Knock Off The Empathy Stuff
May 27, 2009 6 Comments
All the news stories I saw mentioning President Obama’s Supreme Court pick made special mention of that quote from a while back where he said he would look for someone with “empathy”. The “empathy” debate has thus trickled up into mainstream news to the point where they feel obligated to make it part of the conversation.
Now look. I’m as fond of finding reasons to criticize the President as the next guy. And I’m guilty of harping on the “empathy” quote myself. But isn’t it time to give it a rest with the “empathy” thing? It was one quote he gave, in one answer, to one question, in a certain context. As far as I can tell, President Obama never said My One And Only Criterion Is That The Person Has Empathy, or anything akin to that. And as far as I can tell, this pick is perfectly qualified.
I think the “empathy” quote should have been discussed (as it was, and I participated), but then dropped. I’m tired of hearing about it.
It’s really time to drop it.
I absolutely disagree with you. She is not qualified to be on the Supreme Court. As you do not tell us why you think she is, I am in the dark. However, I will say that she’s a racist, and has made it clear, both in verbal testimony and in writing, on numerous occasions that she is.
Therefore, she is not qualified, according to my criteria. Are you ok with avowed racists on the Supreme Court, or do you think she didn’t really mean it?
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2009/05/yes-shes-racist.html
Well I haven’t seen anything to convince me she’s a “racist”. The gotcha quotes people are citing don’t do it. She seems to have some bad/dumb ideas but this would be true of virtually anyone Obama would pick. She’s qualified in the sense of having from what I can tell is a reasonably distinguished career on the bench, with no real scandalous acts or decisions, at least none her critics have been able to dig up yet.
More to the point, she was the President’s choice and is almost certain to be confirmed. In a very real sense these are the only *real* qualifications for the SC.
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 … WHETHER BORN FROM EXPERIENCE OF INHERENT PHYSIOLOGICAL or cultural differences our gender and national origins [euphemism for race] may and will make a difference in our judging….”
That’s not racist? Inherent physiological differences?
I guess you could think she means the inherent physiological differences in a woman …
Well, I don’t know exactly what she meant by that. I don’t know what the context was. But there’s a way to read that quote as simply a realist position: ‘identity’ *will* affect judging.
“Inherent physiological differences” doesn’t strike me as a “racist” notion. There ARE inherent physiological differences between races. (Skin hue, for one thing.) If there weren’t, we would never be able to identify which race a person was and the concept wouldn’t exist. But it does and we can. So again, there’s a way to read that quote as “realism”.
But maybe she’s “racist” for saying those things. I think I need to think about why those quotes don’t bother me all that much (relatively speaking – again, I’m likely to be philosophically distant from anyone Obama nominates). The more immediate description that comes to mind is just “generic lefty claptrap” of a variety I’ve heard a zillion times.
The way I took the quote, initially, is that she was saying there are inherent physiological differences which directly create a different perspective. In other words, Hispanics just think differently than white people, because their brains are wired differently.
But, you are right, the quote is squishy enough that we don’t really know what she is saying. If she is simply saying, for instance, that being brown-skinned in a largely white world means that one has a different social perspective, then there is no doubt that that is true.
I get it.
And, by the way, if this is the only time she has ever said anything of the like, then the hyper-ventilating is lame.
Of course, she’s also a member of La Raza, which is a racist organization, but unfortunately, this country has, because of the soft racism of low expectations, tolerated idiotic racism from minorities for too long for us to turn around and complain now.
Well actually, I think I will complain. I think it’s totally fucked up that blacks, like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton can go around saying and doing the things they say and do and still be afforded respect on the national stage. Likewise, I think it’s totally fucked up that almost every University campus in the United States has a Mecha representative group, when Mecha is one of the most disgutingly racist organizations out there.
We Americans are idiots to tolerate this. And, by the way, I do not have to say “we white people” are idiots … I mean, we Americans. Because it is America’s Declaration of Independence which says “all men are created equal”. It is not white people’s declaration.
So, as Americans, we have allowed an untenable situation to go on for too long. And, it needs to stop.
Of course, we’re not going to win the argument on the stage of this Nomination fight, but we are idiots not to speak up for what is right.
You’re right that we tolerate idiotic racism from minorities. I’m playing my part when I say her comments don’t bother me that much
And like I said, I need to think more about why that is. best