The Content of Character
I’m Anti-Racist, baby
Teddy “Muffin” Cruz, who attended Harvard Law School at the same time as Ketanji Brown Jackson opened by asking Jackson if she agreed with the Martin Luther King Jr. quote, presumably like Cruz did, delivered during King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, that King hoped his children “one day will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
If I was Ketanji Brown Jackson, I would’ve answered no. Just a stark No. Because the quote that Cruz asked if she agreed with was the only Martin Luther King Junior quote that conservatives cite. They use this quote and only this quote. It is the only quote that points towards a positive future that looks beyond skin color, which they often spend looking at. But the quote looks increasingly toward a future may never come, since we have Hawley, Trump and Cruz working fanatically against it. The rest of King’s quotes involve race and or class, whether the numerous ones constantly cited or not commonly cited but could be. These are not quotes that any conservative can say.
Instead after saying No, he probably would ask me, Why a No? Because no conservative white male who ever asks this gets a Yes from a black person when using this quote. Which is exactly why they use the quote, to look for a moment non-racist. In fact, they keep this quote at their beck and call because they know blacks will agree with it and won’t publicly contest them for their misuse and abuse of quoting King.
Instead, I would’ve continued — if he asked why or even didn’t ask — No. “No, because you are using the color of my skin right now to judge the content of my character. I don’t live in a distant future. I live in the current reality of America, the America that always has been. The that forced me to work twice as hard to become twice as smart as you. I know we went to the same Harvard law school at the same time, but I can only sit here and be deferential and make nice quiet and intelligent responses. While you make deliberately ignorant ones, showing off children’s books so you can ask the dumbest question in the world, if babies can be born racist, as usual twisting the author’s original intent. This is some of the most trite and petty CRT material the Republicans have yet to produce. And it is done by a Harvard law graduate, nonetheless.
“But it’s use was also malevolent, as it was using professor Ibram Kendi’s book Antiracist Baby and was a dig against him personally. And to pull it out in a Supreme Court Justice Congressional interview means that you are below the low morals of even Fox News or OAN. Your attempt to pander to the base of Trump’s party is truly debasing, in values and morals. This absolute lack of dignity you’re showing me only reflects that you indeed are not judging me by the content of my character but by the color of my skin. A color you believe is filled with negative characteristics, like undeserving, lazy, and inherently not capable of becoming more educated than you.
“I am here to tell you today I am judging and have judged people by the arguments presented before the crimes that were shown in court. I’ve struggled for decades to be neutral in my judgments on skin color. While you for decades have lazily shown contempt for skin color differences. You have not struggled to show you won’t tolerate racist remarks from leaders in your own party. The difference between us is vast. And I hope it remains vast. Because I want to keep my dignity in my struggle.”
Of course, she can’t answer that and didn’t because she’s smarter than I. Instead, here’s what she said:
“I have not reviewed any of those books, any of those ideas. They don’t come up in my work as a judge. Which I am, respectfully, here to address.”
She can’t afford to appear like an indignant black woman in front of a bunch of white men who are haranguing her from the racist side of the aisle. The GOP subtle digs and not so subtle racist attacks like Cruz’s was not completely universal, as a couple Republican seemed not to display covert or overt racist remarks and prescribed a bit of dignity to her.
But on the whole, she cannot afford to have any silly little outbreaks of crying during the hearing like saying, “I love beer, so what if I love beer.” She can’t afford to be accused of rape or sexual harassment, even in any of her past comments dating back to college years, like GOP white candidates can afford to be, or even Clearance Thomas who was famously accused of sexual harassment.
She can’t even afford to defend herself vigorously by becoming incensed when explaining she was legitimately defending poor people who didn’t have a lawyer as a public defendant. That was her job. She was not soft on crime; she was working for the justice system. Defending a murderer is a job she must do, is sworn to do, as a public or private defense counsel. She can’t afford to be angry, and she can’t afford to be offended like Kavanaugh was, even though in her case she was asked a question that were profoundly dumb, in that they showed the person asking didn’t know the job of a good defense lawyer is to defend.
Any scent of indignancy or stark rebuttal will make her be labeled an angry black woman by Fox News.
And this is the problem with the system. This why the system is systemically racist and where it shows it, in the central seats of federal power. The fact that she can’t be angry when she is being lobbed questions that contain horrible racist dog whistles from some of the key federal senators who should know better, but never have in our history. “Leaders” like Cruz and Graham who have used their education and powerful federal resources not to eliminate the systemic racism but to perpetuate it, to create it.
When she wins, all blacks should put two American flags on the side of their cars and drive around their neighborhoods and then white neighborhoods for two hours honking their horns loudly, chanting “Ketanji, Ketanji” outside Cruz’s house, the Congress building, their state capitols or city halls. In the face of being accused constantly of not being American, it is time to show they are more American than Mr. Cruz and his Motley gang. It’s time to celebrate their victory over these fools.
(I’m only calling them Cruz and crew fools because I’m judging them by the content of their character.)
