With an unimpeachable public record, Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearings, predictably, veered into farce as Senate Republicans grandstanded for cable news, trotting out various electoral bogeymen, especially Critical Race Theory, and tried to smear Jackson by association.
As Elie Mystal and others have written about, there was one moment, when Ted Cruz, a classmate of Jackson’s at Harvard Law School, tried to provoke her into torpedoing her nomination, that exemplified the tremendous calculation faced by “nearly every Black person and ancestor” as to whether or not to throw everything away to confront white provocations.
When Cruz asked if Jackson believed that babies were racist, she could have taken the bait, but her long pause before simply answering the question was all she needed to muster to demonstrate how ridiculous the shadow attacks on her were.
For Mystal, Jackson’s pause highlights the indignities that Blacks face in the workplace and his ruminations are recommended reading.
