The Fusion of Empathy, Experience & Princeton in the Mindsets of Sonia Sotomayor, Michelle Obama & Women Like Me

Princeton University is front and center in my mind today, and I have more questions than answers.

Sonia Sotomayor '76 stands next to the tigers outside Nassau Hall after winning the Pyne Prize, the highest general distinction conferred on an undergraduate. via Daily PrincetonI'm intrigued with the fact that Princeton, an Ivy League university called "infamous for being racially the most conservative of the Ivy League universities" by Michelle Obama, is again making headline news.

Nominated Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor takes the world stage, following Michelle Obama, in going under the investigative microscope, where every word and action from a young life are fodder for the digital universe.

Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor never crossed paths at Princeton. Yet, their words resonate together.

Both women were actively involved in Princeton's Third World Center, renamed in 2002 to be the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding. Fields, a former Princeton dean, was the first African-American to hold such a high-ranking post at an Ivy League school.

Now we have two distinguished women of color at Princeton and the first African-American dean at any Ivy League school.

Conservative commentators could write: "Can we agree that something must have been going right at Princeton for minorities."

Sonia Sotomayor is in 'hot water' for her 2001 comment in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley conference on law and diversity: “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.”

For me the key word in this sentence is 'better', as opposed to 'different'. I trust that Conservatives wouldn't be calling Sotomayor 'rascist' had she used the word 'different'.

Empathy and Critical Thinking

America finds itself in a comparatively unique spot in our evolving discussion of race relations. President Obama's 'empathy' word, a descriptor on his Supreme Court justice shopping list, raised more than a few eyebrows, but I know what he meant.

'Empathy' is a Smart Sensuality woman's word.

Reaction to Obama's search for an empathetic judge were strident among both Conservatives and Liberals. Conservatives argue that there's no room for empathy in the black and white world of law and order.

Some liberals argue that every action must be evaluated within the background of individual circumstances. In this case, the law is malleable.

The question at hand is whether Smart Sensuality women like Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama can make reasoned decisions, governed by a more feminine set of empathetic principles.

Both women admit freely and wrote that they experienced a great sense of alienation and not belonging to the larger society, in their years at Princeton. Does this experience destroy their capability for reasoned thinking?

The school was "an alien land for me," Sotomayor recalled two decades later, describing how Puerto Rican activism and the hub of minority politics, The Third World Center, "provided me with an anchor I needed to ground myself in that new and different world." via Politico

Michelle Obama wrote: "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before," the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction. "I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong." via Politico

Both women wrote about racial identity at Princeton in their senior thesis.

Implicit in the Conservative accusation that both women are 'rascist' is the argument that the original framers of the American Constitution got everything right and who are we to question it.

Rules Reconsidered

Keeping the facts very simple, our forefathers believed that the country was properly run by white men with guns and all the property.

'Empathy' doesn't eliminate reason and order in our thinking, but it does allow for thoughtful reconsideration or reinterpretation of the rules as originally written.

Conservatives would have you believe that a questioning, argumentative American mind is a bad thing. During the Bush/Cheney years I honestly felt that in inquiring mind was unpatriotic, that critical thinking had become unAmerican.

There's this simmering brew about the land -- a minority brew, in my opinion -- that women like Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama are subversive. Women, in particular, are to be feared because we have 'empathy', as if 'empathy' is irrational in a world that's rule-driven, with standards that always work at peak efficiency.

In fact, there's a lot of 'grey matter' in reality. Look how many split decisions we have on the supreme court. 'Grey matter' is not to be feared, nor is empathy. Both are crucial to critical thinking.

Intellect As A Fusion of Experience and Ideas

In reflecting on the complex worlds of Sonia Sotomayor, Michelle Obama and Princeton, I am wondering about Princeton's positive role in the clarification of their thinking and development of civic values.

Let me share with you a profound impression that I experienced decades ago, one that balanced my liberal philosophy with a reality check. This impression didn't render me less empathetic as a person, but perhaps wiser.

In the world of post-Attica riot prison politics, I was invited into the prison on a regular basis. There was actually a two-day hunger strike at Attica when the warden tried to turn off my Buffalo NBC Sunday morning radio show, having nothing to do with men.

When the warden turned my women's isues show back on, he asked to meet with me.

The Attica warden (name long lost in memory) and I got along very well. He saw me as an empathetic woman, but also a very reasonable and fair person.

As a result, I enjoyed a freedom to speak widely with prisoners at Attica, and I did just that. I knew Winston Moseley, Kitty Genovese's murderer.

My empathy towards the dramatically challenging problems for people of color or living in poverty in America never died. But my civic values were also sharpened by another side of my Attica experience.

In the many thoughtful, indepth conversations that I had with prison inmates at Attica, only two men ever expressed any remorse for what had happened. The first robbed a bank, and no one was hurt.

The second exception was John, Attica's post-riot imam, with whom I spent an extensive amount of time.

Winston Moseley laughed about Kitty Genovese's murder, reality that chilled my own being as I watched him many times and spoke with him twice.

Most Attica men I spoke with believed that they were victims of the system, and their actions -- including murder -- were justified. There was no sense of personal accountability of any kind, regardless of skin color.

Leaving Buffalo to return to New York, my Attica experience ended. But my sense of astonishment that there was no remorse at Attica has always stayed with me. It's a reality that we don't talk about, one that would be very politically incorrect.

In Praise of Grey

Personally, I believe this exposure of Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor to a bigger life, the fusion of Princeton and the streets of Chicago and New York and LA, makes for a more reasonable person -- male or female.

Experience is often our best teacher. The broader and more conflicting the experience inputs, the richer the mind, if one is open to receive.

If a person never crosses the river from your own campfire, how do you really understand the real world in which you are dealing? Ideals and change are not to be feared, nor is experience that causes personal discomfort and questioning.

In the constellational brew of Princeton conservatism and racial politics, both Sonia Sotomayor and Michelle Obama acquired a dose of wisdom that makes them smarter women.

My exposure to murderers sharpened my intellect and empathy, rather than corrupt it. Experience helped to balance my perspective and sense of reality. Painful as Michelle and Sonia's experiences were at Princeton, they are better women for it. And yes, that's easy for me to say, being a white woman.

Meanwhile, I'm fascinated with Michelle Obama's assertion that Princeton was racially the most conservative of the Ivy League universities.

Are Michelle and Sonia anomalies as Princeton grads, or is something more going on in this story? Is there a twist in the fusion of marrying empathetic, female minds to a conservative, old boys club?

To be continued . . . Anne

Also: please see the Princeton Daily for a detailed list of links into Sonia Sotomayor's actual writing, speeches and life experience of ther Princeton years. Isn't the Internet wonderful! Except that we have few secrets anymore.

Note: David Brooks wrote The Empathy Issue on May 28, 2009.