Two Blast from the Past Re-Post about the Supreme Court, Affirmative Action, and Black Women

Kamala Harris (Kevork Djansekian/Getty); Janice Rogers Brown (Win McNamee/Getty); Leah Ward Sears (Schiff Harden LLP)

In light of the sudden death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scala, Presidents Obama's vow to fill the vacancy ASAP, and the GOP's promise to obstruct him,  EYE invite readers to read these post written the last time there was a vacancy on the supreme court.

I thought Affirmative Action and Quotas were behind us. 

Seriously, I thought with the election of Barack Obama, America had entered a "post racial" era, and the country had "moved past race" (what ever the heck that means)? Evidently it's not about being the most qualified, or the "content of ones character" when it comes to United States Supreme Court nominees. Evidently it's about being white, attending Yale or Harvard, and being Catholic and/or Jewish. Qualified, competent, protestant/atheist, African Americans, male or female need not apply. Especially if you didn't matriculate at Yale or Harvard.
During the selection process, Obama reviewed the writings of two dozen potential Justices. That list was narrowed to 10 for more research. Obama and Biden spoke with four candidates privately, including both Kagan and Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Wood, who were both finalists last year for the open seat that went to Sonia Sotomayor. Klain said Obama heard from several Senators about a desire to find someone, like Kagan, who had not already served as a judge.

Update:  According to Presidential Adviser David Axelrod, Justice Antonin Scalia rooted for Elena Kagen's nomination.  Who knew?

Less than a day after Scalia's death, David Axelrod, in a CNN blog post, shared a little-known anecdote about the 79-year-old justice: He was pulling for the nomination of liberal Justice Elena Kagan.
As President Barack Obama's senior advisor at the time, Axelrod recalled Scalia bending his ear over who should replace the retiring Justice David Souter while the two were tablemates at the 2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner.

Affirmative Action is for white women only 

I find it troubling President Obama cites the trials and tribulations of the late civil rights activist Dr. Dorothy I. Height when she was refused admittance to Barnard College because they already had their quota of African American women, then over looks highly qualified Judge Diane Woods in favor of the less qualified Solicitor General Elana Kagen.

RedEye 

With the death of Antonin Scalia, President Obama has the opportunity to nominate the first black, female justice. (originally published July 8, 2013)

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions Makes Alabama Proud

Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions makes Alabama proud! Not. Is anyone surprised Alabama Senator Sessions is leading the charge of the gop brigade attacking the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall?

It was Marshall who, with Howard Law School Dean Charles Hamilton Houston, his mentor, conceived and then painstakingly effectuated the jurisprudence that led to the striking down of the odious "separate but equal" doctrine that threatened to destroy this country. While many decry "activist judges" (by which they seem to mean judges who uphold civil rights for minorities and women), those judges who undermine civil rights often demonstrate the most extreme forms of activism. Judges such as those who declared in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation was constitutionally sound turned the Constitution on its head and made a mockery of equal protection. Those activist judges subjected an entire segment of Americans to more than half a century of state-imposed degradation, subjugation and humiliation.

I'm not surprised, after all Beauregard threw the first salvo when he made sure The Azalea Trail Maids were the ONLY official representative from Alabama the Beautiful in the Inaugural parade of the first African American President. State NAACP President Eddie Vaughn tried to tell y'all....

MOBILE -- Katie Henson hopes when she and the other 49 Azalea Trail Maids stroll down Pennsylvania Avenue in their hoop dresses and matching bonnets that the nation sees them as they see themselves -- the embodiment of Southern hospitality.

For the president of the NAACP's Alabama chapter, though, 50 young women -- 39 of them white -- wearing costumes reminiscent of the time when slavery existed doesn't conjure up an image he thinks is fitting for the swearing-in of the nation's first black president, Barack Obama.

Some thought Mr. Vaughn and I were making a big deal out of nothing and accused of "attacking the young women" and told to SFTU because it was a "diverse group".

With all of the problems and challenges facing this country and President Obama, fifty Alabama women (including some African-American ones) marching in a parade wearing strange outfits and freezing their tusses off, is not high on my "to worry about" list.

Kathy said it best;

Mr. Vaughn has an undeniable point. When you see a single young woman, let alone fifty, as a neon-colored caricature of Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue, it calls to mind, well, Miss Scarlett at the Barbecue. I’m sure girls north of the Mason-Dixon line wore hoop skirts too—we’ve all seen Little Women—but the silhouette of the big ruffledy Barbie-cake skirt and parasol is forever linked in the American mind with the antebellum South. And not just any aspect of the South, but the sprawling, colonnaded white plantation house, where in the evening by the moonlight you can hear those darkies singing. And when we choose to present that as the single representative image for our state, it looks like we’re yearning to hear ‘em singing again. It just does, y’all.

