Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Saturday, May 30, 2009

LET'S TALK ABOUT WHO MADE RACIST REMARKS AND THE SUPREME COURT

I've had some mentally challenged trolls leave some deranged scribblings in the comments section of my blog, which I promptly deleted. But in thinking about the charges of racism being thrown around by the mentally challenged extremist conservatives, wingnuts, and trolls who visit here, I decided to do some research. As a result, I've uncovered some real racist/anti-woman statements written by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. I'll post them here with the appropriate link, as well as Judge Sotomayor's remarks, and let you decide who the racist is:

"Though the Supreme Court nominee [John Roberts] offered straight legal advice, and sometimes savvy political suggestions, he also expressed partisan views in the 35,000 pages released yesterday from his years as White House associate counsel from 1982 to 1986.

In some memos, for example, he made jokes about Hispanics and women. For a 1983 Reagan interview in Spanish Today, he said, "I think this audience would be pleased that we are trying to grant legal status to their illegal amigos."He also joked in 1982 about Kickapoo Indians, saying "a group of them made Newsweek by choosing to live in squalid conditions beneath the International Bridge in Eagle Pass, Texas, rather than their Mexican homeland."

And in a 1985 memo about a corporate scholarship program for women, Roberts said, "Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good."

SOURCE

Charles Blow, writing in today's NYTimes says:

And, The New York Review of Books published a scolding article in 2005 making the case that during the same period that he was making those jokes, Roberts marshaled a crusader’s zeal in his efforts to roll back the civil rights gains of the 1960s and ’70s — everything from voting rights to women’s rights. The article began, “The most intriguing question about John Roberts is what led him as a young person whose success in life was virtually assured by family wealth and academic achievement to enlist in a political campaign designed to deny opportunities for success to those who lack his advantages.”

Mr. Blow also writes:

"...there’s former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. When the Supreme Court was considering Brown v. Board of Education, Rehnquist was a law clerk for Justice Robert Jackson. Rehnquist wrote Jackson a memo in which he defended separate-but-equal policies, saying, “I realize that it is an unpopular and unhumanitarian position, for which I have been excoriated by my ‘liberal’ colleagues, but I think Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed.”

Furthermore, Rehnquist had been a Republican ballot protectionist in Phoenix when he was younger. As the Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen correctly noted in 1986: Rehnquist “helped challenge the voting qualifications of Arizona blacks and Hispanics. He was entitled to do so. But even if he did not personally harass potential voters, as witnesses allege, he clearly was a brass-knuckle partisan, someone who would deny the ballot to fellow citizens for trivial political reasons — and who made his selection on the basis of race or ethnicity.”

And this:

"The same Newt Gingrich who once said that bilingual education was like teaching “the language of living in a ghetto” tweeted that Sotomayor is a “Latina woman racist.” The same Rush Limbaugh who once told a black caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back” called Sotomayor a “reverse racist.” The same Tom Tancredo, a former congressman, who once called Miami, which has a mostly Hispanic population, “a third world country” said that Sotomayor “appears to be a racist.”

This is rich.

Even Michael Steele, the bungling chairman of The Willie Horton Party knows that the Republicans have no standing on this issue. In an interview published in GQ magazine in March, he was asked: “Why do you think so few nonwhite Americans support the Republican Party right now?” His response: “Cause we have offered them nothing! And the impression we’ve created is that we don’t give a damn about them or we just outright don’t like them.” Ding, ding, ding, ding."


Judge Sotomayor's remarks:

"The larger context of the sentence is Sotomayor addressing former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's famous quote that "a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases."

"I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement," Sotomayor says. "First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. 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."

"Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society," she said. "Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown."

"However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give," she continued. "For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. 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."

She went on to say that "each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate."

28 comments:

Publius said...

