Sotomayor’s remarks weren’t racist

The American Catholic takes Judge Sotomayor for task for her various “wise” comments:

Imagine a white male conservative making the same comments that Judge Sonia Sotomayor made:

A wise White man with his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina female,”

The mainstream media (old media) would have a field day recounting how racist Republicans are.  It would be nonstop media coverage not seen since Trent Lott’s infamous statements.

Well, sure the media would have, but that’s not the point. Sotomayor’s comments were not racist, the pronouncements of conservatives notwithstanding ; she has made no statement that simply by virtue of their makeup and composition, Latinos, women, or working class people are superior to their opposites. Rather, her comments were an expression of ethnic, gender, and class pride. She said that given their background and experiences, Latinos, women, and working-class folk are more likely to come to the correct conclusion. It’s the difference between the worldview of David Duke and James Michael Curley.

Sotomayor’s pride in her background is understandable. She overcame poverty as well as racial and gender bias. Those accomplishments might sound trite, but stop to consider your own background and heritage. Were your forebears not in a similar position to that of the young Sotomayor? When I think of her life story, I think of that of my Irish grandfather. He grew up as one of 14 children on a farm in western Ireland, the poorest part of the country at the time, in the early 20^th century. He immigrated to America in 1922 and landed in Boston. Disgusted by the “no-Irish need apply” signs in the city’s stores, he moved to San Francisco. There he found steady work as a city bus driver and night watchman at the city’s harbor. If he considered his judgment superior to that of a upper-class Protestant who never struggled, I could not blame him. His judgment, borne of adversity, would have given him a deeper insight into human nature.

Then again, my grandfather would not have been qualified to serve as a judge, let alone a Supreme Court Justice. That leap of logic is the problem with Sotomayor’s comment; it’s also partly why the Obama administration forced her to retract the remark. But as far as I am concerned, most white Catholics need a refresher course on their heritage and history, a reminder that putatively racist remarks can be something benign.