-By Jake T. Snake
Been doing some reading about the president's supreme court nominee Sonia Sotomayer. The response from the right has been predictable and loathsome, as usual. A large bone of contention in the right blogosphere seems to be that not only is she Latina and female, but acknowledges that both of these things have influenced her world view. Duh! This leads to the inevitable slur of identity politics being thrown at her. Ms. Sotomayer, unlike recent nominees to the court is honest about who she is and what has influenced her.
Here's a newsflash, white men practice identity politics and form their worldview on the basis of being white and male. The right can't see this is racism in its purest form. Us white dudes are culturally seen as the normal default setting, the baseline, if you will. Any divergence from us is identity politics. White guys denying anyone different from them voting rights is just good old fashioned protecting American Values (but whose american values). You can catch up with these guys on the weekends dressed in Confederate civil war garb reenacting the battles the Confederacy won and blathering about states' rights. Then when the battle is over, its home for a quick change into the silk robes and out for a cross burning.
I also wonder why the court is "activist" only when it not hewing closely enough to a hard right conservative agenda.
The sad, but amusing part of this spectacle is watching some of our countries most strident racists (Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich) accuse the nominee of being racist. The complete and utter lack of even a shred of insight would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic. Let's also grow up and realize that there might be a difference between recognizing one's racial identity and incorporating it into your identity versus using power in a way that actively harms people of other races or genders or sexual orientation or religions or...nevermind.
John Roberts is practicing identity politics and sadly will be for the next 30 years. The question is this. What identity do we want our nation to have as a result of its supreme court? Do we want our court to represent all the countries constituents or just to act as a tool of the rich and the powerful to disenfranchise the vast majority of us?