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I found Sotomayer's so called 'racist' comment

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JonLP24 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 04:57 PM
Original message
I found Sotomayer's so called 'racist' comment
"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,"

This was a speech at Cal.

It would help if there entire context of the speech was available but the charges that she is a racist is according to this quote from 2001. From Limbaugh, Fox News, and now Glenn Beck all point to this as a racist comment and if a white man said this he would be indicted for being a racist. :eyes: Anyways the comment doesn't at all seem racist, in fact I would hope the same thing to.

Anyways here is the full story at media matter.
SUMMARY: Megyn Kelly and Jan Crawford Greenburg misrepresented a remark that Sonia Sotomayor made in a speech published in 2002, claiming that Sotomayor suggested, in Kelly's words, "that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges."


Fox News host Megyn Kelly and ABC correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburg misrepresented a remark that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court, made in a speech delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, claiming that she suggested, in Kelly's words, "that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges." In fact, when Sotomayor asserted, "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," she was specifically discussing the importance of judicial diversity in determining race and sex discrimination cases. As Media Matters for America has noted, former Bush Justice Department lawyer John Yoo has similarly stressed that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas "is a black man with a much greater range of personal experience than most of the upper-class liberals who take potshots at him" and argued that Thomas' work on the court has been influenced by his understanding of the less fortunate acquired through personal experience.

During the May 26 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Kelly described Sotomayor's remarks as "reverse racism" and said it was "ike she's saying that Latina judges are obviously better than white male judges." Kelly later added, "I've looked at the entire speech that she was offering to see if that was taken out of context, and I have to tell you ... it wasn't." Similarly, in a May 26 report on ABC's Good Morning America, Greenburg claimed that Sotomayor "suggest that a wise Latino may actually be a better judge than a white man, and that white men have had some attitude adjustments and reached moments of great enlightenment, but there's a long way to go."

Contrary to Kelly and Greenburg's claims, Sotomayor did not say or suggest that Latina or Latino judges are "better" than white male judges, but was instead talking specifically about "race and sex discrimination cases." From Sotomayor's speech delivered at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and published in 2002 in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal:
http://mediamatters.org/research/200905260050
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 04:59 PM
Response to Original message
1. And here's another backing her up...
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louis-t Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:02 PM
Original message
As usual, repugs make something out of nothing.
Straw man arguments, phony stories, fake outrage...it's what they do best. Less and less are falling for it, though.
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sipping radicchio Donating Member (48 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:02 PM
Response to Original message
2. As a Puerto Rican woman, I heard the correct quote
Edited on Tue May-26-09 05:04 PM by sipping radicchio
and was not too thrilled with it. Yes, I get the gist of her remarks, but I also feel they were somewhat divisive. I think that to inject race into ability to judge is unfortunate. After all, some Latinas grow up in the upper class and there are poor White men who are not afforded the same privileges of that life.
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JonLP24 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:06 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I can see that
After all I'm a white male from a working class background. The quote could've been said better without the race issues but I overall agree with the philosphy. You'd hope someone from a less then perfect background would make better decisions then someone who came from a better background. Either way it is from 2001 and the right-wing media is blowing it out of proportion.
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sipping radicchio Donating Member (48 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:12 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. 2001 isn't very long ago and there is another one
(yeah, I listened to El Douchebo today to see what the talking points were). She was talking to some group and basically admitted that judges like her shape policy (and said she knew the conversation was being taped and she shouldn't say anything but nudgenudge winkwink kind of deal...)

I just heard some stuff that I didn't like. Her story is very impressive, though. Of course, so is Condi's.:eyes:

I am through being satisfied with skin color or ethnicity. There are just too many other factors to consider.
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JonLP24 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:20 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. I agree
But 8 years is a long time in terms how someone changes. In very little ways I am the same person as I was in 2001. I did things then that I don't or wouldn't today, some of the things I still do.
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spanone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:47 PM
Response to Reply #5
14. listening to ru$h your're bound to hear things you don't like...i'm sure ru$h was fair about her
Edited on Tue May-26-09 05:48 PM by spanone
limbaugh would NEVER make anything up or make something appear worse than it is...NEVER
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #2
7. Did you know what the lecture was about?
http://washingtonindependent.com/44428/sotomayors-controversial-2002-comment-is-supported-by-recent-academic-studies

Sotomayor’s ‘Controversial’ Comments Backed Up By Academic Research

snip//

If, deprived of their context, these statements sound controversial, in the context of her lecture, titled “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” they made perfect sense.

Sotomayor’s view that judges are influenced by their background and experiences is backed up by studies that show that women judges, for example, tend to rule in a way that’s more sympathetic to plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases than male judges do — probably because, having experienced discrimination themselves as they struggled to advance in a male-dominated profession, they’re more attuned to its signs.
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sipping radicchio Donating Member (48 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:21 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Well, that certainly fleshes it out a bit more...Hmm...I am beginning to think
that Rush takes things out of context!:rofl:
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babylonsister Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:41 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. Ya think? :) nt
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:46 PM
Response to Reply #2
13. She wasn't asserting race but experience.
And there is nada wrong, in fact it is one of the basics of logic, to bring ALL of your experience to bear on a problem.
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katty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:07 PM
Response to Original message
4. context, spirit of the law--ReTHUGS can't stand REAL thinking
it hurts their pea brains.
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HiFructosePronSyrup Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:15 PM
Response to Original message
6. So the argument to that statement...
is "white men with no experience are better than hispanic people with experience."
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customerserviceguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:37 PM
Response to Reply #6
10. Or, "my experience is more relevant than your experience because of my race"
Expect that to be the spin that Rush Limpballs, et al. put on it. I sure hope we can find some of her comments that refute it.
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EFerrari Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:44 PM
Response to Reply #10
12. "My experience in discrimination cases is more relevant because
Edited on Tue May-26-09 05:44 PM by EFerrari
I understand discrimination first hand."

It's not about ethnicity but about experience.
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underpants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-26-09 05:52 PM
Response to Original message
15. Gee thanks Megyn for being both a "reporter" and the impartor of legal analysis
it's like one-stop shopping!!!

Megyn has a law degree. They point this out endlessly on Fox News. John Yoo has a law degree. Ted Bundy had a law degree. Lots of people have a law degree but Megyn is extra special because......uh I'm not sure why but she is
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