I read the entire speech, Barbara, partly because many were saying her remarks were taken out of context. I did not find that to be true. Moreover, she voiced this same sentiment OVER A SPAN OF TEN YEARS.

During her speech, she said "Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging..........JUSTICE O'CONNOR HAS OFTEN BEEN CITED AS SAYING THAT A WISE OLD MAN AND A WISE OLD WOMAN WILL REACH THE SAME CONCLUSION IN DECIDING CASES..........I AM NOT SO SURE THAT I AGREE WITH THAT STATEMENT.......... 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........." [Emphasis Added]
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/4982.htm To add insult to injury, the Justice O'connor to whom she attributed the statement is none other than Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a white female. So, white females are not her equal either, huh?

Then, there are her affiliations, which no one dictated in her life. I can tell you, I did not aspire to any lofty positions in my life, yet I had to toe the line and not affiliate myself with persons who were not acceptable to mainstream America. She had no such prohibitions. Imagine if you will what would be the effect of a white person [male or female] letting it be known, in no uncertain words, that 'those' people [blacks] couldn't help it, but they are a bunch of ignorant apes.

The way I see it, I am not aspiring to be a Justice of the Supreme Court, so the little 'prejudiced' or 'racist' slips of the tongue I have made in my life don't matter, except to me and the person or persons who were the target of my bias. However, I did grow and learn over the course of my lifetime, and it did not take me ten years to learn that a certain point of view I held, or that certain ways I had of verbally expressing myself were not 'politically correct' so to speak.