"[Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb is] overrated ... what we have here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback can do well--black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. There's a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

Rush Limbaugh, speaking on ESPN about quarterback Donovan McNabb in 2003.

"Here you have a racist -- you might want to soften that, and you might want to say a reverse racist. [...] [Liberals] of course, say that minorities cannot be racists because they don't have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone, because reverse racists certainly do have the power. [...] Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one."

Rush Limbaugh, speaking on his radio show about the selection of Sonia Sotomayor to join the Supreme Court.

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I want to start by looking at the comments made by Sotomayor that have sparked the fake controversy of "reverse racism." They were lifted from a commencement speech she made in 2002, and are as follows:

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

It is difficult to find this quote in context. If you do an internet search, all you find is the quote, by itself, supposedly self-evident of some deeper truth about the attitudes Sotomayor has towards race. This argument falls apart when the quote is put back into context.

The quote no longer has the power of a soundbite, but it regains the power of truth. 

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, 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.

Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

Sotomayor argues herethat the social group from which one emerges will effect, to a large degree, how they interpret justice for those of another group. Would a Supreme Court of all black men have allowed "separate but equal" to stand for as long as it did? Would a Supreme Court of all women have failed to uphold a gender discrimination case until the 1970s? Sotomayor is not a reverse racist, a forwards racist, or a sideways racist. She simply acknowledges the role that heritage plays in a judge's perception of facts, and in doing so makes a compelling argument for the necessity of diversity on the high court. There cannot be justice for all people unless those that mete out that justice are capable of some level of understanding and empathy with all people.

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So now we must turn back to those who cry reverse racist, as if that phrase has any real meaning. What is revealed by the reaction to a comment clearly taken out of context? In Rush, the reaction reveals that which he has already revealed about himself time and again: when he sees a successful person of color where only white men have succeeded before, he attempts to identify an external force that is responsible for that success. In his mind, it seems unfathomable that a person of color (McNabb, Sotomayor) might succeed in a field that has been the purview of mostly white men (NFL quarterback, Supreme Court justice). 

McNabb succeeds, not because the NFL wants a black quarterback to succeed, but because of Chunky Soup and that he throws the ball to his receivers. Sotomayor will succeed, not because she has reached her position through reverse racism, but in spite of actual racism.