The Sotomayor nomination has, at last, unleashed the pent-up id of a faithful, and fearful, GOP demographic -- the aging white male. Focusing on a New Haven, Conn., affirmative action case Sotomayor helped decide, a few lines from a 2001 lecture and a New Republic article questioning her intelligence that even the author is trying to back away from, the wingnut and pundit case against Sotomayor isn't particularly subtle. Or smart. But it does seem to involve more than a little of what Freud called "projection."

James' Muse said...

No matter what we say, the right will still oppose her and repeat Boss Limbaugh's errant statements about her being a "racist."

It's just not true.

Won't stop 'em, though.

I've posted the same transcript, but they will still pull pieces out and use them against her.

It's just plain sad that the GOP has fallen so low.

At least Michael Steele showed some guts on standing up to Rush (this time)...let's see how long he can last against Rush.

dmarks said...

Looks like the New Haven case, in which the bigots won, might be overturned.

Arthurstone said...

dmarks typed:

'Looks like the New Haven case, in which the bigots won...'

The 'bigots' didn't win the New Haven Case.

That description of the case sounds a lot like Patrick Buchanan waxing nostalgic for Martin Luther King.

A stretch.

dmarks said...

The New Haven government side of that dispute is the racist side, while the firefighters are the ones seeking equal rights.

This has nothing to do with Pat Buchanan (whom I find to be one of the most loathesome "mainstream" political figures today). Or Martin Luther King.

It is not a stretch to call a racist government policy "bigoted". And I am not heaping blame on Judge Sotomayor for how this worked out. Dave Miller and I discussed this erlier.

However, King's "Not by the color of their skin" quote does fit with the firefighter's side... come to think of it.

Christopher said...

Shaw,

Thanks for the research, Very informative and instructive.

May I make a suggestion? You really need smarter trolls. The two or three who loiter here are among the dumbest I've seen.

Ruth said...

Thanks indeed, the good ol' boys who hang out at the courthouse makes this sort of remark, reminds me of the scurrility marshalled in the country clubs of TX to get Sen.Yarborough out of office. One was that his entire office was staffed by black people. Only the determinedly ignorant would believe, or care, but that's your rightwing vote.

dmarks said...

Ruth: "One was that his entire office was staffed by black people. Only the determinedly ignorant would believe, or care, but that's your rightwing vote."

As long as you believe it is true that only the determinedly ignorant care what color any office staff is.

Christopher said...

I've already spent considerable time on Shaw's blog describing the drug addictions and pedophilia of the 400lbs. Rush Limbaugh.

My comments have revealed who is willing to give this obese piece of human shit a "pass" and defend his sickening and abhorrent behavior. We know who they are.

That said, now it is time for me to turn my attention to Limbaugh's troubling racism. I'm sure the usual trolls will leap to their feet to defend him -- which is at it should be.

Here’s ten of the worst racist Rush Limbaugh Quotes. This is how Fatty views black people:

1. I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

2. You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.

3. Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

4. Right. So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela — who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing.

5. Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

6. The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.

7. They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?

8. Take that bone out of your nose and call me back(to an African American female caller).

9. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.

10. Limbaugh frequently plays a song on his radio freakshow called ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ using an antiquated Jim Crow era term, when he's not calling Mr. Obama "the Affirmative Action" president (Obama DID NOT get into college or law school via Affirmative Action.

So, get busy trolls. You have lots to work with here. I'll give you a day or so to make fools of yourself then I will be back to put your disses into context.

dmarks said...

As I am not a troll, I will not leap to defend him. In fact, I probably mentioned Limbaugh's racist comments here way before you did (but after Shaw did, of course).

Thanks for a more comprehensive list.

Patrick M said...

Shaw: Is your only defense of Judge Sotomayor's comments (and I have NOT made a decision on her yet) that there are plenty of republincans that have made remarks that may be prejudiced or may be racist or may be interpreted so? Do you have any actual arguments to back up why what the actual nominee said was not racist, or at least shows her judgment is based solely on law and not on skin color?

Or are you resorting to the same low tactics that the goopers you revile break out at every opportunity?

