Thursday, May 28, 2009

supreme court weltschmerz - it ain't over

So I love how the central thrust of the Republicans' bashing of Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee is telegraphing, loud and clear for the whole country to see, their fundamental belief that ONLY white men from privileged backgrounds can ever possibly be 'objective,' or be qualified to do anything, really, without being labeled scary-fringe-affirmative-action-whatever!

The number of times this judge's "life story" is juxtaposed with scary paranoid ranting about her "ideology" in the conservative media is really telling -- OMG she is sure to be BIASED! Towards POOR PEOPLE, because, you know, she WAS ONE!

Note how conservatives with similar life stories (Thomas, Alito) are lauded as self-made go-getters. And I WISH that some day we would have a discussion about how growing up rich/ white/ straight/ male/ in a prep school bubble/ in a cushy home with every comfort, etc. affects judges' and politicians' ability to do their jobs, whether it would, you know, be a terrible handicap to have a leader who doesn't have any first-hand experience of what MOST of the people in this country go through - dealing with at least one major, systematic kind of discrimination or oppression, all of the time.

The brilliant Bitch, Ph.D. breaks it all down for you here:
http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-are-they-thinking.html

Also, I love that this tool is actually saying we should all be intentionally mispronouncing our names if they don't happen to be Anglo in origin - really, this has to be seen to be believed:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MzkwYzY3ZTc4NTkwZjRiMjM3OGVlMzlmNTZjYmY2ZDI=
Earth to this guy, Judge Sotomayor is an American, born in the Bronx, not a "newcomer."

Gah. At least they're showing themselves for the horrible, fearful little racists they are.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Great post/rant. I also love how many of the news outlets have reported that Sotomayor's parents "came to the US from Puerto Rico..." Given that her dad would have been draft-eligible, that doesn't seem like the right phrase.