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THE RACIALISM OF STUART TAYLOR.
The attacks on Sonia Sotomayor for being a "racialist" are laughable, but no more so than when they come from Stuart Taylor. Taylor, like others has taken this statement from Sotomayor completely out of context: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Taylor writes:
Imagine the reaction if someone had unearthed in 2005 a speech in which then-Judge Samuel Alito had asserted, for example: "I would hope that a white male with the richness of his traditional American values would reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life" -- and had proceeded to speak of "inherent physiological or cultural differences."
First of all, Sotomayor did not speak of "physiological" differences, she was talking about life experience, and the idea that someone with the experience of being discriminated against might offer insight that those who haven't had that experience wouldn't have. Taylor's objection is based on two social assumptions that need to be utterly destroyed, the first being the idea that social perspective of white, Christian, heterosexual males are somehow "objective" and uncolored by life experience, and the second being the idea that acknowledging cultural specificity among non-whites is the same thing as assertions of white supremacy by whites. The fact is that many Latinos have faced a specific experience of systemic and social discrimination not shared by non-Latinos, and this experience colors their perspective just as not having it does. If there's anything problematic about Sotomayor's statement, it's that it is as nonspecific about "whiteness" as Taylor's is.
What people like Taylor find so offensive about Sotomayor's statement is that it properly exposes the perspective of white, Christian heterosexual men as specific to their experience, rather than the omniscient eye of G-d they're used to presenting it as. Does anyone seriously believe Dred Scott or Plessy v. Fergueson would have been upheld by any court that had the remotest idea of what it was like to be black or a slave? Or similarly that the court would have held in Minor v. Happersett that being a citizen didn't mean you had a right to vote if you were a woman? Do we really believe that judges in these cases were "simply upholding the law" in the absence of the cultural and social prejudices of their times?
The hypothetical example Taylor cites above is also not remotely equivalent, had Alito said referred to his small town values, religious background, or being the son of Italian immigrants, conservatives would have applauded him. In fact, that's exactly what happened--Sotomayor's story is bigger news because she would be the first Latino on the court, but conservatives played up Alito's modest small town and Italian roots, to the point where Senator Orrin Hatch suggested in 2005 (via Nexis) that Democrats could lose the Italian American vote by opposing him. "I think Democrats have to be very careful here because many Democrats think they own the Italian-American vote all up and down the East Coast," Hatch said. "Well, they don't, but they think they do. But if they become offensive against somebody with the qualifications of Sam Alito, Judge Alito, then I think it's going to be held against them." The key here is the imbuing of culturally nonspecific "whiteness" with inherently positive traits, because "whiteness" is a fiction contrived to assert racial superiority. White people are as ethnic and culturally specific as non-white people, and there is a qualitative difference between asserting a specific cultural heritage and experience and lauding the inherent values granted by skin color.
Moreover, Taylor, who believes the greatest injustice in Western history was Sotomayor's failure to ignore established precedent in the Ricci case and act as an empathetic, activist judge on behalf of a plaintiff he finds sympathetic, has been a fervent supporter of racial profiling. Sotomayor's statement about life experience affecting the way judges rule is a plainly innocuous statement, and contains none of the malice Taylor attributes to it. But I'd be interested to understand how Taylor explain how the law should be color-blind in situations when he feels whites might be disadvantaged, but not when it comes to assuming people are criminals or terrorists based on the color of their skin. That sounds pretty "racialist" to me.
UPDATE: Commenters point out that Sotomayor did use the phrase "inherent physiological or cultural differences" in her speech. I should have been clear in the original post, but it appears to me that Sotomayor was using "physiological" to refer to gender, rather than race. I don't agree with this, but it also seems worth pointing out that she also said "While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law."
UPDATE II: On second thought, this is a much stronger quote:
I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations.Obviously, she thinks she's better than everyone else.
-- A. Serwer
COMMENTS (29)
White people are as ethnic and culturally specific as non-white people, and there is a qualitative difference between asserting a specific cultural heritage and experience and lauding the inherent values granted by skin color.
There is certainly a difference, but that doesn't mean they aren't both total bullshit.
Posted by: Sam | May 27, 2009 11:44 AM
It is important that Sotomayor has a broader range of experiences than most. She has the experience of being dirt poor in the Bronx AND attending Princeton and Yale. She has the experience of a woman of color AND many many years on the federal bench.
If she was, say, a poor night court judge who understood the people but never tried a corporate case in her life, that would be one thing, but she has a broad range.
Alito couldn't point to a similar area of experience Sotomayor didn't have--it would, in fact, be a lack of breadth he'd have to tout.
Posted by: pbg | May 27, 2009 11:45 AM
First of all, Sotomayor did not speak of "physiological" differences ...
Not true:
Sotomayor:
"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."
Posted by: Sacro Illiac | May 27, 2009 12:15 PM
No comment on the fact that Taylor believes that having "traditional American values" is somehow mutually exclusive to being Latina? That seems to be the implication.
Posted by: t | May 27, 2009 12:15 PM
That Sotomayor is a member of some group or another is in itself irrelevant. That she is acquainted with facts others might not be is germane. It is not a question of identity: it is a question of epistemic credentials, of education when all is said. She was not playing identity politics in the quote.
Posted by: Ron Salzberger | May 27, 2009 12:16 PM
Sam,
Are you suggesting that one's upbringing in a given culture does not have a major role in shaping views and attitudes? I agree with you that the color of one's skin hardly imbues a person with values, but that can hardly be said of the values learned from a person's environment.