Just some questions.

Christopher: Nothing new (or intellectually honest) there. Mostly just shit taken out of context (although a few I'd have to hear the whole clip, especially the bone comment to figger it all out). Typical. I'd give you the link on the beginnings of the "Magic Negro" but you wouldn't read it.

Arthurstone said...

I can't wait. Cornyn. Sessions. Kyl. All the GOP heavyweights are fixing to 'take the gloves off' and try to discover whether or not Sotomayor is a 'racist' & whether or not she can be relied upon to fairly apply the law to all Americans. Get on with it boys. The middle class white guy is the target of endless discrimination in this once great nation and the numbers prove it.

43 out of 44 Presidents. All but four Supreme Court Justices. Ever.

It's so very unfair.

Wish I had a television.

Arthurstone said...

Come on Patrick. One line from an lecture and Shaw must 'prove' Sotomayor isn't a racist while endless examples of Rush Limbaugh's bigotry are remarks 'taken out of context'?

Puhleeze.

And I think you've made your mind up already regarding the Sotomayor nomination. Call it a hunch.

Cheers!

dmarks said...

PatrickM: I know about the beginning of the "Magic Negro" thing. However, I don't ever excuse people for repeating an ethnic joke all over the place for comic effect while saying "I didn't make it up. I'm just repeating it!"

But I do wonder about the bone comment, just as you do.

Arthur said: "The middle class white guy is the target of endless discrimination"

Endless only as far as racial preference policies are actually implemented. After all, this type of affirmative action demands racist treatment of whites, and if the policies are working as written, then racial discrimination is happening. Sorry, Arthur. I will never accept racist treatment of any individual, of any race.

Joe "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Nice old republican trick Patrick. Telling the opposition to prove it's not racist. By the way, just how many times did you beat your children?

Or one I've used with great success: Patrick. You say you weren't masturbating in the Confessional, then where were you masturbating?

Anonymous said...

The same right-wing extremists who drove the country into the ground continue to attack Sonia Sotomayor with blatant and ugly stereotypes. She's one of those judges selected "for their readiness to discard the rule of law whenever emotion moves them," claims the highly credible legal scholar Karl Rove today in the Wall St. Journal.


According to Rove -- whose profound respect for the rule of law is legendary -- she makes decisions based on her emotional "concern for the downtrodden, the powerless and the voiceless" rather than legal considerations. Because of her background, ethnicity and gender, hordes of people who know nothing about her and haven't bothered to examine what she's actually done as a judge instantaneously believe this caricature, while the media keeps repeating these accusations without, as usual, any critical scrutiny.

As happens virtually always, the facts are now starting to be examined and they reveal just how deliberately false are these right-wing smears. They just make things up without having any idea if they're true. Not only is that caricature of Sotomayor false, the opposite is true: if anything, Sotomayor's flaw is that she is excessively legalistic in her approach. And the assumption -- from both sides -- that she is some sort of pure, doctrinaire liberal seems quite dubious at best.

Anonymous said...

Racism and bigotry are wrong. Whether you're white, black, or anywhere in between.

If a white man were to speak at a law school, and make the comment "I would hope that a wise White man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina female who hasn't lived that life," would he be recommended for appointment to the US Supreme Court? Could he be confirmed under those circumstances? I doubt it... the statement is BIGOTED. And it was actually made by Sotomayor at Boalt (Cal Berkeley's law school) “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,” said Judge Sotomayor

It can't be both ways. We cannot have unilateral rules, that apply only to one race. Racism and bigotry are WRONG. We Americans decided that. MLK fought for equality, NOT for anti-white (or anti-anythingelse) bigotry and racism.

This same woman was involved in a very controversial reverse racism ruling against fire-fighters. She was against the Bakke case at UCD, where a white guy was denied admittance to their med school in the 70s because of his race (overturned by the court, and he was admitted).

We need LESS bigotry, not more.

Antonio said...

