Word to the Wise

“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,”

These are the words of the U.S. Supreme Court appointed Sonya Sotomayor, extracted from an speech in 2001. Media pundits have singled out this lone sentence as a comment that reflects racism (reverse), and therefore inferring, at the least, she has a racist bone in her body.

Sotomayor began her private practice in 1984 and has been presiding since, albeit different circuits. Think of how many rulings she has handed out, if she truly harbored a superiority or favoritism complex then i think it would have reared its ugly head in at least a few of her rulings. However no controversial rulings have been cited thus far. Also as a Supreme Court Justice she does not rule alone, she will preside along with 8 other justices and there would be no way for her to racially sabotage laws. So even if one believes that she is heavily influenced by race it would not be viable as her colleagues would quickly eradicate and supplant her. I know that reputation takes a lifetime to build and only a moment lose but i maintain that the overall body of work is a better representation, if I were slightly persuaded by media i would still only call this an aberration.

More importantly we all know that life exists in contexts. Sometimes the mouth fumbles the meaning of the heart. There is no demeaning intent within that statement. As a few have stated, if she could go back in time she would probably word it differently, but life does not give us do-overs. When ruling experience is indeed an added bonus, life isn't always in black and white, therefore the more you are able to completely understand the scope of the situation, the better your judgement. I think that is simply what she was implying, it was not a jab at white males it was merely an attempt emphasize her own experience to the audience. We have all worded things wrong, what if people were able to dig up things we said 7 and 8 years ago.

The idea swirling around about reverse racism bothers me, i think its unwarranted. First let me say that qualified is qualified, however the world has become a lot more diverse over the last few decades and therefore the representation in the workplace is following suit. Also Obama is obviously a man of the people as he often uses "we" instead of "I". He obviously wants to incorporate people who represent the complete make up of the nation. I think that it is important to have different viewpoints in the room. It boils down to the same thing most companies claim to seek, "Diversity". People from different worlds offer different viewpoints; often articulating and emphasizing different facets that others may overlook in certain situations because they don't either (A).understand the connection or (B).the magnitude of the connection. So its important to understand there is value in experience. Overall i think this is quite overblown, I hope that Sotomayor can exercise exceptional decision making and help our nation be the best place it can be.