on my side from bringing him up and I doubt Byrd's retirement would shut you up, either.
Robert Byrd apologized and has a good voting record on civil rights.
In any event, Robert Byrd is one guy who did a stupid thing when he was very young. The conservative movement lionizes multiple people who were huge opponents of civil rights as adults, welcomed the Dixiecrats into the fold, and never admitted its complicity in the matter.
This is the difference between talking points and serious analysis. Robert Byrd may give you something to talk about, but that's not the same thing as absolving conservative sins on civil rights.
And I didn't evade your question, I merely cited that I already know what your response would be to my answer. A conservative that made states' rights and federalism a priority in -every- aspect of their political philosophy, not just in regards to civil rights, is undoubtedly in your world a racist who didn't give a crap about states rights and just used it as code for racism. That will be your reply to my reply to you.
States rights, yes. The Constitution post-civil war was absolutely clear that the states do not have the right to discriminate against blacks.
I do cut some slack for libertarians who support restrictions against governmental discrimination but not private discrimination, but "states rights" do not include the right to discriminate against blacks and have not since at least the 1860's.
In any event, again, you DID evade my question. You called my statement that the Republicans who supported civil rights were what you would call RINO's "BS". If it were BS, you could easily establish that. But you don't. Gee, I wonder why.
I don't share the planted axioms in your statement. There is no singular white male worldview. I'm a right-leaning, working-class gay male from Texas who pays his income taxes. I suspect my understanding and experience of the world differs in some significant ways from, say, Secretary Geitner's.
But let's assume, arguendo, that there is something important and universal to white maleness. This doesn't undermine my point. If a white male were found to have said anything close to what Judge Sotomayor said, he couldn't sit on the Supreme Court. Because even if the person wasn't a racist, his statement would be viewed as racist, as least as racially derogatory. We all know that, yes?
....What's this I hear that 60% of her rulings that were appealed were overturned.
See....
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/27/60-reversal-
of-sotomayor-rulings-gives-fodder-to-f/print/
[Note: You'll have to put the link together, as this stupid system won't allow for long URLs.]
And THIS is the 'quality' of this 'wise' Hispanic woman's decisions? More than half 'wrong'?
Cheers,
Dear LORD. The man personally filibustered the CRA for 14 hours.
"In any event, Robert Byrd is one guy who did a stupid thing when he was very young."
HE WAS 47!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am so out of here. This is freaking insane. I had no idea this website, which used to be among my favorites, had descended so below DU standards that it would permit blatant bullshit like this with -no one- else calling it out. What a crying shame.
Qwinn
Didn't he say the n-word on TV just a few years ago? Twice?
And apologized for it. Further, as I said, his more recent voting record on civil rights is quite good.
Didn't he say the n-word on TV just a few years ago? Twice?
This isn't worth arguing about until the conservatives explain how Robert Byrd somehow changes the fact that there was institutional conservative movement opposition to the civil rights movement.
Whites the dominant political group in America? Oh, the horror. Just think if blacks dominated South Africa's politics. How terrible that would be...wait, it makes sense that blacks should dominate S.A.'s politics?
I don't think we should deny anyone entry to the schoolhouse or capitol steps based on their skin color. That's why I'm grateful that we no longer do that as a country.
This was a white country that brought in black slaves. We killed hundreds of thousands of our own people to free those slaves. We then took 100 years to rid our country of the evils of institutionalized racism. We've now arrived at a point where I, as a Southern white guy, have no friends or acquaintances who are racist in such a way that they would want to go back to pre-civil rights movement ways and laws. The problem is, that's not good enough. Having a black President isn't enough. Denying firefighters promotion b/c they are white isn't good enough. Nothing will ever be good enough for progressives, b/c you can't fix past wrongs with present wrongs.
By the way, MAM, it wasn't impossible for black people to achieve before we de-institutionalized racism. Difficult, but not impossible.
But we'll continue to be preoccupied with it instead with things that are actually important.
Robert Byrd (senior Senate Democrat)
There was also:
Al Gore Senior. Ya know, I wasn't aware the Gore family switched parties, but according to you, they must have.
Senator Fulbright, who even opposed Brown v Ed. Screaming racist on every level. Democrat hero till the day he died in 1995. President Clinton said, "Hillary and I have looked forward for sometime to celebrating this 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program, to honor the dream and legacy of a great American, a citizen of the world, a native of my home state and my mentor and friend, Senator Fulbright."
The list actually goes on and on. But what's the point?
Qwinn
She said that Latina experience creates better decisions.
