Baldo by Hector D. Cantú and Carlos Castellanos for June 23, 2009

she’s got a point

Someone challenged me to read Sotomayor’s famous “wise Latina” speech. You can Google and find it on a UCB site. The entire speech shows that she only thinks of people (and especially herself) as members of a group (racial, ethnic, whatever) and not as individuals. This is not a good thing on the Supreme Court that should be the final line of defense of individual rights.

I applaud Cantu and Castellanos as well as Tia Carmen’s companion for presenting this small measure of individualism: the idea that the reality and value of the individual supersede whatever attributes one shares with others. Though he used different words, that was the idea behind another famous speech: Martin Luther King’s magnificent “I have a dream”.

I actually decided to go find the speech and read it myself too. I thought it was a pretty good speech. Here’s a link if anyone else wants to read it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/us/politics/15judge.text.html?_r=1

It was for “a symposium issue entitled ‘Raising the Bar: Latino and Latina Presence in the Judiciary and the Struggle for Representation’ ” so the speech was for that audience. While she does stress the importance of her background, she ends with the following:

“I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.”

I don’t have enough informatino on the woman to form an opinion. I just think what Caremn’s friend said was funny. I used to have a co-worker just like her. Didn’t like any of her son’s girlfriends either. Beautiful Puerto Rican woman with this crazy Miami attitude. She’s kinda like the aunt I always wanted.

Miss ya, Annie!

Carmen’s friend (in first three panels) was on the nail!

(btw, I will not vote for–nor even stand in false solidarity about “community” with–Indians with whom I have issues)

I don’t play that game either, you DO HAVE to look at the person.

That doesn’t bother me.

There is a reason that Lady Justice wears a blindfold.

Yeah, but the problem is she judges with her heart and not her head meaning every rapist that said i’m sorry heartfeltly and said i had a bad childhood would get off scot-free

I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.

Great! Another person judging with their heart not by the constitution our government was founded on. If law is biased based on the individual then is it really law?

Way to completely miss the point, Sotomayor decriers. Your bias is showing.

It’s funny how our biases and opinions becomes so personal that our views of others are viewed to depict our family members.

How can we look at a person and not be biased?

And the debate goes on. Even in the comics.