Sonia Sotomayor: How can you judge her when you don’t know what she said?
In life, the context is decisive. That is, things only truly make sense based on the context within which they are said. If you don’t know the context to something you cannot accurately understand it. It’s really that simple.
People are still banging on about Sonia Sotomayor’s comments infering that she is biased/prejudiced/racist for saying that her perspective as an old Latina woman would be better than that of a white male. Except that’s not actually what she said.
What she actually said was:
In our private conversations, Judge Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.
Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
It may seem pedantic to put the entire quote in there, but it’s necessary. I do so because when you read the last few lines (underlined) in the context of what Sotomayor said in its entirety, you see that she did not say that a Latina woman is generally likely to reach a better conclusion than a white man. That indeed would have been questionable.
She said that in certain circumstances – particularly those involving people of colour, minorities or women – an old Latina woman is more likely to reach a better conclusion by virtue of being able to identify with and truly understand the perspective of those who stand in front of her – because she has lived that life.
This is not hardly as contentious as what she has been reported as saying, which is: “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…” But of course that makes a nice soundbite doesn’t it?
However, the majority of people are sitting down arguing over this soundbite, not having taken 5 minutes of their time to read the entire speech (actually an excellent and insightful one) and find out what she actually said rather than just what they read or think that she said.
We as people are very lazy. We simply want to consume information that’s handed to us without questioning its validity, and then we complain that we’ve been duped.
Of course this is nothing new. The media LOVES soundbites… and we love to pick them up and run with them. (Remember Jeremiah Wright anyone?) But I’d suggest (as part of the media as well as a consumer of it) that we don’t dumb ourselves down in this way.
Be informed and seek out the sources so that when you’re getting all riled up over some comment made by someone or the other, you’ll actually KNOW what you – and they – are talking about.
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Comments
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I think this blog is really useful and informative. Please keep up the good work it is great to read content on a blog that is not just self obsessed nonsense.
I hope I can develop a blog of this standard eventually, although I must admit I find blogging very time consuming and difficult. I wish someone would write a blog on how to produce a really interesting blog like this one.