by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Blacks and progressives should prefer a "wise Latina" to the usual Supreme Court fare, any day. "The white male perspective has ruled unchallenged for centuries and has done great damage to human beings around the world." However, just because Sonia Sotomayor is under attack from raging racists, doesn't mean she should get a free pass from the Left. "Sotomayor should not be allowed to escape scrutiny because of race pride and meaningless swooning from white liberals."
Freedom Rider: The Sotomayor Hype
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“She is called a ‘centrist,’ a label which tells us little in an age when the political pendulum doesn’t ever swing back to the left.”
The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court should be an opportunity to assess her record, and to critically assess the Obama administration and develop strategic responses to his actions. Instead, most of the discussion post nomination has focused on one speech Sotomayor gave in 2001 and the person of color boot strap story so beloved by the corporate media and liberal whites.
Appeals Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has been considered a possible Supreme Court justice for some time. She was always at the top of the list of possible replacements for retiring Justice David Souter. The White House floated the Sotomayor trial balloon and when it wasn’t shot down, decided to move forward.
Sotomayor has impressive credentials, that is to say she attended the universities that ambitious people have to attend if they expect to be appointed to the federal judiciary or anything else of note. If confirmed by the Senate she will be only the third woman and the first Latina Supreme Court justice. The media love the story of a Puerto Rican whose widowed mother lived in a housing project while she worked two jobs to support her children.
The pulling up by the bootstraps story can be a very dangerous one. Inherent in the “she came from the projects” exultation is a racist, class conscious condemnation of people who happen to live in public housing. Many public housing residents are productive, honest people. Some end up leaving, some don’t and those who don’t shouldn’t be vilified if they don’t attend ivy league schools and sit on the federal bench.
“The media love the story of a Puerto Rican whose widowed mother lived in a housing project while she worked two jobs to support her children.”
Praise for the humble beginnings story is also dangerous because it provides an easy way out for white America. Like voting for Barack Obama, singing the praises of Sonia Sotomayor allows white people to let themselves off the hook when they ought to examine their nation’s continuing racism and their role in it.
Sotomayor’s nomination is historic, just as Obama’s elevation to the presidency is historic. However historic her rise, it should not be allowed to absolve her from acting on behalf of citizens and not on behalf of corporations and an oppressive government. Obama’s hyped up “historic” accomplishment has allowed him to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, spreading war and codifying the worse aspects of Bush era rules on indefinite detention. Sotomayor should not be allowed to escape scrutiny because of race pride and meaningless swooning from white liberals.
Lacking in the media is any substantive reports of her decisions on the federal bench. She was originally appointed by president George H.W. Bush 1991 and later to the court of appeals by Bill Clinton in 1997. She is called a “centrist,” a label which tells us little in an age when the political pendulum doesn’t ever swing back to the left. In the fifty most recent discrimination cases (*link scouts blog) on which she ruled, she and her colleagues accepted a finding of discrimination only three times.
“The white male perspective has ruled unchallenged for centuries and has done great damage to human beings around the world.”
Yet one statement she made is getting particular attention, and for all the wrong reasons, giving rightwing talking heads much to wring their hands over. In a 2001 speech she made the following statement:
“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. 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. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case.”
While her rulings in discrimination cases receive scant attention, this one comment is repeated over and over again. The statement rings true. The thoughts of white men have been deemed normative, the only thoughts worthy of consideration. White male jurists kept slavery in place, and segregation and sex discrimination. What is wrong with a Latina perspective determining the law? The white male perspective has ruled unchallenged for centuries and has done great damage to human beings around the world. The “wise Latina” argument should work just fine, but when Republicans attacked the president didn’t defend her very strongly. Instead, in typical Obama fashion he insisted that she would “restate” the remark. The fact Obama chose her means that she is probably not the second coming of Thurgood Marshall. He told us early on that he would not pick anyone who could be called a liberal jurist:
"I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded, and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.
As I make this decision, I intend to consult with members of both parties across the political spectrum."(Emphasis mine.)
As I make this decision, I intend to consult with members of both parties across the political spectrum."(Emphasis mine.)
Republicans will make racist hay and compare Sotomayor to a KKK member, but that is no reason to dismiss accountability from her or from Obama. The rush to defend her from attacks by Newt Gingrich or Rush Limbaugh should not be a reason to let her escape hard questioning. After all, the power to make lifetime judicial appointments is supposed to be a reason to put Democrats in the Oval Office. If Obama has to ask Republican permission before he makes a nomination, then we have one more argument against the importance of Democrats being in office.
