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Sotomayor's statement is an expression of prejudice, an exercise in stereotyping. It reminds us of an exchange on an early episode of "All in the Family," Archie Bunker and the Meathead are arguing over a brochure advertising a slate of candidates for local office:
Archie: What's the matter with this? I call this representative government. You've got Salvatori, Feldman, O'Reilly, Nelson--that's an Italian, a Jew, an Irishman and a regular American there. That's what I call a balanced ticket.Meathead: Why do you always have to label people by nationality?Archie: 'Cause, how else are you going to get the right man for the right job? For instance, take Feldman there. He's up for treasurer. Well, that's perfect. All them people know how to handle money. Know what I mean?Meathead: No, I don't.Archie: Well, then you got Salvatori running for D.A. He can keep an eye on Feldman. You know, I want to tell you something about the Italians. When you do get an honest one, you really got something there.Meathead: Aw, c'mon, Arch.Archie: Well, then here you got O'Reilly, the mick. He can see that the graft is equally spread around, you know. You got Nelson, the American guy. He's good for TV appearances, to make the rest of them look respectable.Like Sotomayor, Archie is not propounding a theory of racial or ethnic supremacy but describing the world in terms of culturally contingent stereotypes. He is engaging in identity politics.
What's fascinating about this is that the Meathead (played by Rob Reiner) is a peer of La Jueza Empática: She was born in 1954; Reiner, in 1947. But the liberalism of "All in the Family" is not the liberalism of the baby boomers. It is that of an earlier generation--Archie Bunker's generation. Series creator Norman Lear and Carroll O'Connor, who played Archie, were born in 1922 and 1924, respectively.
Today, you can easily imagine a conservative uttering the Meathead's earnest query: "Why do you always have to label people by nationality?" But somewhere along the line, liberalism lost its ideals and adopted Archie Bunker's theory of representative government.
James Taranto
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