Uppity Negro Network™

I still haven’t figured out the proper definition of “reverse racism.”

Wouldn’t “reverse racism” still be considered racism?

Moreover, as Keith Olbermann has done so over the past few nights with acute hilarity that the same Right-wing talking heads of Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich were claiming that current Justice Samuel Alito was the victim of racism from the Democrats and self-professed liberals.  What we’re seeing now in the face of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is this identity politics, that we all practice, but still is something we should strive to move past.

Circling the liberal blogosphere and media outlets is this following statement from the confirmation hearings of Justice Alito when prompted by U.S. Sen. Sam Coburn, Republican from Okalahoma.  It’s a bit long, but in favor getting the whole picture, here it is:

I don’t come from an affluent background or a privileged background. My parents were both quite poor when they were growing up.

And I know about their experiences and I didn’t experience those things. I don’t take credit for anything that they did or anything that they overcame.

But I think that children learn a lot from their parents and they learn from what the parents say. But I think they learn a lot more from what the parents do and from what they take from the stories of their parents lives.

And that’s why I went into that in my opening statement.Because when a case comes before me involving, let’s say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can’t help but think of my own ancestors, because it wasn’t that long ago when they were in that position.

And so it’s my job to apply the law. It’s not my job to change the law or to bend the law to achieve any result.

But when I look at those cases, I have to say to myself, and I do say to myself, “You know, this could be your grandfather, this could be your grandmother. They were not citizens at one time, and they were people who came to this country.”

When I have cases involving children, I can’t help but think of my own children and think about my children being treated in the way that children may be treated in the case that’s before me.

And that goes down the line. When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. When I have a case involving someone who’s been subjected to discrimination because of disability, I have to think of people who I’ve known and admire very greatly who’ve had disabilities, and I’ve watched them struggle to overcome the barriers that society puts up often just because it doesn’t think of what it’s doing — the barriers that it puts up to them.

So those are some of the experiences that have shaped me as a person. [Emphasis added by the reprint from Salon.com]

Well, that’s akin to the comment that Gingrich and Karl Rove and the likes of Tom Tancredo have pounced on alleging her a racist–of all labels. 

No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects. Yet, because I accept the proposition that, as Judge Resnik describes it, “to judge is an exercise of power” and because as, another former law school classmate, Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives – no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging,” I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that–it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging….

…In our private conversations, Judge 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 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 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.

Okay, that’s hella long, but if you’re interested in being fully informed you’ll read it.  The full text can be found here at this link from the New York Times.  I would have dropped the YouTube, but I couldn’t find it.

Fact of the matter is that the GOP is launching a bunch of crock right now.  And even some Right-wingers know it.  I found this from a Right wing blog that said:

urther, I don’t think fighting Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination will do the right any good at this point. First of all, it’s a fight we CANNOT win. Not by a long shot. By summer, Republicans probably won’t even have the votes to filibuster her nomination. Allwe can do is throw out some nasty quotes, and that will just make the right look like sore losers.

Second, if we strongly oppose the first Latina into the Supreme Court, we will lose more Latino/Latina voters. We’ve already lost 2/3rds or that vote to the Democrats. We lose anymore and we’ve doomed ourselves nationally. Latino voters will in the future be so numerous that the Republicans absolutely CANNOT lose the vote at a high percentage. Many Latino voters seemed inclined to vote Republican in past elections, and the majority are conservative on many social issues. Let’s not alienate them in this unwinnable battle.

At a time, when the right is not in a particularly good position, we have to pick our battles. I don’t think this is a good one.

I think this begs, yet again, this country to have this serious conversation about diversity.  I doubt we’re ready to have a serious immigration talk.  I mean, if this country still can’t acknowledge the forced immigration of Africans to the Americas and yes even to this country, I highly doubt that we’re ready to talk about the immigration of others from Latin America north to the United States.  Honestly, I’m really not one to charge some of these political heads with being racist, but damn, just watching them recoil and get ready to pounce on this issue smacks of such wanton white privilege and ghastly unawares of racial issues in this country, I truly wonder if they really do ascribe to the idea that “white is right” and ultimately better than the rest–therefore making them racists in my book.