Democrats and Republicans should stand on principle and reject Sotomayor because she is biased, sexist and racist. What"s worst, she does not seem to have much regard for the U.S. Constitution and the principle of separation of powers. Hispanics who care for the U.S. will never support Sotomayor just because she is a Hispanic. We want someone (of whatever color) who knows, respects and abides by the U.S. Constitution. We, like everyone else, need to be protected by a knowledgeable, honest, non-partisan judge, someone very different from Sotomayor.
There are plenty of fish in the sea, we do not need a recist on the Court!

nocuol said...

Sotomayor is so hidebound stupid, she doesn't really understand what her critics are saying.

She can't quite figure out what all the fuss is about simply because she thinks that an Appeals Court Judge should MAKE laws from the bench.

And the Left is telling us how bright she is - yeah, for a 40 watt bulb maybe.
To all those liberals who have jumped on her bandwagon because she is a minority and has had a tough life, I hope you find yourself on the losing end of some legal case in which the judge exercised his or her EMPATHY in favor of your opponent, rather than in favor of you. Sotomayor is just one more building block in Obama's goal to destroy the United States.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Frank and Antonio,

I've heard those accusations.

My question to you both is:

Have you read her entire body of work over her 30 year career? All of her decisions? Because you can't judge her career on one remark and one decision, which is what you are doing.

As to your charges of racism, they don't hold up. Rational people don't agree with you. Your charges are talking points put out by the RNC and their mouth pieces.

Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove are hardly people to judge anyone's character, let along a woman who has achieved as much as Judge Sotomayor has.

Limbaugh is from a family of distinguished lawyers and judges. He flunked out of college and became a loud-mouthed demagogue and a racist--with dozens of verifiable statements by him to prove it. I wouldn't believe him if he told me the sky was blue.

Sens. Graham and Sessions have said, along with other GOPers that Judge Sotomayor is NOT a racist.

You can choose view the world through the eyes of a bigot and gasbag, but it doesn't make that view accurate--it makes that view biased.

Shaw Kenawe said...

nocuol,

Tell us all what your class standing was when you graduated from Princeton and then Yale Law School.

Morons don't win honors and graduate at the top of their class in Ivy League schools.

But they do come to blogs and repeat bigoted, idiotic, uninformed Limbaugh talking points.

Patrick M said...

Arthur: I said I haven't decided. I have a direction I'm leaning (the knee-jerk reaction), but I am going to research and corroborate from the actual source before I comment. And I may surprise myself (and you).

But as for trotting out everything Republican that could be racist, it diverts from commenting on the nominee's comment.

101: It's the problem with changing the subject.

And to answer your other question, the bathroom at home.

Shaw: You can choose view the world through the eyes of a bigot and gasbag, but it doesn't make that view accurate--it makes that view biased.And yet, you obsess over his every word, in or out of context, to the point you can't even address the legit question buried in what might possibly be blather about racism.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Patrick,

A little proportionality here.

Rush Limbaugh is not an elected leader nor a candidate for the Supreme Court.

He's an entertainer with a radio show.

And a bigot.

He isn't fit to be smeared on the bottom of Judge Sotomayor's shoes.

dmarks said...

Shaw said: "A little proportionality here. Rush Limbaugh is not an elected leader nor a candidate for the Supreme Court."

Then I guess it is time to put to rest once and for all the silly idea that he is the leader of the GOP.

Patrick M said...

Shaw: And yet you're talking about him and not Judge Sotomayor.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Patrick,

Swine flu is also discussed on blogs when it menaces a population. That doesn't mean people regard it in a respectful way.

Talking about something doesn't mean it is important in a positive way.

I talk about the gasbag because we need to understand how low the GOP has fallen and the reason for its decline.

We talk about disgusting and unpleasant things in our blogs all the time.

Patrick M said...

Yeah, but you still fixate on every word that spills from Rush's lips. You talk about him more than Obama (hell, you missed Date Nite).

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