Barrel Strength

Madame Justice Sotomayor in a speech in 2001:

“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.”

The New York Times reviews this here.

Frank James in NPR’s news blog has this to say about it.

I quote from James’ article, which refers to Stuart Taylor’s attack on this line of thinking:

“Her statement has prompted charges that she traffics in identity politics. How could it not? Stuart Taylor of the National Journal wrote a widely read criticism of her speech. An excerpt:

“Indeed, unless Sotomayor believes that Latina women also make better judges than Latino men, and also better than African-American men and women, her basic proposition seems to be that white males (with some exceptions, she noted) are inferior to all other groups in the qualities that make for a good jurist.
Any prominent white male would be instantly and properly banished from polite society as a racist and a sexist for making an analogous claim of ethnic and gender superiority or inferiority.

“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.”

“I have been hoping that despite our deep divisions, President Obama would coax his party, and the country, to think of Americans more as united by allegiance to democratic ideals and the rule of law and less as competing ethnic and racial groups driven by grievances that are rooted more in our troubled history than in today’s reality.”

Lurking in the background is a case where Sotomayor dismissed an appeal from New Haven firefighters whose successful test results were dismissed by the New Haven fire department. The reason? The successful applicants for the supervisor jobs were disproportionately white. The City of New Haven, apparently fearing lawsuits from blacks over the “disparate impact” of objective testing, dismissed the tests. This is known as the Ricci case after Frank Ricci, the dyslexic firefighter who quit his seocnd job, obtained tutoring, and passed the supervisor test.

The case is now going before the US Supreme Court. Stuart Taylor explains the origins of the disparate impact issue:
“The Court’s response was to rule that any test with a “disparate impact” on blacks — meaning that disproportionate numbers had low scores — was presumed to be invalid unless required by “business necessity.” Lack of intent to discriminate was no defense to such a disparate-impact suit. This remains the law today, although the Court and Congress (in 1991) have tinkered with the detailed rules.

“Over the decades since 1971, fewer and fewer employers have engaged in intentional racial discrimination against blacks or Hispanics. Likewise, the objective tests used by employers — including the New Haven fire department’s written and oral promotional exams — have been more and more carefully designed to be valid measures of job-related skills.

“Two things have remained constant, however. First, blacks and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics, score markedly lower on average than whites and Asians on objective tests of job-related skills — whether for firefighter, police officer, manufacturing worker, or other blue-collar jobs.

“This is what one might expect in a nation still plagued by vastly unequal educational opportunities and academic performance. Studies show, for example, that on average, the math and reading levels of black 17-year-olds are no higher than those of whites and Asians in the eighth grade. And the gap is not closing.”

Stuart Taylor’s article is essential reading for understanding what I expect will be a growing resistance by white people (of all races and colours) against the racial spoils system so dear to the Democrats.

Here is the guy who always goes beyond everyone’ comfort zone, Laurence Auster, of View from the Right:

“So, let’s not ask that hackneyed rhetorical question. Instead, let’s make a declaratory statement on the matter, and draw definite conclusions from it:

“Any white man who had said the equivalent of what Judge Sotomayor said, that he as a white man would be a better judge than a black or a Hispanic, would have had his name automatically removed from any list for the U.S. Supreme Court. “And if such a man had been nominated, and such a statement in his past had then come out, his nomination would have been instantly withdrawn. “Therefore Sonia Sotomayor is disqualified from the U.S. Supreme Court and her nomination must be withdrawn.

 “If the Democrats approve her nomination, they are saying that there are two sets of rules in America, one for whites and one for nonwhites, and that what is prohibited to whites, is freely allowed to nonwhites. Which means that the real purpose of the movement for racial equality and racial inclusion in this country has not been the ending of racial discrimination, but the inauguration of a pro-nonwhite, anti-white regime.

“Republicans and conservatives should draw an absolute line on this. They must not whine impotently, “What if a white male had said this?” They must say loud and clear, and keep saying it, that the nomination of Sotomayor is totally unacceptable.”

Auster says loud and proud what some of us might say in rants to the mirror. He believes what he says, every word.