Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor is the product of the clichéd American Dream. Her parents came to the Bronx from Puerto Rico, which by the way GOPers is AMERICA not MEXICO and they are NOT immigrants. Her father was a poorly educated blue collar worker and her mother was a nurse. Her father died when she was 9 and her mother worked her ass off to give Sonia and her brother, Juan, the best education and the best life that she possibly could. Sonia graduated from her high school as their valedictorian, and as such got many scholarships. She went to Princeton University and graduated summa cum laude. From there, she went to Yale Law School and was the editor of Yale Law Review. She has been a judge on many distinguished Courts for 17 years. Her credentials and education are nothing to sniff at, you don't get scholarships and graduate summa cum laude for being an idiot. 

But that is not what some GOPers are saying. "Anonymous" sources are saying that she isn't very bright/dumb/stupid etc.  These same people who defended Bush's stupidity by saying that he went to Harvard and Yale for his undergraduate and MBA respectively.  

You cannot have it both ways GOPers. There is no doubt that she is a bright woman who has worked her ass off to get where she is. It's sad that her accomplishments are minimized, so as to try to prevent the GOPers from exploding. She's been unjustly judged, ripped apart, and misquoted. She's been judged for her looks (too feminine, too ugly, too fat). The woman cannot win, can she? Thanks for reminding women that we are nothing if we are not attractive. If we are attractive then silly emptyheaded opinions open doors (See Carrie Prejean, Sarah Palin). 

The constantly de-contextualized quote of the wise Latina woman, is down there within the speech that she gave. When put into the right context, it hardly sounds racist. It should have been obvious when you heard THAT LIFE at the end of the sentence. So FOX Newscasters relax, she's not racist against the privelleged and constant martyrs that are the white men. 

"From Sotomayor's speech, delivered at the University of California-Berkeley School of Law an published in 2002 in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal:

In our private conversations, Judge [Miriam] Cedarbaum has pointed out to me that seminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. 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 [Benjamin] Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. 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. 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."