Ketanji Brown Jackson is a national treasure

Photo credit: Kevin Lamarque / Pool / AFP / Getty Images; Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

It has been a week y’all. A whole week. And as an empath, I have struggled. Hell, as a Black women in the US, I’ve struggled. And I can only imagine what US Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been feeling. To be the FIRST is a huge cloak to wear and she’s done it for most of her life. On the one hand, many of us are thrilled that she is likely going to be confirmed as the first Black woman to the US Supreme Court. And US residents broadly want this to happen. With 58% of respondents from a recent Gallup poll indicating that the Senate should vote to confirm Jackson, compared to 30% who indicated she should not be, and 12% who had no opinion. It’s also sad and pathetic that in 2022, she is the first. Many more were qualified and should have been given the opportunity to sit on this court.

Despite being the most qualified nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) she was scrutinized more than an alleged sexual assaulter and one who has adopted transracially despite it not being clear that she even likes Black people. She had to respond to ridiculous inquiry after ridiculous inquiry and redirect the questions to her role as a judge, you know, the job for which she was interviewing. She had to endure racism, discrimination, sexism, microaggressions which included microassaults, microinsults, and microinvalidations as well as their macro cousins. This common behavior is insulting and often is blanketed with gaslighting. I know because I’ve experienced this myself.

I’m grateful that she is surrounded by the love of her family and can rest on the fact she is intelligent, has worked hard, and is successful both inside her home and outside of it. Moreover, the way her daughter and husband look at her speaks volumes on who she is to them. Her parents and brother as well as her in-laws were present for her confirmation hearings as well.

Photo credit: Sarahbeth Maney / NYT; Leila Jackson, US Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s daughter looks at her mother lovingly and with pride during the first day of confirmation hearings on Monday, March 20, 2022.

Photo credit: Susan Walsh / AP; on Wednesday, March 23, 2022, Jackson received a kiss from her husband, Dr Patrick Jackson.

What has also been challenging to me personally is that there was significant conflation with how Black women are treated ALL THE TIME with how women of color are treated and how women broadly are treated. This has been infuriating because it’s a false equivalency. Black women never get a pass. We always have to be the best and are still mistreated. Even being nominated by the US President with support from the Vice President, as a Black woman you’re still overly scrutinized and also invisible.

Photo credit: Leah Millis / Reuters; President Biden and VP Harris look on as US Appeals Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson accepts the nomination to be a US Supreme Court Associate Justice at the White House in Washington, DC on February 25, 2022.

I’m looking forward to when we are calling Jackson, Associate Justice Jackson so that she can get back to her work on the bench making a difference in the lives of all US residents by mitigating the damage being done by the Associate Justices who are interested in stripping us of our human right to autonomy. Future Associate Justice Jackson is a national treasure because she has had to demonstrate dignity, grace under unwarranted fire, kindness, civility, intelligence, humility, and love in the face of those who want her to fail. She is a Black woman who has been treated this way before. Her opponents tried it. The late great Maya Angelou taught us words that are most apropos for this time, “And still, I rise.”

The stanzas most appropriate:

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.”

To the Black women+ and girls, may you always know your worth.

And to Associate Justice Jackson, thank you for being the first, and knowing your worth surrounded by love and so much more.