The greatest mistake of those who would seek to end racism has been to continue thinking of other people, and themselves, in terms of race. So it has been with national newspapers, which trumpeted the “Hispanic woman” nominated to the Supreme Court, as opposed to the more relevant but less sensational label “appeals court judge.”

Such emphasis, however, appears to be in keeping with Sonia Sotomayor’s attitude and that of the administration. Her obvious 2001 quote has already been quite heavily scrutinized: “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.”

Put aside the peculiar spectacle of seeing anyone describe their own experiences as “rich” and themselves as “wise.” What informs such a statement?

It is the same folly that has plagued us for years in the term “people of color,” which glibly suggests that all “non-white” people can be grouped together in any meaningful way. This is rather like dividing all forms of agriculture between the categories “rice” and “crops of color,” the latter encompassing any plant that isn’t rice. If such a division sounds so crude as to be meaningless, that’s because it is. So too with this fatuous classification of humans “of color.”

The term also subconsciously insults white people by suggesting they are not “of color” and are therefore colorless, with all the negative connotations the word carries.

These attitudes inform what Sotomayor seems to believe: Race is somehow related to life experiences, wisdom and better judicial decisions, while those boring white men are supposedly too wrapped up in their suburban privilege to have a comparable conception of justice.

Yet, after being confirmed for the Second Circuit following some controversy in 1998, she claimed that she had been pigeonholed as a liberal because of her race, saying: “It is stereotyping, and stereotyping is perhaps the most insidious of all problems in our society today.” It goes both ways, your honor.

Our ideal should be to follow the suggestion put forward by Chief Justice John Roberts: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” This is not a tautology, but a reminder that thinking of others in terms of race in any way pollutes our minds with preconceptions. All forms of race-consciousness in the public life — from slavery to Jim Crow laws to interracial dating bans to affirmative action to racial pride groups to the notion of “diversity” based on skin color — are the poisonous fruit of this poisoned tree, and all must be discarded before racism can be crushed.

Sotomayor’s nomination should be scrutinized based on her legal ability. It’s too bad that these concerns have been relegated to a sideshow, while the powers that be blather on about skin color, “empathy” and other irrelevancies.

This race-conscious “social justice” silliness obscures Sotomayor’s relatively unsurprising judicial history. She is certainly not the most extreme person that could have been put forward for the Supreme Court. The consensus is that she is a mainstream leftist like the justice she is replacing, though the two jurists will differ on some issues.

She will likely be confirmed, and that is neither a travesty nor a cause for celebration. It would have been better, however, if the process were less drenched in counterproductive identity and class-warfare politics.

Reach columnist Russ Wung at opinion@dailyuw.com.