We must remain vigilant.

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Why?  Because yet again some random white woman, Bonnie Sweeten faked an abduction by two black men.  I mean in the face of the young girl last year who carved an “O” on her face saying that a black man assaulted her and that the “O” stood for Obama and of course the infamous 1994 drowning by Susan Smith of her kids after she said a black man had carjacked her with her kids still in the car.  

I personally don’t know how to feel about this one.  I mean should it make a difference that she accused two black men or should this just have been a story about a crazy random lady?

OHHHH, I know what it was, we in this country suffer from MWWS or Missing White Woman Syndrome.

I’m sure dozens of white women go missing weekly throughout this country and we hear nothing about them.   Or even dozens of women of color go missing and maybe not even a report gets filed on their behalf.  So what was so special about her? Maybe it’s because the “two black men” were involved in the telling of this story.  Maybe it’s the simple fact that race is at the forefront of our everyday existence but no one wants to really discuss it.  Seriously, throughout the story reported on the ABC link I dropped, there is no mention as to why she accused two black men and the ramifications it may have had.  The same was true for Nightline’s 5/28/09 report on this story.

Its definitely time to be vigilant in this country and to just use the inner critical thinking skills that I’m sure most of us have.  I don’t think we have the luxury of being force-fed information from the church house to the courthouse and from the news room to our living rooms.  I think we have to “wake up” and see things differently than what we once did in order to effectively change.  We’ve gotten stuck in a rut where we think, as a country, that if we do the same things, but do it harder: like, if we shout louder than we shouted before, but we’re still shouting the same rhetoric; or if we pray a bit harder the same tired prayers then maybe something will change.

And since we’re still in the same position as before, let’s try something different.

Do you think the Right/GOP/Conservative talking heads have outdone themselves with this one here? Is this the right battle for them to pick?  Do you think I was way off base as to why we know the name Bonnie Sweeten in the face of many others? 

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL

Now it sounded good when the name Leah Ward Sears was being thrown around for a possible nomination as Supreme Court Justice to replace retiring Justice David Souter, but I must say that I am definitely proud to see Sonia Sotomayor receive the nomination from the current President toward the Supreme Court of the United States.  Perhaps Sears’ main downfall was her friendship/relationship with good ol’ Justice Clarence Thomas.

If nothing else, I believe that this is the right time for her.  Granted I think the present is the best time for anything, but this most certainly is the best time politically for her to have her nomination.  With a near super-majority in the U.S. Senate confirmations should be nothing short of a breeze.  It’s actually lovely to see the Right in such a political tizzy over her because it’s not much that they can do about her.  Because when this Grand Ol’ Party of older white men would get to complaining they’d come off as anti-woman and anti-Latina which is not a good look for their party–ever.

But, I hope that this doesn’t act as a “handout” to Hispanics and Latinos in this country.  Much like the presidency of Barack Obama shouldn’t act as merely a notch to fill a quota for non-whites in political positions.  When Latinos only make up 6% of Congressional seats with 15% of the population or even with African Americans at 12% of the population and only having 8% of Congressional representation with both populaces having only one representative in the U.S. Senate.  The fact that one reporter asked some Latino students at Sotomayor’s former high school in the South Bronx as to “do you want more” with regards to seeing more Latino’s wield political power may have just been a regular journalistic question, but no doubt rings true for how I’m sure many white Americans may feel about the changing face of this country.

I wonder now what the uber-Conservative, underground trash talk will sound like now.  At first it was that the “damn niggers we’re takin’ over” and “thinkin’ that they own shit” in this country.  I’m sure no doubt we’ll hear the whole immigration debate flare up again because Sotomayor is the daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants and even though Puerto Rico has nothing to do with Mexico and the border, I’m sure someone over in FoxNews-land will make some correlation and I can only imagine what Rush Limbaugh is about to crank out now.