I remember in the '80's, some TV show made a point about race relations by pointing out that a character kept calling someone "my *black* friend" instead of simply "my friend". The point being made is that *race blindness* was the ultimate goal we ought to strive for, and I would agree; I too look forward to a day when we shall judge men not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.
Of course, race blindness was a liberal goal, and there is no trace of that sort of liberalism remaining among those usurpers marching under that stolen banner today.
If "racism" is too strong a word for Sotomayor's inclusion of the term "Latina", that's an argument I can consider. But Sotomayor, as with all Leftists, is inarguably race-conscious. Considering that the law properly should not be, I don't think that is a good thing.
Please, by all mean, keep going! You're doing a great job insulting the intelligence of every thinking person! This is surely a great way to win over minority voters.
So I believe a diverse judiciary is important, not because racial minorities will knee-jerk side for other racial minorities, but because they are more likely to be sensitive to legal harms that others would dismiss or not even consider because they have never had to suffer the harm (cf. Plessy or Bowers).
As to Sotomayor, my reading of her entire speech leads me to interperate that singular damning comment differently than you. (At first, I even read it as a joke, and still believe that's a possible reading of it since I haven't seen any video or heard any audio to know how it was said.) I don't think that she believes her experiences will make her a better judge than a white male. I think she acknowledges that it does make her a different judge, and that in a society that is far from being post-racial, post-gender, post-sex, that difference is important.
In any event, this is all a phony thing for you anyway. You clearly don't support civil rights. You just want to bash liberals.
RE: Heh
You must have some kinda 'different' definition of 'intelligence', buckie.
What is it?
There's a great concept.
'Getting votes is more important than doing what is right.'
You sound like a typical 'progressive', at this point.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Progressive is a one-word oxymoronic.]
So what's your point? That minorities are irreversibly stuck voting for Democrats because to ever change that pattern would be admitting they'd been stupid? Nice circular justification you've got there.
Personally, I don't think black liberals are any more stupid than white liberals.
And btw, I was offered race-based scholarship programs to go to college. I told 'em to shove their condescending patronizing racist benevolence up their ass. But maybe some people like that sort of thing. I wouldn't call that stupid.
Qwinn
To bring it back to the basic point. How is saying "My race is better and more enlightened than yours" not inherently racist?
Sigh. Like I said. This shows how on point I was about your basing your entire claim on the notion that Republicans only speak in "racist code".
Not one of them "supported segregation". I challenge you to find one word by Reagan that directly supports that claim. What those three opposed was a specific piece of legislation that actively punished southern states exclusively, holding them to a different set of rules than northern states. All of them would've supported that legislation if that wildly unreasonable and unconstitutional double standard had been removed, and they said so. Why was it necessary anyway? Is there some reason that northern states should've been exempted from obeying civil rights legislation? Apparently, if you thought northern states should've been held to the same civil rights standards as the south, you're a racist.
And note - I'm not southern. Been raised and live in NJ all my life. Don't have a racist bone in my body. But I -am- a federalist, I do believe in states rights, and I think the way the CRA set up a double standard between the states was inexcusable and indefensible, and I hold no grudge against anyone who pointed that out.
Qwinn
The implicit assumption that I could only afford it with their patronizing help, and that my grades couldn't compete with scholarships among a pool that included whites and asians. I am awed that you need that explained to you.
Qwinn
The statement compares having experience with not having experience, and by "Wise Latina" she meant "me". The remark should be criticizes for arrogance, perhaps, not for racism.
Or are you saying that that black support of affirmative action signals something else.
Actually, it's the use of the term by "liberals" -- that is, Leftists -- that is the lie of such proportions.
What you are evading is that over the course of the twentieth century, liberalism -- which, being the expression of Enlightenment individualism, is the genuinely anti-racist ideology -- was co-opted by the collectivist Left into what is in fact the opposite of liberalism, on every count -- including racism.
Those liberals who took down Jim Crow would not recognize as heirs the modern "liberals" who now tell us with straight faces Jim Crow is wrong -- but Crow Jim is just fine.
Qwinn
RE: That Statement
Okay!
Arrogance as well as 'racist' and 'sexist'.
Thanks!
Much appreciated, as I'd missed THAT aspect.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out.....]
No. It hasn't. If anything, it has stulted and restrained them in virtually every way. Thomas Sowell has clearly demonstrated that blacks were closing the economic gap with whites at a much faster rate right up until the point those policies were instituted.
That someone could look at urban ghettos and black poverty rates today and declare "mission accomplished!" is something only a liberal could do with a straight face.
