Democratic National Convention – Images by Khari Johnson

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee will vet Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor ahead of a vote to confirm her as the next Justice on the US Supreme Court.

If confirmed, which most agree she will be, Judge Sotomayor will become the first Latino and the third woman to sit on the highest court of the land.

She will be the only Justice with trial experience, with more federal court experience than any judge nominated to the bench in more than 100 years and the only to be confirmed three times by the U.S. Senate in the same amount of time.

Judge Sotomayor’s identity as a woman and Latina who grew up in the south Bronx in a single parent household, she freely admits, impact her view of the world but believes it an enhancement, not hindrance, in her ability to decide cases, as was made plain in the statement made at UC Berkeley in 2003 that a wise Latina woman may “reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

That comment, along with other speeches, has had many on the right paint her as an activist judge, who, if confirmed, will push her own social and political agenda, following empathy, not rule of law.

In reflection of this week’s hearings, we look back at speeches made earlier this year by California legal heavyweights to two local organizations who will undoubtedly be watching this week with special interest.

Holly Fujie is the 84th president of the State Bar of California, and like Sotomayor, only the third woman and first of her race to hold her position. She spoke to Women of Color in Law at their annual luncheon in February.

Justice Carlos Moreno of the Calif. Supreme Court spoke to the San Diego La Raza Lawyers Association last month. He was rumored to be in the conversation for the US Supreme Court nomination and was the single dissenting opinion in the latest round of the court’s verdicts on gay marriage, ruling to knock down Prop. 8.

“Sotomayor’s statements that a ‘wise Latina woman’ can make ‘better’ decisions have brought on allegations ranging from “reverse racism” to “radical multiculturalism,” Justice Moreno said.

“But to acknowledge the influence of race, among other demographics, on one’s perspective is not to say that racial sympathies (even if we assume they exist) can or should ever trump a judge’s solemn oath to follow the law, as some of Sotomayor’s critics have alleged.”

“Instead, acknowledgement of race and ethnicity is an important part of recognizing the need to diversify the bench in all respects, and at all levels, with individuals whose breadth of life experience and thought actually complements the breadth and scope of cases brought before us as judges.

Diversity in law may not just change legal outcomes, Justice Moreno said, but may also change Americans perception of justice.

“This is especially true for the judiciary, because how can the public have trust and confidence in an institution charged with protecting the rights of all, if that very institution is segregated? If the communities that institution is supposed to protect are excluded from its ranks?”

Our legal system is “on the whole respected because of the trust that society has that it will be treated fairly. A diverse judiciary and legal system strives to ensure that whatever the outcome in a case, a party will not perceive that it has been prejudged.”

In an introduction for Justice Moreno, Fujie called herself a “Justice Moreno groupie” and in one of his first examples of the importance of diversity on the bench, Moreno would cite the case that sent Fujie’s parents to internment camps during World War II, Korematsu v. U.S. If a Japanese American was on the Supreme Court at the time of the hearing, he argues, things may have been very different.

“First, a Japanese American Justice would have been evidence, contrary to the Court’s reasoning, that those who were of Japanese descent were extremely loyal to the United States and were not a greater source of danger than those who were not of Japanese descent.

“Second, it is likely that a Japanese American Justice would have been able to enlighten the other members of the Court as to the conditions existing in local Japanese communities at the time, as well as the patriotism exhibited by many Japanese Americans who volunteered to serve in the war. I call this judges educating judges.”

In her speech to Women of Color in Law in February, President Fujie would discuss the embarrassing or disturbing, like how Asian women are seen as either the “dragon lady or Geisha girl”, women being mistaken for the court reporter instead of the lawyer or judge and an Asian woman friend of hers being told by another lawyer that he had “yellow fever.”

“And she honestly didn’t know what he was talking about so she turned to him and said ‘Oh my God, are you contagious?’”

There are “dual stereotypes” to battle she said but women of color are most often fighting women’s issues more than racial or ethnic ones. And, it’s not just about diversity, but respect.

Fujie doesn’t address Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation directly since she was nominated after this speech was delivered but offers opinions on what it is to be a woman of color practicing law in California and the need not just for diversity but respect for women for the good of the profession and society.

“When I think of how important it is to get respect and how, if we don’t have respect, that we cannot lead. We cannot do well. We cannot get power in this country. And that people talk about, for me it’s the most important word in what we do. Because people talk about tolerance, they talk about acceptance.”

“Well I’m sorry if you tolerate something. I tolerate brussel sprouts. I tolerate this kind of rubber chicken that I eat a lot of. I accept things that I cannot change.”

“And thats not the same as respect. You need to respect people in order to feel they are your equal or can be above you.”

But respect isn’t gained with only one person “because one person, they will think, is an anomily.”

Though she counts several great women of accomplishment in California law, she argues they are no different or capable than other women of color and that the perception that women of color who succeed are somehow special needs to change.

“Now we are super women. Were great women. I mean the women in this room are fabolous but were not super human. We are people. And the fact that we are able to do what we do means that you can do it too.”

She would go on to say to the several law students in attendance “if we could hear that one of you people in this room is on the US Supreme Court, it makes everything worthwhile.”

Even as the president of the state bar, she is not without her opinions.

“I’m going to tell you something that I probably shouldnt say in public but it is that somebody told my husband who didn’t know that I deal with all the federal judicial selections and said ‘You know what, if you’re a white male Republican in LA you just can’t become a judge.’

And my response was ‘good.’”

As a partner at a firm, Fujie hears casual conversation among men lawyers that she says makes her “an honorary old white guy” and that disrespect on display, she said, “is very frightening because to me it represents a real backlash, a real erosion in the gains that we have made over the last 30 years because I think that as a general rule I would say that a lot of times, the perception of worth is based upon making money.”