Apparently, the Right is using this term “judicial activist” which amounts to nothing more than code word for “liberal judge who doesn’t rule in our favor” to describe Sotomayor.  Specifically citing this very recent case which got some play by mainstream media, but it was much like the swine-flu media coverage, a few days and now no one remembers it.  In New Haven, Connecticut, home to Yale University, white firemen filed a lawsuit when their firefighters test had been thrown out by the city because no blacks had passed the test and in previous years had been able to do so.  They sued and appealed and Sotomayor was on the appeals bench and upheld the ruling under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, siding with the city.  It’s currently in front of the Supreme Court of the U.S. awaiting a decision.

The Right and other Republicans and conservatives are alleging her bias based on race and gender.

That’s such a specious argument, I wonder if it’s even worth the time of debunking.  Seriously, who doesn’t bring their own bias’ of race and gender to any deliberation session be it as a judge or not?  I mean are they seriously trying to say that Sotomayor is more biased than Samuel Alito or that bastion of conservatism John Roberts. 

Though Obama said he was looking for a nominee who demonstrates empathy and a “common touch,” some critics have cautioned against such criteria in a high court justice and issued reminders that the law must come first. 

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, in a written statement, said Tuesday he’s concerned Sotomayor has shown “personal bias based on ethnicity and gender.” 

“Judge Sotomayor will need to reassure the country that she will set aside her biases, uphold the rule of law and interpret the Constitution as written, not as she believes it should have been written,” said Smith, who will have no vote in the matter, as the confirmation is a Senate matter.

Perhaps Sotomayor’s most controversial decision was in Ricci v. DeStefano, in which she was part of a panel ruling against a group of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. — they objected after the city threw out the results of a promotion test because too many white firefighters, and not enough minority firefighters, scored high. 

She and two other judges summarily dismissed the case without tackling the complex issues outlined in stacks of briefs and debated in extended oral arguments. Instead, the court issued an unsigned, one-paragraph opinion. Sotomayor’s colleague, Judge Jose Cabranes, was so concerned that he wrote a lengthy dissent highlighting what many saw as an attempt to bury the case. 

“This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal,” he wrote. 

This type of biased reporting does nothing but twist and manipulate the mindless psyches of those who actually listen to the garbage that FoxNews reports on and calls is news.  Sotomayor isn’t some flaming liberal of the Al Franken sort, hell she got a former appointment to the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York by George H.W. Bush, but if anything she’s appearing to be middle-of-the-road and merely is calling a spade a spade as she sees it.  This same article goes on to say:

In 1993, Sotomayor threw out evidence obtained by police in a drug case, because a detective lied to obtain the search warrant — prosecutors agreed to a plea bargain. However, during sentencing Sotomayor made controversial statements by criticizing the five-year mandatory sentence, calling it an “abomination” that the defendant did not deserve. 

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., later grilled her on this, suggesting it showed disrespect for the law, during her confirmation hearing a decade ago for the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Sessions was one of 11 sitting Republican senators who voted against her at the time. Now the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sessions on Tuesday said Sotomayor would get a “fair and respectful hearing.” 

But he said some conservatives who voted against her a decade ago felt she had a “history of activism.” 

“I think she needs to address that,” Sessions told FOX News. “I think she’s entitled to a full and fair new evaluation.” 

Sessions also released a written statement saying the Senate must determine whether Sotomayor understands that the “proper role of a judge is to act as a neutral umpire of the law, calling balls and strikes fairly without regard to one’s own personal preferences or political views.” 

He’s from Alabama what do you expect.  

Although she has made some rather liberal comments in the past:

I mean even she knew after she said it that it was one of those “DAMN!  Did I just say that out loud?”

Well, I’m a biased uppity Negro and personally I’m happy to see a Latina woman get the nomination.  I’m pretty sure that she’ll get through the Senate with no problems barring nothing magnanimous arises in her past that even Dems can’t turn a blind eye toward and just vote in her favor.  It’s been more than time to have a Latina on the Supreme Court.

Do you think Sotomayor is right for the job?  Does it make a difference about her being a woman or being Latina, or even being a Roman Catholic?  What do you think the Right is going to do to criticize her nomination?

Keep it uppity and keep it truthfully radical, JLL