Life Experience, Ethnicity and Gender

I was just reading the news that critics fear the new Supreme Court nominee will make opinions "based on her own life experience, ethnicity and gender rather than on the law."

Snort.

THEY ALL [Supreme Court Justices] make opinions based largely on their own life experience, ethnicity and gender. But nobody notices because most of the justices are of a majority ethnicity. Nobody notices the screen we each look through in forming our thoughts about the world. But when we see someone of a different ethnicity and gender from our own, we assume that "they" have ethnicity and "we" don't. They are "different" and we are not. The statement from the critics is based on an assumption that their own way of seeing the world is completely impartial, entirely neutral, just because it is what they are used to, it is what they see as of the majority; the "normal" way of seeing the world.

I am here to say that, contrary to the beliefs I unconsciously formed while growing up, Caucasian is not "normal." Male [in a role of authority] is not "normal." "Conservative" is not normal. "Liberal" is not normal. Human is normal. Variegated is normal.

Unity in diversity: the watchword of the Baha'i Faith.

Off Soapbox.

Thank you.