Supreme Court nominees having to answer questions from senators is part of the process, but MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross used her Saturday show to declare that Ketanji Brown Jackson having to answer questions from her “basic ass” “intellectual inferiors” is proof that black women face hurdles in America that others do not.
Cross began by hailing the fact that “for the first time in U.S. history, white men are not the dominant representation of what so many have called blind justice on the Supreme Court.”
The only reason that is true is because it includes Clarence Thomas, who just last week Cross implied was suffering from a racial identity crisis, and Amy Coney Barrett, who Cross would soon imply is an idiot.
While encouraging minority girls to see themselves in Jackson, Cross also warned:
Brace yourselves because know that you can show up with your Ivy League degree, pristine resume, tailor-made for the job, a trail of accolades and accomplishments and be questioned by those who are your intellectual inferiors with an array of asinine insinuations that you’re unworthy of the job. And likely, no one will ever ask how did all these basic ass other people get in a position to pose a question to me. Our journey to success, as you know, looks very different than most of our counterparts, we see people like this being celebrated.
Jackson claimed she couldn’t define “woman” because she is not a biologist, but Cross needed to race-bait, so she played a clip of Barrett having a momentary brain lapse at her confirmation hearing when she could only name four of the five freedoms listed in the First Amendment. She also played a clip of Brett Kavanaugh defending himself at his hearing, “I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers, sometimes others did. I liked beer, I still like beer.”
Both Barrett and Kavanaugh are intellectually superior to Senate Democrats, but Cross had to ignore that she just brought up a white male who had his humanity questioned with several unfounded allegations of rape, “They're celebrated while we have our very humanity questioned.”
Cross then continued to put others down under the guise of elevating Jackson, declaring she “had to leapfrog over mediocrity to serve on a Court where there remains a 6-3 conservative majority. Judge Jackson is tasked to interpret a doctrine that didn't even consider her a full human being when it was written, all in a society where we celebrate ambition in girls but not in women.”
Again forgetting that she just played a clip of Kavanaugh defending himself against the worst kind of mudslinging, Cross declared, “far too often our success is measured by the amount of abuse we were able to take while achieving the improperly and impossible, that's what most of us call Monday.”
Jackson certainly faced some tough questions, but nothing like Kavanaugh or even Barrett, but for Cross, everything is racist.
This segment was sponsored by Volvo.
Here is a trasnscipt for the April 9 show:
MSNBC The Cross Connection
4/9/2022
10:50 AM ETTIFFANY CROSS: All right. This week we bore witness to history as we watched Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson become Justice-designate Ketanji Brown Jackson. It has taken over 230 years to get to this point, and for the first time in U.S. history, white men are not the dominant representation of what so many have called blind justice on the Supreme Court. For hundreds of years, not only did mostly white men define the Court, they defined the Court's decisions from upholding racial segregation to perpetuating voter suppression, and black women aren't just under represented on the nation's highest court. We're also massively under represented on lower courts.
In fact, when President Biden took office, only five of the nearly 300 sitting federal appellate judges were black women. So, this is why for so many of us individual accomplishment, not only has far reaching impact for the entire community but it disrupts the myths of what's meant for us and expands the imagination of what is possible.
So with that in mind, to all the colored girls who considered shaping justice when this system was not enough, this moment is ours. Commemorate it, celebrate it, see yourselves, and sisters, brace yourselves because know that you can show up with your Ivy League degree, pristine resume, tailor-made for the job, a trail of accolades and accomplishments and be questioned by those who are your intellectual inferiors with an array of asinine insinuations that you’re unworthy of the job. And likely, no one will ever ask how did all these basic ass other people get in a position to pose a question to me. Our journey to success, as you know, looks very different than most of our counterparts, we see people like this being celebrated.
BEN SASSE: What are the five freedoms of the First Amendment?
AMY CONEY BARRETT: Speech, religion, press, assembly -- speech, press, religion, assembly, I don’t know, what am I missing?
SASSE: Redress or protest.
BARRETT: Okay
BRETT KAVANAUGH: I drank beer with my friends, almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers, sometimes others did. I liked beer, I still like beer.
CROSS: They're celebrated while we have our very humanity questioned. Stand tall, sisters, and in those moments that those collective voices try to make you feel like you don't belong, take heed to this sage counsel.
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON: I would tell them to persevere.
CROSS: Soon to be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who has served on the federal bench for nearly a decade, had to leapfrog over mediocrity to serve on a Court where there remains a 6-3 conservative majority. Judge Jackson is tasked to interpret a doctrine that didn't even consider her a full human being when it was written, all in a society where we celebrate ambition in girls but not in women.
And far too often our success is measured by the amount of abuse we were able to take while achieving the improperly and impossible, that's what most of us call Monday. Yes, sisters, this is the world we navigate and the world we change. The ancestors ripple through time and generations to blaze our path forward. It is the torch we bear, and the torch we will pass.
