Indeed

Coates makes my argument a lot better than I did.

Her statement: I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Note - this is the argument Robyn pretty much offers in her comment.

Coates:

I think we can immediately dispense with the crazies who think this statement should disqualify Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. It's worth noting that William Rehnquist once endorsed segregation, and yet rose to be Chief Justice of the court.

That said, I think Sotomayor's statement is quite wrong. I understand the basis of it, laid out pretty well by Kerry Howley over at Hit & Run. The idea is that Latinos have a dual experience that whites don't have and that, all things being equal, they'll be able to pull from that experience and see things that whites don't. The problem with this reasoning is it implicitly accepts the logic (made for years by white racists) that there is something essential and unifying running through all white people, everywhere. But White--as we know it--is a word so big that, as a descriptor of experience, it almost doesn't exist.

It's worth reading his entire post. My criticism is initially more with Obama's self stated criteria that he was looking for a minority to fill the open seat. His logic is similar to what Sotomayor outlines above. But again, this doesn't disqualify her as a candidate, it just makes the process lame, the same way the NBA would be lame if they used racial quotas to fill the teams.