Let's rewind to the Sonya Sotomayer confirmation hearing when Senator Sessions slammed her for not voting like other Puerto Ricans

This morning, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) castigated Sotomayor for not ruling with her fellow Puerto Rican colleague, conservative Judge José A. Cabranes, when she decided to deny an en banc appeal in Ricci v. DeStefano, a process in which all judges of a court hear a case (as opposed to a three-judge panel of them). Sessions seemed to indicate that people of the same ancestry should vote the same way:

Thought for the day;

I would pay good money to hear Sonia Sotomayor say, “Senator Sessions, I think it’s ironic to be facing these questions from a man whose judicial nomination was rejected by this very committee on the grounds that he’s a huge racist.”

Update Seriously, though, when the Republican Senate Conference was meeting, did nobody say "if we're going to oppose the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, maybe we shouldn't have a giant racist leading the charge?" This seems like a situation in which Mel Martinez might have been able to offer a useful perspective. Or they could have called up JC Watts out of retirement. What were they thinking?

Can you say circular firing squad?

But back to 1986. During the debate over his nomination, committee Democrats questioned Sessions' prosecutorial discretion, focusing in particular on a case he pursued against three Marion, AL civil rights workers--Albert Turner, Turner's wife Evelyn, and Spencer Hogue, Jr.--whom he accused of voter fraud. Sessions was unconcerned with claims of fraud outside the so-called Black Belt, but he alleged that the trio had falsified absentee ballots in Perry County during the 1984 election. After conducting an exhaustive investigation, though, he was able to account for only a small handful of questionable examples, and even those he couldn't pin on his defendants, who were acquitted after only a few hours' deliberation.

Of course none of this is mentioned in the MSM or by the Talking TeeVee Pundit Heads.
Senator Sessions was right (pun intended) on the money to question Elana Kagens qualifications, but he is dead wrong to use the confirmation hearings to call her a liar and to lead an attack on Thurgood Marshall.

Sessions is engaging in what the Supreme Court engages in, interpretation of the law based on an interpretation of the Constitution. He says it in a very self-assured way, in a way that says "I know I'm right" but that doesn't change the fact that the 2nd amendment is just as unclear as the 8th.

In Sessions' world it's only activism if he disagrees with it. I'm not a big Kagan fan, but the GOP is off the fucking rails.

What nelliah said;

This racist won't care what he says no matter how bigoted. His constituency will still elect him. That is the reason for this appointment. He will enable the other Republicans on the committee and Senate keep their hands clean. Sessions will do all the name calling innuendoing and bring up nothing but bullshit to muddy the debate. It will be easy for the Republicans to scream about what Sessions says even if is is unadulterated crap. They will have every argument they have used in the past; communist, pro-gay, pro-abortion pro-taxes, anti-religion. And many more wedge issues they are fixated on. Pitiful. Especially with the mild mannered wimps the Democrats have leading this Senate. If they once took the gloves off and said this is how it is going to be and used the reconciliation ploy as the Republicans did and only needed 51 votes I would croak! Especially for SCOTUS justice nominees.

Look away. Look away.

Ivy League, Affirmative Action, Liberal Lions and Guns, Oh My!

Judge UW Clemon said what???

I don't think it hurts her chances in any way because she is so markedly superior to the other candidate," Clemon said.
He says with an undergrad degree from Princeton, a masters from Oxford and a law degree from Harvard, that should be all the proof constituents need to vote Sewell into office.

"Those degrees, in the first place, make her eminently qualified," Clemon said.

Psst Judge Clemon! The last time the constituents elected someone with Ivy League academic credentials he threw them under the bus. Remember?

Alabama District 7 is 61.7% African-American. 72.2% live in urban areas (primarily Birmingham, Bessemer, Tuscaloosa, Selma and Demopolis). The district’s median per capita income was $26,672.

NO group is disproportionately uninsured than Black folks, and he voted AGAINST health care reform.

Uh huh.

No group is at the BOTTOM of nearly all health care statistics like Black folks, and he voted AGAINST health care reform.

For once I have to agree with Jeff Sessions Elana Kagen Has "Serious Deficiencies"

Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said it was "conceivable" that a "filibuster might occur," should Kagan prove during the hearings to have extraordinary views.

The MSM is prepared to confirm the 3 white female for a life time appointment to the Supreme Court and ignore her lack of qualifications. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing what so ever against white women, some of my best friends are white women :), but what are black women, chopped liver? IHMO a more qualified African American woman was over looked in favor of a less qualified white woman. Is affirmative actions for white women only?

