Friday, PBS NewsHour Washington Post Jonathan Capehart, MSNBC’s columnist and host was so mad at David Brooks, his fellow panelist on MSNBC that he said that the President Biden nominee for the Supreme Court would be more brilliant than those who came before her because she had overcome the racism that has defined America.
Brooks stated that he felt uncomfortable about Biden’s vow to name one black woman. But he was still hemming on and hawing about the value of having diversity. Brooks said, “But, I would love to emphasize that the best part about a person is not their intelligence, compassion, or care. And that they are considered as an individual.” Although I do support the concept of the pledge, I am uncomfortable with Joe Biden’s use of that pledge in the campaign.
Although I do not like the pledge, I still support its idea. Judy Woodruff doesn’t push back against Brooks and Capehart when they sound confused. Just robotically, she repeated “Jonathan,” which was essentially: “Jonathan. Wouldn’t it have been more for the president to say the first thing that really matters is wisdom?”
Jonathan Capehart, a PBS host was annoyed by David Brooks’s insistence that Biden put race/sex before all other considerations when nominating SCOTUS. Because she has had to overcame all racism, he claims that the yet-unknown selection will be better and more qualified than any of the others.
Can’t we wait & see? pic.twitter.com/4N5uLplx4y
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) January 30, 2022
Capehart said: “Well, that was what he said yesterday.” We have to understand something that, for far too long in this country, qualifications and wisdom and everything were never things that were — or ideas or characteristics — that were automatically ascribed to someone who was not white and certainly someone who was not white and male.”
Nobody said that white men were automatically qualified and wise. One thing is to admit that the country has a history full of racism. Capehart’s return to the “whiteness is an awful drug territory” is Capehart claiming all white men automatically assume they are wise. Then there was the She’ll Be The Smartest smack speech:
CAPEHART: And there — we have seen on the court that diversity has not been a thing on the court up until recently. One of our justices is African American. We also have several women justices. There is a Latina justice. We will soon have black women justice.
And it says something — you can focus on the race, but how about we focus on the experience the person brings to the bench because of who they are, where they’re from, their lived experience?
And, also, the black woman who’s going to be on the bench will probably be more impressive, have more qualifications, be more brilliant than the folks who have come in before her, precisely because she has had to be all those things, because people used her race to downgrade and — downgrade and belittle and not think much of her, simply because she is black.
Clarence Thomas, who was nominated in 1991 by George H. W. Bush for the presidency, was not affected. His relative inexperience and youth were questioned, as well as suggestions that he wanted to roll back individual rights like abortion.
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