Angry White Men

Posted by Dov Benjamin on 07.17.2009

During this week's Judicial Committee confirmation hearings, we learned very little about Judge Sotomayor, but the Republicans demonstrated why they are still the party of southern white males.

This week Judge Sonia Sotomayor is being interrogated by the Senate Judiciary Committee in a spectacle known as the confirmation hearings. I'm not the type to accuse the Republicans of being racists – mainly because it is such an easy and obvious accusation to make – but watching these angry white males cross-examine Sotomayor over her "wise Latina" comment, it does feel like a Klan rally where these old men cloaked in white sheets are desperately trying to prove how this woman of a different ethnicity is somehow a threat to the current power structure.

The GOP mouthpiece and defacto leader (no, not Michael Steele but Rush Limbaugh) has called her a racist – a "reverse racist" to be precise. It seems that the Republicans, the so-called strict constructionalists (euphemism for batshit, right-wing way of interpreting the Constitution), are more troubled by statements she made in speeches than by her legal decisions on the bench. And the common thread in all of the statements that these angry white men find so disturbing is that Sotomayor seems to have shown some sort of empathy for minority or disenfranchised groups. Empathy translated into Republicanese means "judicial activism" – which the Republican Party is diametrically opposed to except for when they like the result (ie. Bush v. Gore , Ricci v. DeStefano ).

If the Republicans thought it was necessary to ask Sotomayor about her "wise Latino," comment, it is really disturbing that Jeff Sessions, a senator with such a dubious record on civil rights legislation, was chosen as the one to lead the way – but don't expect the so-called liberal media to disclose this senator's voting record or his outright hostility towards the civil rights movement. Before he was the "honorable" junior senator of Alabama, Sessions was nominated by Ronald Reagan for a seat on the U.S. District Court where he was subject to questions from Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee concerning past comments he had made. According to an article from the December 2002 edition of The New Republic , Sessions reportedly called a white attorney a "disgrace to his race" for litigating cases involving civil rights; addressed a black former assistant U.S. Attorney in Alabama as "boy;" of the Ku Klux Klan, he said that he "used to think they were ok" until he learned that some of them smoked pot; and he also referred to the NAACP and ACLU as "un-American" and "Communist-inspired" groups that "forced civil rights down the throats of people." At his confirmation hearings, Sessions did not deny making these statements but claimed that he was joking; however, he stood behind his comment where he called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 a "piece of intrusive legislation." Sessions's nomination was ultimately terminated by the then Republican-controlled Judiciary Committee, but obviously that did not halt his political career as he is currently the ranking member of the very same committee which denied him a vote on the senate floor.

After Tuesday's hearings I assumed that the hoopla over the "wise Latina" comment was behind us. But Wednesday's confirmation hearings opened with questions from Republican Senator John Cornyn who immediately said, "I want to start with the comments that you made about the ‘wise Latina' speech." And then on Thursday there was more probing from Senator Lindsay Graham over the same comment. What do you think is going to make the highlight reel when the news networks show clips from these hearings: boring footage of her long-winded answers and stoic responses to legal matters or exchanges over the "wise Latina" comment?

These angry white men just won't let go of that comment. It bothers them almost as much as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." There are just certain quotes these people obsess over. It is as if that remark is a harbinger of a futuristic society where the white race will be living under the tyrannical rule of vengeful Latino women. The Republicans on the Judiciary Committee see themselves as defenders of the old guard and even though the Republicans do not have the numbers to block this nomination, they feel they must fight until the end. But instead of questioning her judicial philosophy, these senators spend a disproportionate amount of time on the "wise Latina" comment – even after Sotomayor conceded that she regrets making the statement.

Finally, the quote is not only totally out of context, but it is incomplete. She was responding to a statement that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made about how a wise man and a wise woman would always arrive at the same conclusion. Sotomayor noted that there is no universal definition for wise. And here is what Sotomayor said (words in bold font frequently omitted by Republican senators): "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 ."

If I was a writer for Saturday Night Live , my opening skit this weekend would feature a bunch of old men wearing white robes and white pointy hats sitting behind a long, wooden table as they interrogate the actress playing the role of Sonia Sotomayor. And Fox News and talk radio would be more outraged over the SNL skit for suggesting that the Republicans are racist than they would over implications by the senators that Justice Sotomayor wants to use her position on the court to oppress the white race.