Senator Jeff Session has opened Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing by saying individuals “should not bring their own personal background” into the courtroom. Again under the white sheet of impartiality, he wants the brown woman appointed by the brown man to ignore who they are, but as a white man it’s okay for him to bring his personal perspective to the table.
This is the hypocrisy or racism in two thousand nine – crying white men who believe that simply acknowledging the differences in experience and perspective that people of color, women, homosexuals and other recently and historically discriminated against individuals is racist because their race is a part of their person. These crybabies think that there is an objective (read: normal, meaning white and male) standard, and that anyone who deviates from that does so as an activist, or a reverse racist.
Senator Session’s opening statement is a restatement of white privilege under a new sheet. And his twisting of Judge Sotomayor’s personal experience is politics as usual. It’s a good thing that while he does have a microphone, it’s waterproof.