Sotomayor is an unknown quantity whose long history of court rulings demand full examination. If that doesn’t happen, we will have another Obama, and one of those is quite enough.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com.
Comments
History sometimes is relevant
History sometimes is relevant, sometimes not, but those of us who have at least one degree in history almost invariably find history fascinating. Such is the record of United States Supreme Court nominations which have failed. This commentary would induce readers' sleep even more quickly if all were cited, all reasons and theories reported. Hence, only two references follow, out of 34 not confirmed by the United States Senate, which number actually is 29 different individuals (due to renominations).
The Supreme Court had little to do in the George Washington Administration because most law was State, not Federal. (Ah, were it that we had a nearer ratio nowadays!) President John Tyler, for partizan and other historically applicable reasons, may be said to have batted the worst: Two vacancies, nine nominated, one confirmed.
The most recent rejection reflects the quintessence and triumph of three concurrent evils - leftwing militancy, wild partisanship, defamation of a nominee. That wholly unacceptable misconduct by too many Senators gave rise to a new verb the infinitive of which is to bork. The immediate victim, of course, is the competent, courageous, experienced, objective, scholarly Robert H. Bork. The broader victim is Federal jurisprudence.
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Talking Around the Subject
The two recent articles on the nomination of the Honorable Sonia Maria Sotomayor talk around the subject rather than address any true objection to her nomination. Rather than directly critiquing the judge's record and character, Sotomayor is the jumping off point--remaining invisible or, at best, a straw woman. She gives the authors of these articles the opportunity to attack the media, the Republican leadership (or lack thereof), American society generally, and of course Obama.
Ironically, their criticism of the media can be directed to themselves for being cursory in their review of the nominee's record and their complete lack of historical consciousness which makes us women and men of our times, however much we may think ourselves transcendent. Thus the empty rhetorical comparison to Marshall, for example. There are few things, especially in Constitutional law, that are sui generis.
Another "historic" selection...
...of a water-carrying minority to a high position.
I'm relieved to see BAR readers are unified in their understanding of the real significance of yet another promotion of tokenism, in this case, to the supreme court.
A year ago I commented to much abuse (not so much at BAR) that Obama's impending coronation was nothing more than more Clarence Thomas-Colin Powell-Condo Rice suckering of minorities and their liberal-white promoters. Remember when mainstream latino organizations championed Alberto Gonzalez for Attorney General, as if appointing a brown fascist would pave the way for anything except servitude? No one champions him now.
Perhaps, as odious as Obamism really is, in the long run his unmasking will help push americans towards a substantive approach to government and politics, and prepare us for responsible citizenship. Hell, I'll take a Malcolm X, I'll take a Eugene Debs over these bootlicking, carreerist frauds anytime.
The preceding reader comments are important, because they go to the stinking core of the public farce that pretends to be a merit system of power advancement. Elitist social netwroks and mass propaganda have populated the pinnacles of our institutions with intellectual lightweights, psychopaths and craven careerist cronys. Harvard and Yale are the flagships. Higher education in general has become a profit-center, keeping millions out of the unemployed work force, saddling them with impossible debt and producing diminishing returns for the suckers, who are stuck having to learn their actual jobs by working. We used to call it apprenticeship. Glorifying the elevation of welfare moms to empire's enforcers are more Horatio Alger lies. Conflating recruitment into university bootcamps for fascists with personal success is evil, evil, evil. These selfish pieces of crap have hijacked the nation and brought us to ruin. Role models for psychopaths. We'd be better off with Richard Pryor and Dave Chapelle running the country. At least they have mastered honesty and self-awareness. Lets never forget to explain this every chance we get.
Thanks again to Margaret Kimberly.
This is an excellent article,
This is an excellent article, but in it Margaret Kimberley takes a conservative position regarding Iran's rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Kimberley believes that the NNPT precluded its non-nuclear weapons signatories from embarking on nuclear weapons development programs, period. But under the treaty, the quid pro quo given by the non-nuclear weapon signatories to the treaty in 1968, to not develop nuclear weapons, was contingent on the quid pro quo given by the five nuclear weapons signatories in 1968, to undertake good-faith negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely.
Hill University
Richard Pryor is no more, except on video,etc.
I liked Richard Pryor, too.
Horse Apples any one?
