What did the Wise Latina Woman REALLY say?

I am a self described Liberal at odds with many broad brush definitions thrust on those of us who relish freedom of thought. The exercise of the right to judge the evidence at hand and reach an independent conclusion is what I consider the primary ingredient in being Liberal. The conclusion reached may be more or less liberal than conservatives like to paint those they oppose, but it is the process of reaching independent conclusions which makes one Liberal.

When the press started harping on President Obama’s recent nominee to the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor’s quote “Second, 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” I was concerned. I did not like that quote. It does sound like reverse racism and I have to agree with Newt Gingrich (the fact that I can agree with him on anything makes my stomach turn) that new racism is just as unacceptable as old racism. But since I wish to consider myself a wise Latina woman I researched the origin of that quote. The speech was delivered at the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal's Twelfth Annual Symposium on October 26, 2001. The purpose of the speech was to address the effect of ethnic and gender bias in the application of law and the rendering of judgements.


Sonia Sotomayor’s entire speech is available at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/4982.htm so all who are interested in exercising their freedom to reach independent conclusions are free to go there and read the quote in context. And, granted, had she use the term “different” rather than “better” we probably would not be having this controversy. But, in summary she was basically saying that one’s life experience will and should shape the manner in which one acts and reacts to stimulus. It is part of the human reality. She uses the analogy of how we react to ethnic food…to a Puerto Rican eating blood sausage is normal and delicious. To that wise old white man it may well be the cause of retching and turned up noses. More importantly, her position on HOW one uses life’s experience to wield the power that judging affords is much more significant than what the media has chosen to focus on.
“Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage. I also hope that by raising the question today of what difference having more Latinos and Latinas on the bench will make will start your own evaluation. For people of color and women lawyers, what does and should being an ethnic minority mean in your lawyering? For men lawyers, what areas in your experiences and attitudes do you need to work on to make you capable of reaching those great moments of enlightenment which other men in different circumstances have been able to reach? For all of us, how do you change the fact that in every task force study of gender and race bias in the courts, women and people of color, lawyers and judges alike report in significantly higher percentages than white men that their gender and race have shaped their careers; from hiring, retention and to promotion and that a statistically significant number of women and minority lawyers and judges, both alike, have experienced bias in the courtroom? ”*
Wordier too. Apparently it is more important to have brief sound bites than accurate ones.



*The text which appears at the provided link appears to have typographical errors which I have attempted to correct in a manner concordant with my "life experience and gender bias" .