Qwinn
And as for the dominant political group, I said white males, not whites. You argue that the largest group should make up the dominant political group, but that is not true of the US--it's not even close.
And I strongly disagree with your assumption that we are a post-racial society. It would be great if it were, and we could be a colorblind nation, but we aren't at that point yet, and it is being unrealistic to think that racism and its effects are gone from our society. (And to see the problems that arrise from assuming that it is gone, one only has to look at France.)
When did Reagan support segregation?
Apparently at least one Conspirator thought otherwise:
On the other hand, republicans can say virtually anything, liberals can twist it and say "code!", and everyone buys it. The conservative can't even say "I was taken out of context" because the entire accusation relies on the notion that the conservative was actively masking his real nefarious and evil context with a secret code ring version.
Propaganda is a powerful thing.
Qwinn
1. That isn't what Judge Sotomayor said.
2. Saying Latinas bring a perspective from their particular experience that will help decide certain cases better isn't racist anyway.
Qwinn
Saying white males bring a perspective from their particular experience that will help decide certain cases better is, on the other hand, patently racist on its face.
Qwinn
How 'bout saying white people bring a perspective from their particular experience that will help decide certain cases better?
Reagan opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Isn't that why the Supreme Court has been 96% white?
And, again, who's twisting what and yelling "code!" here? Who's calling perfectly righteous states rights advocates racists? Are you just using this as a forum to air complaints about times you've been wronged in the past?
Yep, Qwinn. That's right.
I'm sorry that conservatives are such simpletons when it comes to race. But you can't directly analogize things that minorities say with things white people say.
But it's not worth arguing with you guys. You guys do not oppose racism. Indeed YOU ADMITTED THAT YOU THINK THAT RACIAL SEGREGATION IS FINE! You guys just like calling liberals "racist". In other words, you like lying.
And, of course, the only thing worse than a racist is a dishonest one.
RE: [OT] THERE'S an Interesting 'Twist'
And all the years I remember since I became 'cogent', I cannot remember ANYTHING Reagan did as president that was 'racist' in nature.
Maybe YOU could point out out for me.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Leave it to NPR to try to pervert reality.]
P.S. By the way, did Reagan ever say something like....
"I think that a white man, with his vast experience, would probably come to a good decision more often that an hispanic woman"?
WTF? When did I say this? I explicitly said I consider it vile.
Qwinn
RE: And THERE....
Dilan is a farqing hypocrite.
It's okay for some woman who is hispanic to say she's better than white men. But it is not okay for white men to say they are better than an hispanic woman.
As I've often said....
You recognize rank hypocrisy by simply changing the nature of the argument and seeing if there is a reversal in the opinion.
And Dilan provides prima facia proof of that.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....and Dilan Esper is going to look VERY bad as a result.....]
Qwinn
Which is not the same thing as being "up front in supporting segregation" Although if you're not a federalist it's hard to think the distinction is worth making.
How so? I don't see how that statement isn't any less true.
If there is to be a differentiation between the two positions, it might be that in the field of discrimination lawsuits, there isn't a long history of female and minority judges ignoring legal harms to white males.
Lastly, Chuck, I think you finally nailed it with the 100th rephrasing of Sotomayor's quote replacing "Latina" with "white." It's the kind of thing that really gains impact with repetition.
"I'm sorry that conservatives are such simpletons when it comes to race. But you can't directly analogize things that minorities say with things white people say. "
IOW, minorities are permitted conduct that would be considered racist among whites.
This is so patently racist on its face, it's staggering to me that anyone here is NOT calling for this person to be expelled from polite society. Except I guess you all share it.
You're so utterly unbelievably racist, and you don't even acknowledge it. You drip with it. You're every bit as bad as any segregationist in the south ever was, and you have the gall to blame us for it. Volokh Conspiracy might as well be Stormfront for allowing statements like this to stand. And no, that's not hyperbole.
Qwinn
RE: Dilan Esper
Actually, the fact that he/she is a grotesque hypocrite is considerably worse than a mere slanderer.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour...-- Proverbs]
P.S. In this instance, they're bent on destroying the entire country....
Wanna bet?
RE: Heh
Sometimes a 'teacher' has to repeat something in order for it to sink into the minds of the 'students'.
Something I learned in the military....that it has to be said AT LEAST THREE TIMES, in order for it to 'stick'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....but what will people do with it?]
You said "I consider forced integration every bit as vile as forced segregation. They're two sides of the same coin. Both are completely antithetical to freedom of association."
In other words, racial segregation is fine. It's just the exercise of that core American value of freedom of association.