Posted by: Russ | May 27, 2009 12:17 PM
How dare a mixed race President and a Puerto Rican Supreme Court nominee acknowledge the relevance of their ethnicity and life experience to becoming who they are?? Certainly no one in pursuit of public service to this country with roots in the deck of the Mayflower or General Lee's army or the coal mines of West Virginia has...right?
Posted by: singe | May 27, 2009 12:23 PM
The critical fiction behind Taylor's rant isn't racism per se, but the mainstream (liberal and conservative) assumption that the law is some objective, neutral force that can and should be dispassionately applied by trained scholars (in Taylor's case, read: Ivy League educated white males) -- when it actually is an instrument of class control used by the ruling elites to legimitize their own hegomony and privilege.
There's more than enough bullshit to go around in this confirmation "debate", in other words.
Posted by: Peter Principle | May 27, 2009 12:36 PM
How dare she point out that there are physiological differences between men and women?
Posted by: MattMinus | May 27, 2009 12:38 PM
White people are as ethnic and culturally specific as non-white people, and there is a qualitative difference between asserting a specific cultural heritage and experience and lauding the inherent values granted by skin color.
Dude, quit being so smart and insightful. You're making the rest of us look bad.
Posted by: Halfdan | May 27, 2009 1:06 PM
Actually rather OT and a minor point, but since when do "many Democrats think they own the Italian-American vote"?
Posted by: DAS | May 27, 2009 1:29 PM
Wait. God isn't a white, Christian heterosexual man? Whoa!
Posted by: Lee Gibson | May 27, 2009 1:30 PM
Russ:
I'm saying that one's upbringing "in a given culture" is largely a fiction.
Posted by: Sam | May 27, 2009 1:41 PM
No correction yet from Serwer?
The fact he thinks 'Sotomayor did not speak of "physiological" differences' suggests he did not read her words in context, which is what we would expect from someone with an agenda.
Oh well, as long he got the Atrios boost who cares?
Posted by: Sacro Illiac | May 27, 2009 1:44 PM
Notice that in Taylor's analogy, he felt compelled to change more than just "Latina woman" to "white male."
He also changed "the richness of her experience" to "the richness of his American values."
Why?
To me, that's the most racist part of what he wrote.
Taylor betrays his biases --that he clearly does not believe that traditional American values are found in the life experiences of a Latina woman, or he would not have felt compelled to change that language to more precisely convey the sentiment behind his analogy.
Posted by: Anonopatumus | May 27, 2009 2:41 PM
Sam,
Care to elaborate?
Posted by: Russ | May 27, 2009 3:05 PM
"What people like Taylor find so offensive about Sotomayor's statement is that it properly exposes the perspective of white, Christian heterosexual men as specific to their experience, rather than the omniscient eye of G-d they're used to presenting it as."
The problem with this statement, and with the entire mode of thinking it represents, is that if it's true the law is merely a tool of one or another competing "cultural experiences", can never possibly represent us all, and is worthy of no respect whatsoever. Every single word ever written about equality before the law would be a lie and a farce.
Even if it's impossible for judges to be impartial or objective, it is absolutely critical that the judges themselves at least go through the motions of pretending that they can be. Once judges themselves acknowledge that they aren't objective, but are creatures whose viewpoints are contingent on their life experiences, they aren't judges any more. They're consuls.
Posted by: Fluffy | May 27, 2009 4:22 PM
Much like skin color, the notion of a "cultural heritage" is essentially useless except as a convenient way for people to group each other. That isn't to say that where your grandparents are from doesn't have some effect on who you are - but so do a million factors. Not to mention that many Americans of all skin colors do, in fact, lack a specific cultural heritage because they are mixed.
So, if you ask me, there isn't an important difference between saying "my background as an Italian has given me a valuable perspective" and saying "my background as a white person has given me a valuable perspective." They are both lazy mental shortcuts.
Posted by: Sam | May 27, 2009 6:07 PM
Even if it's impossible for judges to be impartial or objective, it is absolutely critical that the judges themselves at least go through the motions of pretending that they can be.
Okay, I'll bite: What do you mean by "objective"? What is your standard here? Objective from the point of wealthy white men, or black lesbian women, or Jews or Christians or atheists or Wiccans?
There is no such thing as impartiality. Pretending to be "objective" means adhering to the white, heterosexual, male viewpoint that dominates our society.
Posted by: tinfoil hattie | May 27, 2009 9:25 PM
Sorry, I am a religious bigot. I am an absolutely unadulterated radical atheist.
But I still say you idiot "believers" should stop and think about what the ramifications of a court of 6 catholics are.
Reading a little bit of catholic history and some of the speeches of the current pope and some of the current judges might just cause you to shit your britches.
Posted by: less is more | May 27, 2009 9:41 PM
@less is more:
Surely you're not suggesting that the Catholic Justices' religious views would color their rulings! Gasp! Come ON! They are totally objective. Especially when they say things about how us poor wimmen need to be protected from ourselves when deciding matters of our own reproductive health.
Posted by: tinfoil hattie | May 28, 2009 8:05 PM
"The fact he thinks 'Sotomayor did not speak of "physiological" differences' suggests he did not read her words in context, which is what we would expect from someone with an agenda."
bingo - and he didn't address her assertion that a latina uses different logic and reasoning than a white male uses, though she alluded to certain scientific studies that back her up, she didn't name them. Perhaps, Rev. Jeremiah Wright can help her out...not superior...but...different.
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