I was going to write a post about this, but Sociological Images beat me to it.

Republicans’ outrage, both real and feigned, at Sotomayor’s musings about how her identity as a “wise Latina” might affect her judicial decisions is based on a flawed assumption: that whiteness and maleness are not themselves facets of a distinct identity. Being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things. Any “identity” — black, brown, female, gay, whatever — has to be judged against this supposedly “objective” standard.

Thus it is irrelevant if Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. talks about the impact of his background as the son of Italian immigrants on his rulings — as he did at his confirmation hearings — but unforgivable for Sotomayor to mention that her Puerto Rican family history might be relevant to her work. Thus it is possible for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) to say with a straight face that heritage and experience can have no bearing on a judge’s work, as he posited in his opening remarks yesterday, apparently believing that the white male justices he has voted to confirm were somehow devoid of heritage and bereft of experience.

Actually, the Sociological Images post appears to be mostly a re-hashing of others’ points, but I love SocImages, so I’ll link to them instead.

I’ll add another point: an NPR story that I heard yesterday mentioned a study in which it was found that umpires were more likely to call pitches in the favor of a pitcher who was the same race as them. Because the strike zone is objectively defined, and because major league games use computerized tracking of pitches, it could be reasonably objectively determined that the umps were in fact making mistakes.

These umpires are presumably professionals, and presumably are not intentionally racist. The “rightness” and the “wrongness” of their calls is not only objectively defined, but it is highly scrutinized by millions of passionate observers. Therefore, they are probably highly motivated to make correct calls. And yet, their race seems to be a factor in their decisions. Given all that, why is it so controversial for Sotomayor to say that a judge’s race and background factor into his or her decision-making? A judge who claims otherwise should be the real anomaly.