Sorry, bub, no apology.
And when did Sonia spend her time campaigning against "Young buck buying Cadillacs with food stamps" to stereotype black people? When did Sonia support the cutting of funding for civil rights enforcement? When did Sonia try to weaken th Voting Rights Act? Or oppose the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday.
Here, let me explain to you:
1. Freedom of association, where everyone gets to pick who they associate with without government interference, is good.
2. Forced segregation and forced integration, both of which deny that freedom, are vile.
Qwinn
Minorities trying to keep the man down. I doubt Quinn has been upset a day in his life about any actual instances of racism, but let him smell the hint of "reverse racism" and he's on the warpath. You keep fighting that good fight, Quinn.
So when you say you oppose forced integration on free association grounds (which, in your partial defense, was a position held by some very important intellects in the 1950's like Herbert Wechsler), that means you favor racial segregation.
That was the issue. Were we going to force people to integrate their workplaces, the schools, public accommodations, the voting booth, etc., or not? The people who chose "not" favored the segregation of the Jim Crow South.
How do you know that? I think what you are trying to say is that the infamous statement doesn't prove she is.
I don't she is for sure, but a comment like that flowing so easily from her lips and her close association with a no-doubt-about-it racist organization points in a certain direction.
Qwinn
There really isn't such a thing; racism is racism, no matter who's committing it. If only some people would realize that; two wrongs don't make a right, etc.
And, even better would be pointing out that she joined not just one, but two far-left racial power groups, and that one of those groups gave an award to someone who'd made eliminationist statements years before.
See the link for my extensive summary of that group, based on covering them since 2004. Note especially the warning at the end about getting them confused with others groups; doing that helps Obama.
If anyone wants to actually do something effective, read the link above and send it to all your friends. Urge them to contact their Senators and to also send the link to their friends. And, visit those left-wing sites that are defending that group and provide them with some facts. Just please make sure they're facts and aren't based on things that other groups with similar names have done.
Cheers,
Uh, no. Jim Crow was not some unofficial set of guidelines that people voluntarily adopted. They -mandated- segregation. You have absolutely no idea what would've happened if those laws had been dismantled and forced integration not instantly instituted to replace it, because tragically that never happened.
BTW, since you're such a violent opponent of -voluntary- segregation, I assume you'll tell us that the BET channel, the United Negro College Fund, the Black Congressional Caucus and so forth are obviously voluntarily racially segregated organizations and therefore illegitimate and vile, yes?
Qwinn
In other words, "forced" segregation and "voluntary" segregation were coextensive. And the conservative movement not only opposed Brown but villified Earl Warren for many years for deciding it.
RE: Typical Evasion by Derrick
"And when did Sonia spend her time campaigning against "Young buck buying Cadillacs with food stamps" to stereotype black people? When did Sonia support the cutting of funding for civil rights enforcement? When did Sonia try to weaken th Voting Rights Act? Or oppose the Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday.? -- Derrick
As if this has ANYTHING to do with Sotomayors pronouncement that she, as an hispanic woman is better qualified to make judicial prouncments than any white man.
Go fig....
...but it IS 'typical' of 'progressives to try this sort of digression.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Liberals aren't. Progressives won't.]
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954),[1] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court, which overturned earlier rulings going back to Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, by declaring that state laws that established separate public schools for black and white students denied black children equal educational opportunities. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the Warren Court's unanimous (9-0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Do you know what "de jure" means? It means "concerning law". Brown v. Board of Ed regarded forced segregation, not voluntary segregation.
Qwinn
Qwinn
You should read Herbert Wechsler's article ("Toward Netural Principles in Constitutional Law") which appears in the Harvard Law Review in the mid-1950's. Or read my own "Some Thoughts on the Problem of State Action", which appears in the Southern California Law Review in 1996. Or Henry Friendly's classic "The Dartmouth College Case And the Public-Private Distinction". Or maybe read a Supreme Court case like Reitman v. Mulkey, from the late 1960's.
Come back after that and tell us what you learned about the concepts of public and private that you are bandying about with respect to segregation.
Qwinn
Note that Justice Alito did no such thing.
You are such a brazen liar it is gobsmacking.
I noted with curiosity a while back the claim that Head Start was a failure ...because perfomance, while initially closing the gap, fell off again after students 'graduated' from the program. This is the classical model for a longitudinal study. When you take away the treatment, the patient relapses; this proves even more strongly the efficacy.
Sadly, this same old stoopidity was trotted out again recently in the "arguments" opposing California preschool funding.
