San Francisco Chronicle, June 2, 2009 by Ian Haney Lopez
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/01/EDV017URB2.DTL

Sotomayor posited that racial identity matters in how judges make decisions. She said: “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….” Does this sound like a racist? No. It sounds like someone wrestling frankly with the heterogeneous identities we previously used to erect inequalities, and on which America now seeks to build its strength.

The Nation, May 25, 2009 by Ian Haney Lopez
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090525/following_souter

The central point is not to provide diverse role models, and it’s certainly not to maximize differences of every stripe. The essential thrust of identity politics is to accord special consideration to race, gender and class (plus sexual orientation and disability)—because these constitute core, persistent, unjust hierarchies…. Judge Sotomayor deserves our support not because of who she is but because of what she thinks—especially about the most injurious forms of structural injustice in the United States: race, gender and class.

CNN.com, April 10, 2009 by Kristi Keck
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/10/obama.immigration/

“We are a country of immigrants, and immigrants have always been essential to who we are culturally and socially. So it’s simply a mistake to see these people as somehow interlopers,” he said…. If immigrants were given amnesty and the opportunity to work for minimum wage, Americans wouldn’t see themselves as in competition with the undocumented workers, he said. “The way to reduce the attractiveness of immigrant labor is to legalize immigrant labor,” he said.