Is Sotomayor a Racist?

If you are like me, you are getting sick of this debate.

Clearly, if a white male had said that and replaced "Latina" with the "White Male", ie "the life and experiences of a White Male would lead to wiser decisions", that white male would be rightfully excoriated for being a racist AND making a racist comment.

So, you ask, why not Sotomayor?

If I were a Puertoricena from the projects of Brooklyn, Sotomayor's statement would probably be self-evident.  It wouldn't set off any alarm bells whatsoever.  Let's call it a "subjective truth". Perhaps if I were a Latina of any circumstance, that STILL might be "subjectively true".  It would only be racist, then,  if I was taught or believed that both Woman and Latina are demographically somehow more noble than the White and Man or any other demographic susbsets .  

So why is that not a "subjective truth" coming from a White Man?

I think it has to be because none of us have an expectation for White Men to think alike.  In essence, being a White Man is not a major component in my value or belief system, just like being a Black Man to my Caribe provenanced friends as not a major factor in their belief system, although it seems to be a  much larger factor to my American Slave-descended friends.

Aggregating people's identity and thought process to skin color seems, at least superficially, pretty weak.  I guess there is a comfort in finding an easy reason for lack of success in the work place.  I could be convinced that there are real differences in thought processes between sexes, due to fundamental, hormonal differences in the male and female machines.  

If this is true, then perhaps we have some component of a Nature difference between men and women, and, at best, a Nurture difference between skin tones.  Clearly, Whites don't share a Nature based equivalency of values or thoughts, any more than Caribe versus Slave descended African Americans do, and we have a wide variety of Nurture environments that shatter any "groupthink" aspect among us.

It is because of this fact that had I heard a white man say that a white man could make better decisions, I would have said he was a racist.

But because there are political spoils and individual political power to be gained from "groupthink"... special interest or affinity groups, people will do their best to create them.  If you want to create one for power or political purposes, hatred and fear are fine motivators.  Any sales person will tell you that fear is a much more common driver for sales than opportunity gain.  This is the provenance of the Ku Klux Klan (hatred and fear based on color and religion), Nazi Germany (ditto, based on religion and ethnicity), Communist (ditto based upon socio-economic distinctions), Right Wing Dictatorships (ditto based, ironically, upon fear of Communists that, in turn, based their position on fear against socio-economic distinctions).

So the easiest way to create a movement is to create an enemy.  In the case of Communists, it is Evil Corporate Owners and Rich People.  In the case of La Raza, it is Evil White Establishment that Stole Their Land from Mexico.  They want to return it to Mexico, which leads me to believe that they have never visited Mexico.  In the case of the more fringe Environmentalist groups, it is Evil Corporations, Republicans, and Developers, and on and on.  These movements can easily stumble from being advocacy groups into being bigoted organizations, and racist or sexist within their infrastructure... ie a white guy isn't going to be the President of La Raza, etc, a man isn'y going to president of NOW.  Of course, that is the raison d'tre of these groups in the first place. 

So a fine line, and for the sake of argument, lets say these groups are merely affinity groups and not bigoted in their values.

You are all aware of the argument that a Black person can't be racist, because racism is the institutional use of power to keep a group down.  Bigots, yes, Racists, no.

I guess that is why Sotomayor's statement did not strike me as obviously racist.  Her Subjective Truth is that her background would provide for better decisions interms of her chosen affinity groups.  It is no different than me, as a small business person, or, more specifically, a small oilperson, MY affinity group, to say that "Small Business (Oil) People make better decsions", I wouldn't bat an eyelash, because I believe it to be true.

Of course, THAT is objectively a bigoted opinion.  It would be true with regard to me and my tribe. Clearly NOT true to someone that wants to take away private property, or hates oil and gas, and may or may not be true to those whose only concerns are about abortion rights or rights to life or any of the thousands of other myriad of special interests we all have and that continually compete for the heart and soul of the voters.

The concept that the Supreme Court (or City Councils, or State and Federal Legislative representation) needs to represent various "empowerment" demographics seems on its face a tacit acceptance that we don't value Objectivity any longer, or don't believe it is possible.  We would rather throw ourselves into the dogpack of various Subjective interests, and let them knife fight it out in our ruling bodies.

So, apparently our future is that we will be ruled by various flavors of bigots, to reflect in our ruling bodies the same spoils grabs that exist through our myriad of affinity groups in society in general.  That we have no common bond of underlying system of values and ethics that define is as Americans, but a more and more uneasy stew of various forms of bigotry, where to the winner goes the spoils.  Wonderful.

Interestingly, by empowering Bigots, we might just grow them into full blown racists.  You know, the power to institutionally keep a group down...

Comments

[TOTALDEPTH]

I am new to the blog and enjoy your thoughts on our industry. Also, I appreciated your thoughts on the state our current political (i.e. interest group knife-fight) process. Thank you.

[fred mrozek]

NPR had a piece last week about how Soto's statements were made in a context that was stripped from the sound bites that all the conservatives are foaming over. The context was supposedly minority rights. if so, there is an old saying about walking in someone's shoes... that would vindicate her statement.

[fred mrozek]

FYI, the NPR story I recalled was listener feedback. You can hear it here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105064986

Click on the LISTEN NOW button under Letters: Sotomayor, Benny Goodman.