Sonia and The Man - McWhorter brings reason and thoughfulness to the discussion on Judge Sotomayor

The reasons I love reading John McWhorter is his close detail to language, he is a linguist.

In Sonia and The Man he is quick to point that Judge Sotomayor will be a fine justice. But he continues into a excellent explanation of how he views her attempts to qualify her past statements, "wise latina" in particular, were logically hopeless. He is correct. Refering the "wise latina" McWhorter writes,

"This is a statement that a certain racial group does have an 'advantage.' 'I stand by the words. It fell flat,' Sotomayor says --which is closer to the truth. She believed what she said, but what she said didn’t go over well with others listening in. But -- not because she didn’t use the proper wording, but because of what the words clearly meant."

Essentially she should have and wishes she had made the statement with finesse.

This is a fantastic essay from Mr. McWhorter. I sincerely hope you click through and read it in its entirety.

Here is a link to a previous essay on Judge Sotomayor from John McWhorter. Sphere: Related Content