Do we really want to make an effort to ensure that all have equal opportunity? If we don't do that, we can hardly absolve ourselves of the social responsibility for disparate results down the line.....
Cheers,
Qwinn
RE: [OT] No Problemo, Compadre
I figured it had to do with lag-time in posting vs. reading.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. I came 'of age' in Louisiana when my Father, God bless his soul, was stationed at Barksdale AFB, in the mid-to-late 60s.
It was an 'interesting' time......and I was accused of being a 'n-----' lover, because I didn't hate the way they did. Nor do I hate the way Dilan Esper and Derrick do today.
I guess it has something to do with being a military 'brat'.....
That is the 'intellectual rigor' demonstrated by today's "progressives"
I "know" that they do because the fact that they do was part of the hypo. The whole point, which you seem to agree with, is that hospitals should not have different standards for black doctors. Unless, of course, you somehow got sold on the notion that AA doesn't involve lower standards for some folks.
You are an out &out liar.
Uh, no. in the Jim Crow South you had "forced segregation" throught official policy and private violence designed to perpetuate white supremacy.
And revealing of how hypocritical and quite frankly obscene today's modern "liberals" actually are.
RE: Yeah.....But....
"I love watching the left in action. Waving their arms talking about Reagan, the Civil Rights Act, and we have jokebox typing the typical falsehoods of course." -- Joe the Plumber
....you have to remember....
....it's all 'smoke and mirrors', i.e., 'dust' in our eyes in order to distract from the topic at hand.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[And when the 'dust' settles, there YOU are. -- some Army First Sergeant, talking to some miscreant he has caught.]
Let me guess, he has a law degree.
Qwinn
RE: Ah HAH!
"Watching Dilan Esper....revealing of how hypocritical and quite frankly obscene today's modern "liberals" actually are." -- Joe the Plumber
You HAVE the range and the sighting.
TARGET!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth WILL out....]
P.S. Cease fire and begin tracking on the next target.....
TC: Gunner! Target Derrick!
Gunner: I have him!
Quoted from above.
If we can turn back to the topic at hand, SS has a judicial lengthy record. Can anyone cite any case where she has (1) written an opinion which (2) ignored governing precedent (3)
because SS applied her alleged ethnic bias to rule in favor of the prevailing party?
RE: On the Other Hand....
"Can anyone cite any case where she has (1) written an opinion which (2) ignored governing precedent (3)
because SS applied her alleged ethnic bias to rule in favor of the prevailing party?" -- RPT
....can you explain away how it is that 60% of her rulings that went to appellate action were overturned?
I think that's a more SIGNIFICANT issue than your convoluted logic.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. You 'logic' does not adequately disclaim her outrageous racist and sexist statement made in a speech.....
RE: Heh
"Reviewing some of the more recent posts makes me ask if anyone is monitoring this thread." -- RPT
What's the matter?
Too many people hitting the 'targets'? More than YOU care for?
How 'liberal' of you to suggest people should be 'silenced'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Liberals aren't. Progressives won't.]
First, I'm not even sure what you mean by the emphasized phrase, "the removal/omission of life experience into biological determinism", huh? But I'm talking about the arguments used by people defending this one snippet, a snippet by the way that I never even snipped. However if you include the full paragraph that the sentence is from, it seems even worse than when removed from context.
Second, the issue with the word hope, is that having many meanings only two of them might reasonably apply here: 1) a desire for something ("I hope the tooth fairy leaves me a dollar for this molar"), or 2) an expectation that something is true (a mother having previously given a child a chore, seeing that child sit down to play a video game saying "I hope you've completed your chores.") Either definition seems problematic as the judge used the word.
Finally, I have no burden here. This isn't a court of law with particular procedures that must be met. We all get the opportunity given by our hosts to make comments. The readers will judge our comments in their own minds. None of us face have any kind of procedural obligation to meet. Feel free to take your BOP and stick it in your ear.
RE: The Supremes' Hits
"I'm sure you're well aware that a 40% affirmation rate in the SCOTUS is above average?" -- SpasticBlue
One would expect 'better' of someone sitting on that particular panel.
So....
....why can't we start by choosing judges who have not been 60% failures?
I know we do that in the military. We don't promote 'failure' THERE. Maybe we should get our Supremes from THAT 'bank'?
Is that what you suggest?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Schwartzkoff for Supreme Court Justice!
