This hit piece against Sotomayor by Sharon Thiemer that the AP chose to run is breathtaking in its perfection in the art of either stupidity or intellectual dishonesty, though I can’t tell which one it is. The premise is that Sotomayor is two-faced, because she claims to have lived in a housing project as a child, but now she actually accepts a salary for her work as if she was a judge on the federal appeals court or something. The other reason is that she’s Latina, but refuses to believe that this automatically makes her stupid. And lest you think I’m kidding, witness the travesty.
On ethnicity, Sotomayor herself has recognized — and contributed to — the dichotomy. She proudly highlights her Puerto Rican roots but hasn’t always liked it when others have. She once took issue with a prospective employer who singled her out as a Latina with questions she viewed as offensive yet has shown a keen ethnic consciousness herself.
In a California speech in 2002 now under renewed scrutiny, she remarked that, on a court, “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.”
In that same speech, “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” Sotomayor drew attention to cultural differences between Mexican-Americans and Puerto Rican-Americans, and she narrowed her ethnicity beyond American, Hispanic and Puerto Rican to “Newyorkrican.”
“For those of you on the West Coast who do not know what that term means: I am a born and bred New Yorker of Puerto Rican-born parents who came to the states during World War II,” she explained.
Yet years ago, during a recruiting dinner in law school at Yale, Sotomayor objected when a law firm partner asked whether she would have been admitted to the school if she weren’t Puerto Rican, and whether law firms did a disservice by hiring minority students the firms know are unqualified and will ultimately be fired.
Yep, she both believes herself to have Puerto Rican heritage, but doesn’t believe that this makes her too stupid to get into Princeton. This is a contradiction, apparently, but it’s hard to see how, unless you believe that everyone believes that Latinas are stupid by definition. Otherwise, this doesn’t make sense and it’s like saying, “Sotomayor accepts that she has two legs, but hypocritically rejects it when people ask her if she’s a space alien.” It doesn’t really follow, unless you assume that all two-legged creatures are space aliens, and not only that, but that everyone believes this. Which makes you a loon.