I think you’re the fourth person to make that exact same post in this thread. When the thread ends I think you’re all going to be entered into a raffle prize drawing.
What claim of intellectual superiority? The whole point is that no one works on intellect only, and that life experiences always affect judgment, and that this be taken into account. It can also be used to advantage in some cases. She immediately went on to praise the court that made the Brown decision for doing the right thing even without the experience of being discriminated against. “Wise” here clearly means that experience is not enough - wisdom is required also.
Her “free pass” seems to indicate that it is an epic gaffe only to the hardcore right.
Sotomayor has never made any such claim.
Only if there is a history of white males being discriminated against as a subordinate class, and only if they have never before been rpresented in the Supreme Court.
No such insinuation was made, but there’s nothing “dangerous” about it in any case.
It isn’t so much that people don’t believe that life experiences influence your judgment, it’s implying that her life experiences as a latino woman improve her judgment over that of a white male. My point is that to assert the opposite would be cause for immediate death by stoning in the town square. Context be damned if a white male politician made that statement he wouldn’t survive the week.
Unfortunately, that dude will only share life experiences with 6 of the 9 judges, so he’ll just have one more unfair hurdle to overcome.
She never said that.
Here is your statement to which I was responding to:
“She was saying that – on that specific issue – being “wise” might not have been enough and that she “hoped” that a wise Latina woman would have done better in that situation than white guys who have never experienced any discrimination.”
I think the insinuation is clearly there, explain to me why it’s not.
There is no insinuation. It’s seneless to to demand that I “explain why there is not” an insinuation. It’s your burden to identify the alleged insinuation and justify your contention that it insinuates anything. Your allegation is also completely undercut by the paragtraph immediately following that passage in her speech.
I made no allegation about whether or not she is a racist. My point, is that she made a comment that makes her an unattractive nominee, I thought that’s what this thread is supposed to be about, there are other threads about her politics. My reconstructed quote (which I apologize, was already made in this thread) was meant to show that, regardless of context, no white nominee would survive such a thing.
She never claimed or insuinuated, as you have alleged, that any one ethnic group automatically had any better insight than any other.
What I’m saying, is remove the context and look simply at the statement she made. Now tell me, what does it say to you, does it say that a latino woman would make a better conclusion than a white male? Is it fair to take it out of context? The context of the statement is a major point of yours and many others in this thread, and what I’m saying is reviewing the context itself is a double standard. If she were a white male and had made the statement I had written then the question of context would have never been raised (except perchance on some ultra right message board). No one would have given that Good Ole Boy the benefit of the doubt and the forgiveness of bad wording.
“If you misunderstand her comments on purpose, it looks really bad!”
I’m not misunderstanding anything, and I’m purposely trying to avoid a discussion about what she may or may not have meant in some broader context for several reasons. One, is that you guys have beat that discussion to death. Two, I don’t think that a white male would have been afforded the luxury.
That’s the interesting opportunity this thread presents. If a well meaning, fair person bungles a statement in a politically incorrect way that tarnishes the package or presentation they give to the country, does this preclude them from office? Also, does your answer change if the person is white, or latin, or muslim, or christian?
A few years back a DC politician was asked to resign after using the word “niggle” in an official document/statement. One of the supported arguments for his termination was that a politician of his level should know better than to use a term which could be easily mistaken as prejudice. Is this seemingly silly argument more cogent if the person is white?
Since 111 of the 115 supreme court nominees have been white male apparently race and gender hasn’t been that big an issue, unless you happened to be non-white or female. To try and remove context from this is silly, it’s all about context. You can easily create a scenario where a white male could make a similar statement but the context would make it clear that it wasn’t offensive or discriminatory.
If you ignore the context I think you could pillory any public figure with an extensive written or spoken record. It’s a non-issue here and most likely would be a non-issue if spoken by a white man with a similar judicial record as Judge Sotomayor.
He might not have. I can’t think of a way for a white guy to make that remark that doesn’t deserve some criticism, at least for being stupid. But I think it’s unfortunate when people get pilloried for making reasonable statements just because they’ve created an opportunity for cricitism.
You seem to have confused me with someone else.
The wise woman statement.
I see no cites for previous statements about “wise latina woman”
Try here. (This source was linked in the article cited above.)
Clarence Thomas did. Is that OK.? The rest work for the white upper class. That did not have to be stated. She is just bringing a different life experience to the court. She does not have to conjure up a vision of how the poor are affected by court decisions. She has lived it.