The newest black-robed deity talks the language of pop-Marxism, the fundamental belief system of the man who appointed her. Sotomayor’s now-famous comment about how she possesses special and unique legal insights by virtue of being a “Latina woman” is an expression of what used to be called “Marxian class consciousness,” that is, one’s views are determined by the social class one belongs to. In the old days the relevant Marxian classes were the working and capitalist classes. After the worldwide collapse of socialism in the late ’80s/early ’90s, the pop Marxists of academe switched their tune to a different sort of class struggle: Now it’s the White Heterosexual Male Oppressor “class” versus all of the various mascot groups of the academic left, i.e., women, minorities, homosexuals, Latinos, the transgendered, etc., etc.
P.S. A friend who is married to a Latino woman makes good use of Sotomayor’s lingo whenever his wife asks him to perform various chores around the house: He tells her that as a Latina woman she has special skills in doing the chores, and should therefore do them herself.
2:19 pm on August 6, 2009
