The Court’s Impartiality
Friend of the Blog and PostBourgie co-blogger Shani just twittered this comment on the confirmation hearings:
The GOP’s roundabout way of saying that a woman of color has to work harder to be objective than a white male does is pissing me off.
What pisses me off is this completely ahistorical sense on part of Republicans that the Supreme Court is and always has been a perfectly just, perfectly impartial institution. For most of this country’s history, the default perspective on the nation’s highest court has been that of wealthy white men, and accordingly, the court’s rulings have reflected the biases and prejudices of its members. The court’s Dred Scott ruling, for instance, clearly reflects the fact that a majority of the Court’s members at the time were slaveholders. Likewise, the Court’s ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson clearly reflects a group of men who had – like most of their peers – internalized a narrative of black inferiority and black “difference.”
That the GOP refuses to acknowledge this obvious fact is extremely troubling, not only because it betrays a (at this point characteristic) disregard for history, but also because it seems to suggest that conservatives see Sotomayor as “defiling” the court with her empathy and her “Latina-ness.” For conservatives, the Court’s long era of white male dominance was marked by impartiality and fairness. And now, with the possibility of greater minority representation on the bench, we have to worry about bias and prejudice in the court’s opinions. This idea – that minorities will sully the reputation of <insert organization> – isn’t a particularly new one (it colors a lot of the early commentary on the Reconstruction-era South), and it’s incredibly offensive to boot.
What about Clarence Thomas? What about females like Harriet Miers & Sandra Day O’Connor? I, as a registered Republican, would like to see a supreme court that more accurately represents the demographics of the United States. That said, supreme court justices are to interpret the Constitution without acting on bias. Justice ought to be as blind as possible. I recognize that eliminating all bias is not possible. However, the Senate ought to confirm individuals that demonstrate as little bias as possible. Sotomayor is not that individual.
Had any candidate for the Court made about white men the same claim that Sotomayor had made about Latina women, they would rightly have been savaged and immediately disqualified from consideration.
And funny, but I don’t remember any of the Justices deciding Dred Scott discussing “the fact that a majority of the Court’s members at the time were slaveholders,” or those deciding Plessy v. Ferguson discussing your claim that they had “internalized a narrative of black inferiority and black ‘difference.’” Indeed, had any done so, they should have been forced off of the Court. And of course, the latter depends entirely upon your ability to read the minds of those Justices notwithstanding their actual comments, which is quite an ability there, Jamelle.
Or maybe you’re just a sanctimonious, self-serving race hustler.
Is that the default slur for any black person who dares question the almighty wisdom of his white overlords, Jim?
yes, yes it is.
WTF Jim, come back when you can separate your political beliefs from your racism.
No, Jamelle: it is the accurate description of a self-serving race-hustler who sanctimoniously presumes to read the minds of Supreme Court Justices more than a century dead. Few defends those decisions — I certainly don’t, finding myself in accord with Justice Harlan (with whom you probably disagree) who declared in his Plessy dissent that “our Constitution is color-blind” — but you work mightily to jam them into your race-conscious and rather silly world-view. It’s really pathetic, because your little construction is the road to race war, lacking even the slightest insight into true equality before the Law and racial harmony.
And Jacob, your comment demonstrates better than most that horse’s asses outnumber horses … regardless of race.
Two things:
1. I don’t even know what a “race hustler” is.
2. Are you seriously arguing that the Supreme Court of the mid to late 19th century – a Supreme Court made up almost entirely of wealthy white men – was not subject to the widespread and common biases of most – if not all – wealthy white men? What’s more, are you seriously arguing that there weren’t any slaveholders on the Court circa Dred Scott, because I’m making an easily verifiable factual claim there.
The simple fact, James, is that they don’t have to discuss the fact that they’re slaveholders or that they are racists (which again, nearly every white dude at the time held racial prejudice of some sort) for those biases to creep into their decision making. In fact, it is an empirically verifiable fact that our unconscious biases affect our decision making. Noting that very simple fact does not precipitate a “race war” nor does it make me a “race hustler” (which, again, I don’t know what that is). It simply makes me attuned to basic fact of human life, one which you are eager to deny, for what reason – I have no idea.