For the record, Sotomayor’s 2001 speech clearly makes this point—I emphasize, clearly--throughout. For example: “Being a Latina in America also does not mean speaking Spanish. I happen to speak it fairly well. But my brother, only three years younger, like too many of us educated here, barely speaks it. Most of us born and bred here, speak it very poorly.” Some Latinos speak Spanish better and some worse, in other words—a difference determined not by birth but by actions.
As the nonprofit media watchdog group FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) notes, the right managed to frame the debate, if you call it that, over Sotomayor. CNN among other media outlets has ceaselessly and selectively quoted only that one “wise Latina” sentence, with no gesture in the direction of context or objectivity. But thus far—more fundamentally--televised commentary even on the one quoted comment has missed, or misstated, the point. Sotomayor’s analogy is not between the experience of a white male and the experience of a Latina woman. The analogy, as in my personal anecdote at the top of this essay, is to a comparative lack of experience, of some kinds of experience, for the white male. Women and minorities do not have a monopoly on suffering, as every white male can attest from personal experience. But a white male does not experience that casual prejudice or slur or worse, at a glance and on the spot, purely because he was born a member of a category. When Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich are disparaged, it is not because they are white males. They get ridicule or criticism the old-fashioned way. They earned it.
Note: This column expands on the post last week at www.margieburns.com.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
