If a white male said the same thing, while white males dominated the court, it would be taken as a justification for continuing that dominance. So that wouldn’t be acceptable, unless of course you were simply in favor of one sector of the electorate dominating the judiciary, which is naturally not going to get a lot of media sympathy or public empathy. But the same would be true if a female Latino said this if the Court were being dominated by Latino females. This whole issue is about dominance and power, not “double-standards”. There is no double-standard at the level of the underlying power dynamics here.

What makes it even crazier are the unhinged comments by Sean Hannity et al to the effect that she is some nutso leftist Judge….would that it were so, I was hoping against hope that he would pick Lessig. in spite of his paper trail….but the fact is that her judicial record appears to be utterly prosaic. Of course, so id Souter’s.

With that last line you just joined the WATB gooper chorus.

Sad. Just sad.

Jake

It’s controversial because if a white had given an equally “nuanced” speech to a conservative audience (dare I say at a southern university!), his career would be reduced to a joke on late night television. People naturally don’t like double standards. It raises hackles. So we should expose it. If the left is willing to swallow this and defend it, great. We’ll keep that in mind next time they go after Sailer.

G.O.M. wrote

The Sotomayor battle needs to be fought out on some ground other than the claim she’s a racist.

Fine, but we don’t need to ignore the speech either. You can have different lines of attack. Some attention should be paid to this speech, and Sotomayor and her defenders should point out why it’s acceptable for her to say things that would get a white man in trouble.

Allan wrote:
With very few honorable exceptions, those least troubled by racism are those most troubled by reverse racism.

Yes, Allan, because there are both legal social remedies to white racism. There’s almost none when it works the other way. In fact, discrimination against whites is embedded into our legal structure.

Is there an element of self-interest involved? Hell, yes. So what? If you want to play the selfless, status-seeking SWPL that’s your call, but don’t expect me to be impressed.

I agree that some degree of racism is inevitable in that we are all products of our environment and our environments do tend to be segregated even today. However, I would hope you understand that when you talk about racism, you’re not just talking about someone’s more or less benign distaste for being around people of a different race– you’re talking about someone’s desire to condemn those with different skin tones to permanent status as second class citizens, to deny them participation in the political process, to abuse them, enslave them, or even eradicate them.

yet I would argue that judging things by appearance is an essential part of human interaction.

Well, okay. On a small scale, sure. Broaden it to the entire nation with the full apparatus of government and industry and it’s very clear what racism means and entails, but much less clear how that forms “an essential part of human interaction.”

But I’m much more interested in the terms of debate that you have established in this discussion. I am attracted to the idea that “neutrality and objectivity do not exist” and that whilst “[o]ne should strive to minimize the role of bias … it is ineradicable”. One way of thinking about this idea that I have been exploring is the view that racism is inevitable and necessary (hear me out!) in that unacceptable racism is only an extension of the kinds of instincts that we rely upon in forming any judgement. At its furthest extension, it seems to me that the business of decrying racism must lead to a rejection of all judgement by appearance – yet I would argue that judging things by appearance is an essential part of human interaction. In a sense, I want to see all judgements on a scale and then have society, both officially through the law, and unofficially through cultural norms, delineate what is and is not acceptable (and I lean towards the latter form of regulation). Part of the reason I raise this here is that I suspect there are people on this blog with a better understanding of the intellectual history of this kind of idea. So let me know if I’m merely saying something that has been said many times before and many times more eloquently.

If you read the actual piece, it’s pretty clear that there’s no assertion of racial superiority; she’s discussing how the courts have historically dealt with the issue of minority and women’s rights and suggesting that an actual female minority might have some insight that would lead to better judgments in those cases. I’m not sure why that’s so controversial–I have a hard time believing that she’s the first nominee to have ever suggested that she has experience which might enable her to make better decisions in a certain area.

Those who attempt to go a little deeper turn the whole exercise into a national referendum on confirmation bias, as if the Supreme Court nominee is actually the United States’ Political Philosophy Professor, who must agree with writer’s assumptions about discussions in the political sphere.

And whites do make claims about the wisdom of their ethnicity and social class. They tend to come in paeans to “Middle America” and “old-fashioned American values” and such, or claims that the American political system was designed miraculously by the magical Founders who had wisdom far beyond their time. Given time (and power) and I’m sure the ethnic minorities in the country can come up with their own code words for their celebration.

Once America opted for mass immigration and conquests such as Puerto Rico, her society of many sects and voluntary associations could not have prevented ethnic organizations from forming and seeking a place in the sun (or a share of the spoils). Being “Hispanic” does not automatically incline one to much of anything in the judicial world–harshness vs. mercy to criminal defendants, deference to or skepticism of executive power, and so forth.

Moreover, as much as the natter of diversocrats puts my teeth on edge, when it comes to public office, “balanced tickets” are a tradition. At this point, white Protestant men could probably complain they’re down to one 89-year-old on the Court. The world of politics is different from large companies, universities and the civil service, which ought to be color- and ethnicity-blind.

Daniel’s right. The Sotomayor battle needs to be fought out on some ground other than the claim she’s a racist.