How Qualified Do You Have to Be?
Senator Corey Booker asks the question that is at the center of the confirmation process for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
This is the perennial question that virtually every black man and woman with hopes and dreams and aspirations and the requisite credentials and competence to fulfill their dreams and achieve their goals is forced to ask repeatedly.
This is the barrier to success that every black person in this country has had to face since day one…
Black people have been saddled at birth with the burden of overcoming this social, political, legal, and cultural barrier through the entirety of the history of this country.
Then, as if the barrier isn’t burdensome enough, we are challenged with the daunting responsibility of removing the barrier while most white Americans won’t or can’t bring themselves to the point of acknowledging that it exists.
04/05/2022 @ 10:44 am
The barrier has been obvious my entire life since memories could be formed. As a child it was baffling, mostly because I was taught from the beginning that it was wrong.
While that was the teaching, it seemed that many if not most were not of the same mind.
04/05/2022 @ 12:39 pm
From the very beginning, I was taught that I had to be twice as good to earn half as much as my white competitors and counter parts.
The lesson has proven to be true throughout the entire 75 years of my life.
It is as valid today as it was when I first developed the capacity to comprehend the purpose and meaning of the message….
04/06/2022 @ 12:27 pm
If you construct an apparatus which allows you to drop a bucket into a deep hole, and then retrieve the bucket, in an attempt to get water, but there is no water at the bottom of that hole, the bucket will not bring back water, no matter how many times you draw it. That system is not designed to solve that particular problem.
Senator Booker’s question is essentially a question of morals and justice. In the way he conceives the reality which transcends the problem which he seeks to solve, the solution to the problem, water (respect), exists at the bottom of this hole. All that is required is an apparatus (justice), to retrieve it. Booker is not the only one who thinks this way. Practically everyone else in the civilized world thinks this way to some degree. We believe in these abstractions in ways that we shouldn’t. We should value them. We should pursue them. But we must learn to not count on them.
As humans, we have a special aspect which comes with our existence. That aspect is consciousness. And to the extent that that aspect actually exists, it is relatively recent in our history as a specie. As an animate piece of nature, we have substance in physical space, we consume biomass, and we reproduce. If all of physical existence, and all of nature could be simplified to a hole in the ground, what we seek with civilization, morals, and justice is water at the bottom of that hole. But, if the water that we need is not at the bottom of that hole, we do not have a philosophical problem. We have a power problem. That hole needs to be dug deeper, or dug in some other location. We need to manipulate that which exists in a way that will bring the solution that we require.
Civilization, justice, and morality simply does not exist in the same way that we think of…or more accurately experience…soil, sand, rock, earth, and nature. Civilization, justice, and morality exist to the extent that we want them, and make the effort to have them. They are not organic. Like radioactive elements, they exist only in specific conditions. They dissipate quickly without our input.
As a kid, I used to wonder why the service academies trained mostly engineers. The reason is that power, as a primary priority, must control real, tangible, immediate things. These things are fundamental to how we exist in nature, and the substrate to how we exist in civilization. We may value our philosophical abstractions more highly than dirt, sand, and rock. That makes us civilized and cultured. The road to those lofty abstractions, like respect, is built on philosophical ground. The road to power and survival is built on a road of dirt, sand, and rock.
Senator Booker’s question is a good one. But, Booker is asking a justice question. He’s asking a question about the nature of our civilization. There is no answer to be had there. The problem is a power problem.
04/09/2022 @ 6:15 pm
Sen. Booker is asking the wrong question because the votes against Justice Jackson have nothing to do with qualifications. They have to do with how Republican Senators think she will vote on cases.
04/10/2022 @ 6:20 am
Sadly, I don’t think it is really that. I think it is completely about creating an ‘us versus them’ narrative around this appointment, and everything else whenever the GOP legislators show up in front of a microphone. All of their power comes from their close association to their group rather than any particular policy position. Staking out a position against child abuse, and waging that against a justice nominated by a Democrat is a power move rather than a policy move. The notion that Jackson is soft on such matters is false, so it is not a concern about how she will vote. Also, Graham voted to confirm her just a year ago. There is no concern about how she will vote. The smear is in creating the notion that there is a concern.
Senator Booker’s question is the wrong one because it is rational, and relies on a rational exchange. The power move against him is not on the level. He’ll never get an honest answer. No one will get an honest answer. Deception and denial are fundamental to this sort of power game. Facts and reason are the enemy. Booker’s question can only serve to shame them, but their position has no shame. Asking a hungry alligator to not eat the vulnerable prey is never, ever going to work. It has to be approached differently.
04/11/2022 @ 12:43 pm
I don’t think it’s a question of the policies they asked about. Those are phony. Those are a clumsy smear campaign. They just figure she’ll approach cases like a liberal would and liberals are the enemy to them. They figure if an opportunity comes around to get rid of Roe v. Wade (which would not illegalize abortion throughout the US, just push it to certain states) she’ll vote to protect it, even is based on precedent, because they don’t care about based on what. These are not process people, these are alliance and loyalty people and in that respect mirror Trump completely.
A question is whether a Merrick Garland, if he were renominated this time, would face the same kind of scrutiny. I don’t know if the Senate vote would be any different though I think he’d be shown more respect than she was.
Sometimes I don’t think Democrats get that the Republicans are at war and have been for many years.
04/11/2022 @ 6:38 pm
I agree with your last paragraph, but that goes for Republicans as well.
Ordinary Republicans vote for polices that do not benefit them economically. The conflict in society at large is the same conflict as during the Napoleonic wars. The old feudal order is what the GOP hierarchy seeks to reinstate. The Powers like China, and Russia, and UK and France if they can manage it, are seeking a new 19th century with colonialism. Republicans fail to see the global politics, and Democrats fail to see the domestic war.