Back in 2001, during a lecture at the University of California-Berkeley, nominee for the US Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, made a statement that has been seized upon by Republicans as evidence of racism.
Sotomayor said: "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."
When Justice Alito talked about his American experience as a child of immigrants that was seen as a plus... a good thing. But when an American woman of Puerto Rican background suggests her personal experience may give her an edge in her profession she is branded by Republicans as a racist.
Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh labeled Sotomayor a "reverse racist." Former House speaker Newt Gingrich said - "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman' new racism is no better than old racism."
Some Republican critics have even stooped to attacking the Hispanic pronunciation of the judge's last name. Mark Krikorian writing in the National Review went so far as to propose she anglicise her name because "there ought to be limits" on the demand on English speakers to pronounce foreign names. This truly dumb objection says less about Sonia Sotomayor than the bigotry and small-mindedness of those conservatives who believe that the pronunciation of a name should be made a subject of debate in this case.
What is most surprising in all of this isn't so much the knee-jerk reactions of people like Coulter and Limbaugh who routinely come out with outrageous remarks. What is surprising are the number of conservatives who consider the slur to be a reasonable objection. The irony is inescapable. After all this is a party with a long history of playing the race card, particularly in the south.
The so-called "Southern Strategy" was all about race baiting and the use of coded racial language to attract the blue collar Southern white vote. Republican patron saint, Ronald Reagan, was as bad as George Wallace when it came to whipping up white discontent.
In an article titled "Lott, Reagan and Republican Racism" Jack White writing in Time magazine noted that:
"Then there was Reagan's attempt, once he reached the White House in 1981, to reverse a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to private schools that practice racial discrimination and grant an exemption to Bob Jones University. "
For decades the Republicans have followed Nixon's lead in the south by pandering to disaffected whites angry about the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
Bill Clinton put it this way: 'They try to suppress black voting, they ran on the Confederate flag in Georgia and South Carolina, and from top to bottom the Republicans supported it... It's time for the Republican Party to be held accountable for four decades of pandering to white racists, which began in 1968 with Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy."
Aside from racist strategies on the part of the Republican party, there are numerous of examples of racism from the mouths of Republican representatives.
When Gingrich et al step out of the long historical shadow to accuse Sonia Sotomayor of being a racist, what is most remarkable is their sheer gall. No fair minded American, familiar with the background of judge Sotomayor, could possibly take them seriously.
Link also to the Guardian and ABC stories.
