Are either one, or both, of these statements racist?
I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn’t lived that life.
or
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
Both are.
The problem with basing a Supreme Court pick on “empathy” is that it necessarily means empathy for someone and and not for someone else. Basically, Obama has declared that her personal biases, not her ability to interpret the constitution or generate rules of law that can be applied fairly in most cases in which they are needed, is paramount.
When I was in law school, we often heard the phrase, “Hard cases make bad law.” In other words, judges trying to do the “right” thing in the case before them so as to eliminate perceived hardship end up making rules that must be applied in other cases with unitended results.