I like this piece too and your illucidation on the Boot Strap Schtick quite effectively reveals
the origins of this time honoured sack of class bias Horse Apples. And i would add to that
another mistake in peddling such crap is the assumption via implication that all those White, Black and Latino project duellers are burdened with self imposed social imperative of;
In order to become a dignifeid, equal human being in our society we's all got ta become Ivy league graduates
an aspire for a life beqeathed by the guardians of the self respect and purchasing power. It's not enought to want to be teacher, a mechanic, a carpenter, a subway conductor. No, No, No you have to be like Mike. The main difference between some one who makes it out of the projects, if they want to, and those who don't, in spite of wanting to, is usually how much love they've recieved from in house and in the hood; not because they are humanly more dignifeid and superior.
Frederick Douglas would have never bcome the man he became had not his Master's relatives lavished him with affection and warmth along with teaching him to read.
"The pulling up by the bootstraps story can be a very dangerous one. Inherent in the “she came from the projects” exultation is a racist, class conscious condemnation of people who happen to live in public housing. Many public housing residents are productive, honest people. Some end up leaving, some don’t and those who don’t shouldn’t be vilified if they don’t attend ivy league schools and sit on the federal bench."
The below comment by Satomayor is likewise as bogus and ethnically charged for it's sentimental affect. Such comments assert the falacy that her idea of what any wise latina's rich, fullfilling life is, is that of all wise Latina's .as well as the assumption that a white man would have no relationship to therefore no understanding and empathy to the issues of Latina women. And lastly it implies that white men don't lead rich lives themselves and need to consult with minorities to get hip with how life is really to lived.
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“
Well maybe if DIGNITY gets some steam behind that idea, and the masses begin to Strap on thier Thinking Caps along with their Boots, we all may very well be able to put this dehumanizing game of numbered virtues behind us.
There's no virtue in suffering no matter how glorifying the Myth- Machine makes it out to be.
Another act of demagoguery
The American ruling class has perfected this political dance in which it feigns sensitivity to the plight of its non-white masses by employing non-white political personalities to mask the real class character of its policies. Sotomayor is nothing but another elitist Latina who rarely has anything in common with the masses. Whatever commonalities she shared with the majority of the oppressed peoples of this country were jettisoned somewhere on her ascension to become a comprador of the ruling class. Ivy League education and dilly-dallyings with the corporate world often serve to co-opt these personalities. Sotomayor knows she owes her foremost allegiance to the ruling elite of this country. Anything else that she says or exudes are all pretensions to delude the masses that they actually have a stake in the system. She like her sponsor Barack Obama are nothing but corroborators of the new fascism. This country is now run for the sole interests of a few powerful private interests. Soon, Barack Obama will be visiting the slave castles of Ghana to continue the chicanery that he abhors dishumanity.
I like this article. A lot.
The line, can't be called centrist when the pendulum
never swings to the left... Good point.
Also, that men, white men in the article, are considered
"normative". That's been true for as long as I can
remember. It had been used as base line in deciding
who is normal psychologically, until challenged in the
late 1960s. It's still true in medical drug testing.
Thank you again Freedom Rider
Because I do not believe this system works, it does not matter to me whether or not this person makes the court or not. Having said that, let me say also that I DO NOT CARE about her so-called "bootstrap" upbringing. As her boss cares nothing for the constitution of this country, I see nothing in her that shows she believes in it either. They all seem to think they are privileged and deserve positions they are nominated for. I don't care about her parentage and what is supposed to make her wise I wonder?, And why do these people always have to go to the Anglo Ivy League schools before they are counted as worthy? Those schools seem to produce some very overeducated/non-critical thinking establishment dummies in my view. Can just ONCE someone hail from a Fisk or a Morehouse or a North Carolina A&T! I mean, would that be too much to ask? And by the way, as a person of color myself, I am offended by some of her ridiculous remarks, and am tired of seeing Anglos slobber over ANY non-white, no matter how specious/bankrupt they are. Finally, I don't like her from the beginning because el Bozo chose her, and as I heartily dislike this pretender who sounded a little off when he spoke as George W. Bush "...I want her confirmed, walking up those marble stairs, etc." I say bunk him and her.
And why do these people always have to go to Anglo Ivy League
And why do these people always have to go to the Anglo Ivy League schools before they are counted as worthy? Those schools seem to produce some very overeducated/non-critical thinking establishment dummies in my view.
Well, the late, great Richard Pryor did say that Harverd has ruined more black minds than liquor to a wino.