“I hear them [men in law firms] disrespecting women, women partners, me included. I’m the president of the state bar. How do you… you know… I’m not sure how they do that but they do and these are all men who have wives who don’t work and when you hear them talk about their wives, they are disrespectful.”

“And I just think that’s the most horrible thing. It’s horrible for their spouses, it’s horrible for the women they work with because it engenders, you know, just an atmosphere of disrespect which I think is just bad for our profession as well as for our society.”

“…when your spouse respects you, your spouse is far more likely to respect women that he works with.”

“So we have to understand that we have to value ourselves. We have to get respect. We have to be sure that we understand what we are capable of. That we understand that we could rule the world if we wanted to.”

Today was full of opening statements by Senate Judiciary Committee members, tomorrow questioning begins, Wednesday witnesses will speak then finally a vote will be taken. But today, Judge Sotomayor had the last words.

“The process of judging is enhanced when the arguments and concerns of the parties to the litigation are understood and acknowledged. That is why I generally structure my opinions by setting out what the law requires and then by explaining why a contrary position, sympathetic or not, is accepted or rejected.”

“That is how I seek to strengthen both the rule of law and faith in the impartiality of our justice system. My personal and professional experiences help me listen and understand, with the law always commanding the result in every case. ”

One of the best parts of coming to Washington has been getting to know more about my grandma’s sister, Ethel Payne, who I always knew as Aunt Ethel.

She was one the first black woman White House correspondents, starting her career in Japan, publishing work that started in her journal and ended in the pages of The Chicago Defender.

Over a career she would cover the White House through seven American presidents, starting with Eisenhower, eventually earning her the nickname “The First Lady of the Black Press.” She would become America’s first female African-American commentator employed by a national network on the CBS show “Spectrum.”

Her job, she said, was a “box seat to history.”

No question that’s where she was.

She was there for the Montgomery bus boycotts. Desegregation at the University of Alabama. The 1963 march on Washington and several trips around the South and rest of the nation reporting on the Civil Rights movement.

As I understand it, she was the only black woman in the room when the Civil Rights Act was signed in 1964. A decade earlier, her willingness to ask questions others wouldn’t got her in trouble with President Eisenhower when she questioned segregation on interstate highways. Eisenhower wouldn’t call on her again. But she knew who she was writing for, and sought answers on issues her readers wanted to know or should know about.

In today’s stumbling media, her work was a testament to the need for a diversity of perspectives in media. That a well rounded group of people are necessary to pose questions to the powerful.

She filed datelines from Vietnam, Taiwan, Liberia, Nigeria, Kenya, Denmark, Brazil, China and other countries around the world.

Though a citizen of the world, Aunt Ethel’s parents were part of that Great Migration north. She was always a loyal child of Chicago’s South Side, growing up in the Englewood neighborhood with my grandmother and four other siblings. That’s less then five miles from Obama’s old Hyde Park neighborhood and less than 10 from Grant Park where Obama accepted the nomination for president.

Posthumously, she would have her letters, possibly her dining room set and other artifacts moved to places like the Howard University archives, the Anacostia Community museum which is ran by the Smithsonian and the Washington Press Club Foundation.

In 2002 her face was put on a postage stamp as part of a series of stamps for women journalists.

I purposely kept from learning too much about her writing style and works in journalism so I could humbly take the necessary lumps and lessons to become a journalist. If there were shoes I felt needed to be filled, I didn’t want to pressure myself into them. I have my own path to follow.

Now out of school and more comfortable with my own abilities, I sought out people she used to know while I’m in town covering the inauguration. I always knew about here sense of duty, reputation for being a fearless independent voice and unquenchable wanderlust but I’m just beginning to learn more about the details of her life. More to the person she was beyond the rattling, impressive life’s work.

I’ll continue to interview her friends in DC after the inauguration and sift through archives but I wanted to speak with Ethel’s good friend Kathy Brown ahead of Jan. 20 to ask how she thinks Aunt Ethel would have felt to see such history when she spent so much of her life following history and championing progress.

Kathy Brown met Aunt Ethel (we both knew her as Aunt Ethel) in 1964. They would remain good friends until Ethel passed away in May 1991.

The two of us met for an interview after the sermon at Shiloh Baptist Church Sunday. I didn’t count at the time but she’s wearing more than 20 Obama buttons on her hat.

She’s also wearing a mink coat given to her by Aunt Ethel shortly before she died and was able to explain more to me about how Aunt Ethel kept a correspondence with Winnie Mandela and went to South Africa to visit shortly after he was released from prison. How she was close with Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

And that it wouldn’t surprise her at all if she knew Barack or Michelle Obama, especially since Aunt Ethel went to Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s old church, when she was in Chicago.

So Sarah Pulliam is a reporter for Christianity Today. We worked together a few years ago at the Colorado Springs Gazette. Sunday’s big “We Are One” concert at the Lincoln Memorial and that aired on HBO, starting with the invocation of Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire. It was suggested he was asked to speak to offset the choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation in the inaugural ceremonies. Didn’t really matter. It seems HBO didn’t air Robinson’s prayer.

Maybe it didn’t get air play but it lit YouTube up like a pinball machine. ranked number one in news and politics videos today and made the top views lists in countries around the world. Overall it was fourth most viewed video of the day with 116,344 views (including two myself) since being added Sunday night.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee and HBO has since apologized, saying that he was part of a pre-show and not the main show telecast which started at 2:30, not when Robinson spoke ten minutes earlier. It will be included in updated versions of the concert.

“It is ironic that he wasn’t in our telecast,” they said in a statement “as the whole show conveyed a message of unity and inclusion. He would have fit in perfectly.”

Here’s the prayer’s text in-full.

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president. …

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah. …