Sotomayor's "racist" remark...

Ok, let’s talk about the big manky mess known as racism, shall we? Sonia Sotomayor really stepped in that pile when she made the following statement:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Every conservative troll from Hannity to Newt Gingrich has trotted out this quote and called it racism and/or sexism. Rush went so far as to call upon her to withdraw, because a similarly racist white male candidate would be forced to withdraw.

Ok guys, time for a primer on the -isms. Racism is when you make judgments about someone based solely on their race. Sexism is when you make judgments about someone based solely on their sex. Judge Sotomayor wasn’t doing either – she was commenting on the difference between the life of a white male in America and the life of a Latina female in America. That's not racism - assuming she's just like very other "fiery Latina" and putting up political cartoons that depict her as a piñata - now THAT'S racism. And by the way - she's Puerto Rican, not Mexican, you numbnuts - if you have to take shots at her ethnicity, at least make West Side Story jokes.

If anything, Sotomayor is guilty of a kind of cultural-ism, in stating that people who have had more difficult lives make better judges. But that's just silly - everyone knows that judgment resides largely in white testicles. Am I right, ladies?

Judge Sotomayor had the temerity to suggest that true wisdom comes from surviving adversity, something white males don't generally experience to the same degree that Latinas do in this country. She's pointing out that rich white men, whose fathers and grandfathers were rich white men, might just be a wee bit out of touch with the mainstream in America.

She's suggesting that it’s likely that a person who has grown up as an oppressed minority might have a better understanding of the bulk of defendants in our court system - who just happen to be oppressed minorities. She’s simply saying that growing up on the corner of Puerto Rican street and Woman avenue might give you a more nuanced perspective than growing up in the sheltered heart of Privilege Town.

All of the right-wing windbags who attempted to flog this quote to death have missed this point. It appears that one aspect of the piñata metaphor was accurate - the men taking shots at her all seem to be blindfolded.