Newt Gingrich is out there tweeting his anti-Sotomayor talking points. Among his rubbish, we find this:
Imagine a judicial nominee said "my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman"
OK, Newt, very clever. Of course, she didn't say she was "better than a white man", now did she? So what did she say - in context? Well, imagine a judge giving a speech. Imagine the topic is about the effects a judge's ethnicity and gender might have on their judgments about issues of race and ethnicity.
Imagine no more, Newt. Here's the speech. Read it - especially the bottom of page 91 and the top of page 92. Get it? In cases involving racial and gender discrimination, including judges with practical, real-world experience with racial and gender discrimination might be presumed to produce better judgments than those from a group of old, white men who have never experienced racial or gender discrimination.
Disclaimer: I'm married to a Latina whose parents were born in Puerto Rico, and whose father worked two and three jobs to put her through Catholic School, and who worked 20 hours a week at a grocery store while earning her undergraduate degree from NYU in 4 years, and who worked full-time while earning her Masters degree from Queens College in another two years, and who grew up in a dangerous, low-income neighborhood in New York City, and who was asked at every job interview she had when we moved to the midwest "Why do you want to move here?". I'm a white male. If you want a deep, thoughtful opinion about what it means to be discriminated against as a female and/or a person of color, ask her, not me.
My wife's reaction to the news yesterday? Why do (certain white male commentators) have to keep mentioning how intelligent she is?
We know why, don't we?