Based on my understanding, of which I invite correction, your facts are in error. The Supreme Court reverses about 75% of the cases which they review, by their choice via cert, or by right. She has authored hundreds of opinions. Six of them have been reviewed; one case has not yet been decided. Of the five decided, three have been reversed. That is the 60% ration. It is less than the overall average. For purposes of comparison, 100% of CJ Alito's reviewed decisions were reversed.
RE: The 'Rest' of the 'Story'
"I suppose, at this point, it would be useless to bring up the rest of the speech to provide context? " -- Baseballhead
I've read it. And she goes on to contradict herself. First one way and then another.
First she says, it's not wise to base judicial opinions on ethnicity and gender. But then she says it's 'hard' not to.
The number of times she says she'd probably be a 'racist' and/or 'sexist' outnumber the times she says it's not good.
What's your point.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out....and people like 'knuckleballhead' aren't going to like it.....]
RE: Maybe....
"Based on my understanding, of which I invite correction, your facts are in error." -- RPT
...you should go follow that link I provided earlier. It relates to the matter.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[If ONLY people would learn to read.....]
She gives two reasons for disagreeing with the O'Connor statement, starting with "first" and "second." So your explanation for her second point is that it is the same as the first point? First, there are different kinds of wisdom, and second, there are different kinds of wisdom? It seems like every attempt to explain her "second" point in a way that removes the importance of ethnicity and gender turns it into a total non sequitur.
Every liberal I know does this. Every last one. You all, always, scream about how everything conservatives quote is "taken out of context". Only once have I ever seen that be true. Every other time, the extra content reinforces that the statement came across exactly how it sounded. I guess they caught on that conservatives really -were- winning arguments by pointing out that liberals really -do- take Republicans out of context by design all the time.
But anyway, here's the "context" of Sotomayor's explicitly racist screed:
While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address…
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.
That "context" is supposed to make it better? It makes it even worse. I really wish you congenital liars would stop using the "out of context" excuse every single bloody time... that's projection of the highest order.
Qwinn
I love that.
Yes, "context" for racist remarks.
Further, given that she and the WH are backpedaling furiously from these comments I'd say you're a day late and a dollar short.
Remember, Trent Lott saying something nice about Strom Thurmond on his birthday = racism.
Democrats, the party of Kleagle Bird, J. William Fulbright, Bull Connor, not to mention La Raza, the Black Panthers, and an admirer of Reverend Wright, cannot be racists.
RE: Idiocy Is Rampant
"Actually, of the approximately 230 appellate opinions she has written, SCOTUS has only overturned 3--which would give her a "failure" rate of less than 2%." -- SpasticBlue
Who....on God's green Earth knew that there were levels in the judicial system between federal district court and the Supremes?
Certainly Spastic here doesn't realize that.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. An appropriate appellation—Spastic—that.....
And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning
Go ahead, try to turn THAT into "when she said X, she was talking about culture", in a sentence where she said "either culture or X". This should be fun.
Thanks for telling us to look deeper at the context! Almost every single time, it just provides oodles more ammunition.
Qwinn
Remember how the left freaked out on Lawrence Summers for correctly pointing out men are more apt in science and engineering?
Hypocrisy is a virtue for today's 'progressives'
RE: [Slightly O-T] The Wise
"First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise." -- Qwinn
Actually. There was this One Guy who was 'wise'. But they nailed Him to a tree around 2000 years ago, for His temerity, of all things. Speaking 'Truth to Power'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Jesus had a 12 man A-team. You'll have one too. -- Special Forces 'spiritual']
"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."
No one is arguing that Holmes and Cardozo were not wise men or good justices. But not all of their decisions were good, and might not a minority or female justice who have come to a different conclusion on the subject of sex and race discrimination, having been a member of the disciminated group? And since I don't think many would argue that such discrimination should receive the imprimature of the law, how is it not that these wise men made poorer decisions?
You do realize that there are places in the world, many places, where white people are the minority? Or are you trying to tell us that racism only exists in the United States? Or maybe the US and Europe? How about South Africa? By your logic there was no racism there. I think the majority black population might disagree with you. How about Mexico? How about Hawaii? How about India, or China?
Defining racism as something that only one race is capable of is, 1) racist, and 2) shows nothing except that the person advancing such an absurd idea has zero intellectual honesty.
RE: SpasticBlue is Spastic Again
"But not all of their decisions were good, and might not a minority or female justice who have come to a different conclusion on the subject of sex and race discrimination, having been a member of the disciminated group?" -- SpasticBlue
So. According to this 'logic' someone who has a 60% failure rate ought to be on the Supremes.
Just farking 'great' that idea.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. And the fact that she's a self-expressed, arrogant 'racist' and 'sexist' makes her all the MORE 'qualified'.....
