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Hey GOP: 'White Male' Is an Identity, Too

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 14, 2009 5:50 AM CDT

(Newser) – Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation is in the bag, but this week's hearings have a real value, writes Eugene Robinson: They are exposing the Republican Party's "refusal to accept the basic principle of diversity." For the Washington Post columnist, the anger surrounding the judge's "wise Latina" remark rests on a creepy belief that only minorities and women have special identities, and "being white and male is seen instead as a neutral condition, the natural order of things."

The nomination of a Latina justice by a black president is a serious milestone for the nation, but some of the old white men on the Senate Judiciary Committee "seem a bit touchy about it." Jeff Sessions, in particular, laid into Sotomayor for acknowledging a judge's opinions and sympathies, experience and background—as if there are some judges who don't have any. With her confirmation assured, Robinson writes, the GOP should realize that "they can't damage her. They can only damage themselves."

[Images (5)]

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Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor delivers her opening statement on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 13, 2009. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Patrick Leahy swears in Sonia Sotomayor on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 13, 2009, during her confirmation hearing before the Senate judiciary committee. (AP Photo/Steven Crowley, Pool)

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Monday, July 13, 2009, during confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Sonia Sotomayor, accompanied by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., center, and the committee's ranking Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

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The only real suspense in the Sotomayor confirmation hearings is whether the Republican Party will persist in tying its fortunes to an anachronistic claim of white male exceptionalism and privilege. - Eugene Robinson, Washington Post

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