Message To White Conservatives: Dump The "Racist" Talk On Sonia Sotomayor

CNN.com:

The White House says Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor acknowledges she made a poor word choice in a 2001 speech in which she said that a Latina judge would often reach a better conclusion than a white male judge who hasn't lived the same life.

That's according to presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs. He says he has not talked directly to Sotomayor about it but has spoken to people who have.

Critics have singled out the 2001 comment by Sotomayor for criticism. She was describing how personal experiences can affect judging. She said a "wise Latina woman" with her experiences would more often than not reach a "better conclusion" than a white male.

Fine. Sotomayor's admitted that she made a mistake with the 'Latina judge' vs. 'White Male Judge' spiel 8 years ago. It was a dumb comment, but was it racist? Far from it. Funny too that white conservatives going after Sotomayor for supposedly being racist (like both Rush Limbaugh and Newt Gingrich did recently) fail to mention the case of Giuliani vs. Pappas, in which Sotomayor dissented from a majoring opinion and spoke up on the side of a white cop who was fired by the NYPD for distributing racist/anti-Semitic literature in his off hours. Sotomayor said the white cop’s first amendment rights should not be taken away simply because his speech may be distasteful to the majority--yeah, that sounds like a "racist" to me.

And listen, I understand that it was Barry who first played up the race card when he introduced Sotomayor as his SCOTUS nominee. And the liberal media has surely done their part to highlight Sotomayor's Latina roots and the fact that she overcame a poor environment growing up (the same yahoos that ignored Clarance Thomas' "great story" when he was nominated for SCOTUS, btw). But race and upbring shouldn't have anything to do with whether Sotomayor can aptly serve on the highest court in the land.

Yet, whether it's a dumb comment by a sitting minority judge, fireman exams that seem to favor blacks or the use of quotas in the workplace, these days white people have gotten real comfortable using the "R" word when they feel that they're victims of racism. But what some in the white world don't get is that a few wrongs will never overcome 400 years of physical, mental, economic and social oppression. Never. I'm not saying that white people should be quiet when they feel wronged due to their race, just be extra careful how you use the R-word. Sonia Sotomayor may be a lot of things conservatives don't like, but there's nothing in her file that indicates that she's racist. And Limbaugh and Gingrich look extra stupid now for going there.