Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I've been tuning in the Sotomayor confirmation hearing off and on, not hanging on every word. But the impression I get is that far more than really asking questions to help them make up their minds about her, the senators are largely taking opportunities to lecture Sotomayor on what they think they'd do if they were judges, and/or to speechify for the sake of sound bites to play for their constituents back home come the next reelection campaign. (Maybe some of what they're saying is to try to convince other senators how to vote as well, but that's not the vibe I'm getting most of the time.)

If my impressions are correct -- and between not being an expert on these things and not having paid attention to every hour so far that's admittedly a significant 'if' -- if my impressions are right, then does this really need to take four days?

I'm hearing a lot of, "In such-and-such you did this thing I disagree with and I'm going to go on at length as to why even though I don't have a real question that you can answer but haven't already," and a lot of, "Wow, I'm a big fan, and let me expound about my judicial philosophy and try to think of something I can criticize you for so that I don't sound like I'm just cheerleading." Most of the 'real' (in my perception) questions I've heard have seemed to indicate a stunning lack of awareness of differences of privilege between dominant and minority classes or the ways in which unconscious bias -- unconscious because it's unexamined -- affects the perceptions of many members of a privileged class.

I've heard some meaningful questions, but between the lecturing and the "gotcha" attempts and the blindness to privilege[*], I'd have to say that as a whole I'm not terribly impressed by these senators.

[*] The main form here seems to be the idea that a member of a minority who speaks of having awareness of disprivilege or the needs of minority groups is "biased", but someone who has never examined the various sorts of privilege and bias built into the culture -- the kyriarchy, if you will -- is "neutral" and "unbiased". It's easy to see how this mindset arises, as the whole nature of privilege reinforces it, but it's still annoying and disappointed to see so much of it in the folks whom we really need more clarity from: those who write our laws.