I don't know much about Cardozo, but Holmes? Um. Yes. I'm arguing that. He was neither a moral, wise nor decent man.
Now I expect that you will point out some single good thing he did in his life, and extrapolate that because I said Holmes wasn't wise, I therefore oppose his good decision. I'm used to it.
Qwinn
Translation:
Anything I, or another minority says is not only ok, but un-understandable to you racist rednecks.
Thanks for proving how un-serious and racist you are Dilan.
We all knew it was in there and you let the mask slip.
With enough "talk" you leftists always do...
It is equality before the law that allows the many weak to set aside our differences to band together against the dominance of the strong. It is no surprise that the elite institutions have long promulgated doctrine questioning that equality. What is surprising is that so many liberals, let alone leftists, have allowed themselves to be seduced by that doctrine.
Whether or not you like OWH, he is still one of the more highly regarded justices, which was more the point I wanted to make. I personally think he's a mixed bag.
But then you already knew I was going to say that.
Um, FAIL
Sotomayor's decisions as to which a petition for a writ of certiorari was granted by the Supreme Court--a total of only five. Of the five cases in which the Supreme Court granted the writ of certiorari, it reversed three.
Continue on in your dishonesty.
Democrat memos were revealed showing that leftist identity groups issued marching orders to Democrat politicians which stated that Miguel Estrada was "especially dangerous because... he is Latino...". (Yes, another reason he was "dangerous" was noted in that ellipsis, and yet another reason afterwards. That's not taking the memo out of context, we conservatives WISH that the correct use of ellipsis is as far as you guys would go in constantly putting our sentences through shredders to make them appear the exact opposite of the original.)
At any rate, the media thought that the notable thing about that story was, who leaked the memo?!?!?!?!?!
I guess "life experience" didn't count for much in his case.
Qwinn
RE: Another Spastic Moment
"Chuck: Please tell me what court exists between the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States?" -- SpasticBlue
The article cites that 3 of the 5 opinions written by Sotomayer as she sat on the Federal Court of Appeals were overturned by the Supremes.
That's a 60% failure rate. By anyone who's math skills are better than a 3d grader.
But, if she had THAT kind of failure rate at THAT level, I have to wonder what her lower-level decisions were 'rated' as.
Maybe you could fill US all in.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Lovely.
He is highly regarded by liberals. Conservatives have a much lesser opinion of him. We consider him among the class that Jonah Goldberg accurately described as "liberal fascists".
Qwinn
How is this dishonest?
It's just an extremely common tactic, used almost universally whenever a liberal sacred cow is tweaked, and had I not preempted it, I'm sure someone (not necessarily you) would have used it. Hell, they still may.
Qwinn
Um, could you point to a justice with a higher reversal rate?
It is dishonest because you are looking at the issues dishonestly - e.g. if the SCOTUS reversal rate is greater than 60% she is "lower" than the average.
One need to to think too hard to see why.
I understand that, but those cases were not reviewed.
Qwinn
But don't say I don't know the organization of the federal judiciary when I'm solely referencing her work as an appellate judge.
Yet Sotomayor did not live her entire childhood in a housing project in the South Bronx — she spent most of her teenage years in a middle-class neighborhood, attending private school and winning scholarships to Princeton and then Yale. And Sotomayor's life and lifestyle after law school largely resemble the background of many lawyers who rise to powerful positions in Washington.
She climbed her way up through New York's Democratic power structure boosted by its ultimate brokers over those years — Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayor Ed Koch, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. That's the access of a partner in a corporate law firm, not a kid from the South Bronx.
She now earns more than $200,000 a year and owns a condominium in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus homes. Her brother, Dr. Juan Sotomayor, is a physician in North Syracuse, N.Y., whose practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare — programs for the poor and elderly — according to its Web site.
Most would call this a life of privilege. Her teenage years were certainly more privileged than mine. But I'm sure her experiences in Greenwich Village make her conclusions superior to any white male, because she was slightly browner when she had them.
Qwinn
And I may be misunderstanding you, but I still don't see how what I've said is dishonest. She was reversed 3 times and affirmed 2 times. Around 70% of cases reviewed by SCOTUS are overturned. So she has a lower rate of reversal and a higher rate of affirmation compared to the entire SCOTUS docket.
As for the unreviewed cases, that means her opinion remains the law as it stands. I don't know how many were appealed, but the fact that they were never reviewed doesn't diminish them.
And I wouldn't say it's a liberal tactic--it's pretty universal.
