Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate Confirmation hearing has been set to start on July 13 pero mientras tanto, the racist, sexists attacks continue as questions arise as to what the real issues are behind her nomination.

One angle of attack that hasn’t been covered much in the liberal blogosphere or in the Latino blogmundo is how Sotomayor’s health is being used as an issue and how the intersections of race, gender, ability and class apply.

From Vegans of Color:

Mike Adams asks, Should Judge Sotomayor’s Diabetes Preclude Her from the U.S. Supreme Court? …What do people think about this question? Do you think Mike Adams is being a health elitist with this question? And what does it mean that factors such as institutional and environmental racism have positioned certain populations to be in situations in which they don’t have access to the best foods and health facilities for optimal wellness, in comparison to white middle class demographic in the USA? And how is “healthy” or “optimal wellness” being defined?…is Adams falling into a dangerous eugenist’s mindset with this suggestion- especially if one contextualizes Adam’s concern within the history of suffering in the USA caused by the status quo (historically white straight ‘able bodied’ men) who medicalized certain physical bodies as “defective” which equaled “unhealthy” and “mentally unfit.”?

Below is an excerpt from the article, written by Mike Adams:

A similar question needs to be posed for all our top decision makers, including Sotomayor. Her bones are so fragile, we’ve just learned, that she fractured her ankle walking around the LaGuardia airport. Healthy bones shouldn’t fracture so easily.

I feel that from a media justice and media analysis perspective it’s important to cover the way women of color are covered in the media pero Nez raises a good point, one that I’ve alluded to, that the fact that the right is racist is nothing new and that we need more analysis of Sotomayor’s record (something I will get to as soon as I can breath a little easier, financially speaking).

That said, I don’t know if we can ignore the attacks either and how the attacks allow liberals to slide by in how they defend Sotomayor and women of color in general while we have Latina issues that they have refused to acknowledge (um domestic violence, sexual assault, reproductive health which includes the right to reproduce, etc etc etc…).