Rex Murphy in the Globe and Mail on Sotomayor, America, and Identity politics:
Ms. Sotomayor is a nominee, on the other hand, because identity
politics - like to like, even in “postracial” America - is still a
prevailing dynamic. (...) And it is Ms. Sotomayor's “identity” in this sense that both she and
the President regard as critical. Ms. Sotomayor has made it abundantly
clear that she regards her Latino roots (and gender) as determinants of
her way of seeing things. “Whether born from experience or inherent
physiological or cultural differences ... our gender and national
origins may and will make a difference in our judging.” The key,
startling word there is “inherent.” She's claiming (among other
characteristics) that an “inherent physiological” difference “may and
will” shape her view. Claiming that judgment or reasoning is even
partly conditioned by inherent physiological elements of one's
ethnicity is very odd.
It is very close to, if not the same as, saying that there is
innate, in her ethnicity, qualities that make her a better judge. Which
she seems to claim. For in the same lecture from which I'm quoting, she
concludes “... 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.”
(...) Identity politics is a closed circuit. It
shuts the door to other experiences, even denying the possibility of
transcending them. It is the very contradiction of empathetic power.
(...) Diversity, in the American case, seems to be turning on itself.
Every group is an island of difference and there are no bridges. Unless
you are of the group, you cannot “understand” it. And it has led, at
least in Ms. Sotomayor's words, to a curious world where ethnic and
gender characteristics are posited as the determinative basis of
“superior” views, of people contained within their identities.
I'm open-minded on the "Sotomayor" issue even though I'm uncomfortable with the roles that race and empathy play in the nominating process, which shows that the whole post-racial thing was just an electoral gimmick. I am less interested in who Sotomayor is than in what her views are and I think that the issue here comes from the fact that there is no longer a difference between views and being and that in America, it is still assumed that one's race and ethnicity determines one's being.
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