Is Sonia Sotomayor a Racist?

I often get very upset watching the political debates that go on in our country because it appears that Americans do not know how to speak English, and therefore, they have blood curdling arguments over nothing at all because they do not know what they are talking about. The current debate over whether Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by President Obama to be the next Justice of the Supreme Court, is a "racist" is typical of such situations. For her to be a racisit, she would have to be speaking for a race or against a race in some offensive way. But Hispanics do not constitute a race at all. Hispanics can be white, brown or black or any shading in between. They are merely designated this by their cultural and national origins, not by their race. I would not expect Rush Libaugh to know the difference, but am shocked that such a meticulous intellectual as former House Speaker Newt Gingritch would make this mistake. The US census recognizes Hispanics as its own category, not as a race. Why should anyone analyzing American politics misuse these terms? It can only be for political advantage and to fool the American public, not particualarly well studied itself, into beleiving that a candidate for Supreme Court nominated by the Democratic President must have some deep flaw. It is totally cynical. The racists have normally been those on the right who cater to extremists with ideas of racial superiority. Trying to reverse the use of the term racist against those groups in the US who have suffered from abuses ranging from slavery to discrimination is a mean spiritied tactic. If not then it reflects to supreme ignorance of the Republican Party about matters that normally come within the purvue of public officals or poltiical leaders. Shame on them!!