But I'm perfectly content to leave it that she was summa cum laude at Princeton, editor of her law review, and a competent and qualified trial and appellate judge....
Cheers,
Unfortunately you've made some made some good points as to the nature of racism. It's not about numbers, but about power. Take South Africa, a country where a minority of the population is white but they've controlled most of the wealth after colonization. And now tell me what happened when Afrikaners where in control and what's happening now once blacks came in control. Face it, blacks, Puerto Rican's and most of the other minorities we might discuss, don't go about oppressing whites when in control (with Mugabe as the lone example and we all know how much Conservatives suddenly began caring about minority rights then).
Cheers,
I guess you slept through the entire nomination. Or have chosen to forget it ever happened. I can see why. The media is busy pretending his nomination ever happened, I see constant references to Sotomayor as the nation's first Hispanic nominee to the highest court.
But at any rate, the fact that he was opposed at least in part "because... he is Latino" is part of the public record.
Qwinn
Estrada was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. After his parents divorced, he immigrated to the United States to join his mother when he was 17, arriving with a limited command of English.
He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor's degree from Columbia in 1983. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
So while Sotomayor spent most of her teenage years in private schools and was set upon the fast track to privilege, Estrada barely knew english at 17 and graduated with top honors a few years later. Oh, and he was an editor at Harvard Law Review. Pretty sure I heard somewhere that was a good thing.
Yeah, her "rags to riches" story totally outshines his. Uh huh.
Qwinn
Must be a very local idiom. I've never heard it used that way, nor do any of the dictionaries I consulted include that as a definition.
Here you go: She's expressing a desire or expectation that one race and gender is better than another race and gender. An example: "I hope the white guy gets the job instead of the black woman."
Odd that you would paraphrase... Anyway, what she actually said was that one particular race and gender will come to a better result than another.
I love this.
Um, "personal familiarity" with what, exactly?
Oh, people like you assume all 'hispanics' and blacks grow up poor and in projects.
Nevermind.
You do understand you are a racist, don't you?
That is not it either. It's about believing one race is somehow better than another. That's why they call it racism rather than majorityism or powerism.
I assume by minority, you mean non-white. The reason I included China and India in that original list is because both countries have racism problems and it has nothing at all to do with whites. But Puerto Ricans and blacks most certainly engage in racist behavior.
In other words, if you're not a doctor or nurse, you can't have a say in health care policy, right?
I love watching the left use "logic"
It's all about identity politics to you racists.
Now you leftists can go back to arm waving about Reagan...
Note that "liberals" never say they are sorry or were wrong...
Um, FAIL.
Again, this is what she said:
It is undeniable she it referring to innate differences.
Undeniable.
Adding context for a quote is just silly! Besides, it just gives me more sentence fragments to bold and take out of context!
Liberals always lie and always bring up Regan. Every time!
Sotomeyor gets reversed like all the time compared to a hypothetical judge who never gets reversed.
Dilan is a hypocrite, a slanderer, a twit, frankly obscene, a liar, a brazen liar, an out &out liar, AND a hater.
Finally, that if someone says they phrased something badly it is the same as admitting racism!
What an absurd paraphrase. It's funny how you guys have to keep rephrasing what she said completely in order to defend it.
Qwinn
Qwinn
You took that context to TOWN!
"If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I would call it a duck."
I don't find it surprising. For an outsider i am always shoked by the prevalecent Racialism in America, but not really surprised since that gives the political power that exists since Humans are on earth: Tribalism
Now the Racialism is promoted to the top of political power in America, that are the really bad news.
This is a magic phrase that obviates all analysis and argument! Awesome!
What's -really- funny is that you think this makes it better in any way.
Qwinn
From now on, all judges of rape trials must have been raped themselves. This will ensure a just outcome.
All judges for theft must have been themselves been robbed. This ensures he will decide the case fairly.
And, since -race- is so important, we'll make sure that all trials of blacks who have mugged whites must be overseen by a white judge who has, himself, been mugged by a black person. Then we'll know its fair!
It is literally sickening how twisted the liberal brain is.
Qwinn
I wanna hear more about the Democratic Klan in the 1940s and how it leads to Sotomayor's plan for the Latin takeover of the white devils!
Delurking to ask: Wouldn't a more accurate idea of Sotomayor's batting average come from knowing how many cases where Sotomayor authored the opinion were actually appealed to the Supremes? If on average the USCC grants cert only .01% of the time, but they chose to review (say) half of the Sotomayor opinions submitted for appeal, her reversal rate would seem to be something other than "less than the overall average" to me.