When Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas interrupted my Saturday morning cartoons, I was angry. A little snot-nosed brat at the time, I could not understand the huge ramifications of what was happening around me. As a nine-year-old, this is all I remember of the affair: a Black man, a Black woman, and a pubic hair on a Coke can.
And yes, I remember the conversations surrounding Anita Hill. People hated her. "Why would this dumb bitch try to hold the man back?" "See, that's why Black folk can't get nowhere, we always acting like crabs in a barrel." "Now this the first Black man since Thurgood Marshall to be nominated. Where the white folk dig this bitch up at?" These were just a few of the insidious comments made about Professor Anita Hill around my head. People wanted to kill her. People would throw things at the television when her face came onto the screen.
Oh. My. Lord. If Black people knew then what we know now....Black America owes Dr. Anita Hill a long-overdue apology. In our haste to elevate a Black man to one of the most prestigious, respected, and powerful positions in the land, we didn't even stop to look at who nominated Clarence Thomas: a socially conservative, Republican President from a zero population growth family. Professor Hill was trying to save us, but she couldn't save us from our scornful selves. And over twenty years later, we are paying the price.
When Democratic presidents nominate Supreme Court justices, Republicans always yell about "activist judges." They understand that no people in the country have as much power to change the landscape and culture of the country as those individuals who sit on the Supreme Court. Unlike other policy makers, Supreme Court justices don't have term limits.
Whereas conservative lawmakers yell this phrase out to instill fear in their constituents about liberal-leaning judges, no Supreme Court justices have been more politically active than Scalia and Thomas. However, they tend to vote AGAINST poor folk and minorities. On all things that may help minorities and poor folk, Scalia and Thomas have both voted overwhelmingly in favor of maintaining the unfair and unbalanced status quo. For an alphabetical listing of Thomas's rulings as well as concurrences, please see http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/author.php?thomas.
Thomas, having benefited from affirmative action, ruled it unconstitutional. Thomas, having been appointed by his father, ruled in favor of George Bush II becoming president when he stole the election in 2000. Thomas, whose wife is an active Tea Party member which is in turn funded by corporations, made a remarkable ruling in favor of corporations recently: he made it very difficult for people to bring class action law suits against huge companies like Wal-Mart. Sigh...
Anita Hill, even though I was entirely too young to know what was going on, from the bottom of my ignorant heart, I'm sorry. I wish I could have supported you. I wish we could have foreseen how you tried to save us from this activist, conservative judge whose only duty on the bench seems to be to do the bidding of his corporate-funded masters. I know that for the good of the country, this apology is much too late, but please accept it. You were right all along....
I will post again on Anita Hill in about two weeks. Anita Hill is a prime example of how Black men have routinely not supported Black women or trusted their leadership and judgement. You'd think we would've learned our lesson, but the Shirley Sherrod fiasco proves that we are still struggling to think of Black women as leaders, and that we are still embarrassed by Black women when we should be supporting them.
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