It's supposed to be the most qualified, remember? If you match Solicitor General Elana Kagens' resume side by side with 7th circuit judge Diane Woods, Woods is the most qualified. What would/could the goppers criticism of Judge Woods nomination be? That she was too black? They certainly couldn't say she wasn't qualified

.

RIP Senator Robert Byrd. The last liberal lion has left the building. Righty's and the MSM are going to make much ado about Robert Byrd's Klu Klux Klan past but the real reason they disliked Robert Byrd was because it was the past and not the present.

Byrd's political career was also dogged by his early membership in the Ku Klux Klan, which he said he joined mostly because of its anti-communist position and the political connections he could make there. But in a 1945 letter to a segregationist U.S. senator, Byrd wrote that he would never fight in the armed forces alongside blacks, and said he never wanted to "see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels."

Unlike former Alabama Governor George Wallace's death bed conversion, Robert Byrd repudiated his past and his lived his life in the true spirit of redemption, grace and mercy.

In his autobiography, Byrd wrote of his membership in the KKK: "It has emerged throughout my life to haunt and embarrass me and has taught me in a very graphic way what one major mistake can do to one's life, career, and reputation."

Thank God West Virginia has a democratic governor so we won't lose Byrd's Senate seat. For now.

The usual gop Bush Sr/Bush Jr. hack majority on the Supreme Court strikes again.

It's open hunting season in America thanks to the Republicans. And it's not the deer that's gonna get shot; It's us!

Need proof?

Good riddance. Am sick and tired of Mayor Daley and his Democratic cohorts trying to control our lives. They attempt to disarm the people so that the people have no defense against their tyranny. No more, I say!!

Lord help us.

Update~ Affirmative Action is for white women only.

I hate to say it but, republican Senator Mitch McConnell is right (pun intended), Supreme Court nominee Elana Kagen doesn't have judicial experience therefore she is not qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

According to some democrats, that's not a problem. The question I have is why is it not a problem? Did President Obama hand the republicans a valid reason to oppose her nomination? I say, YES he most certainly did.

It's supposed to be the most qualified, remember? If you match Solicitor General Elana Kagens' resume side by side with 7th circuit judge Diane Woods, Woods is the most qualified. What would/could the goppers criticism of Judge Woods nomination be? That she is too black? They certainly can't say she isn't qualified.

Is it open season on black women? Are black women destined to be undervalued and marginalized? Are black women destined to be stereotyped as angry,  promiscuous, baby making, welfare queens, nanny's, cooks and hand maids?

Black women also get oddly, back-handedly criticized for being too functional — for being the majority of black college graduates and growing old alone. In reality, black women with college degrees are more likely to have married by age 40 than those with high school degrees (70 to 60 percent).

Black women also get criticized for being uppity and told to "stay in her place", which I believe is why my front page privileges were revoked,  and,  I was eventually banned from my former sandbox. Prior to my banning I was repeatedly warned to "tone down my rhetoric" and to stop "injecting race into the conversation" and finally to "get your own blog". All of a sudden the "content of my comments and posts" were just intolerable, "end of story". As the lone African American, and the lone female with front page privileges, I felt I was being a voice for the voiceless, bringing diversity and a point of view that is often suppressed to the discussion. In the end I was treated like a subordinate and not an equal.  But I digress.

I find it troubling President Obama cites the trials and tribulations of the late civil rights activist Dr. Dorothy I. Height when she was refused admittance to Barnard College because they already had their quota of African American women, then over looks highly qualified Judge Diane Woods in favor of the less qualified Solicitor General Elana Kagen.

Look at the late singer, actress and activist, Lena Horne, who was blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood because of her far left political activism. Lena Horne reportedly descended from the John C. Calhoun family. We don't even have to ask how that happened do we?

because the slaves were the legal property of their owners, it was not unusual for enslaved black women to be raped by their owners, members of their owner's families, or their owner's friends. Children who resulted from such rapes were slaves as well because they took the status of their mothers

The first piece of real legislation Barack Obama signed as the 44th President of the United States helps ensure that workers discriminated on the basis of gender have a fair chance to sue their employers.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named after a woman who was paid less than her male co-workers at an Alabama tire factory. Ledbetter did not set out to be an activist; she did not even involve herself in politics much. But after the Supreme Court ruled against her, she decided it was time to start.

Salon.com raises some serious questions about Elana Kagens hiring practices as Dean of the Harvard Law School

The first woman Dean of Harvard Law School had presided over an unprecedented expansion of the faculty -- growing it by almost a half. She had hired 32 tenured and tenure-track academic faculty members (non-clinical, non-practice). But when we sat down to review the actual record, we were frankly shocked. Not only were there shockingly few people of color, there were very few women. Where were the people of color? Where were the women? Of these 32 tenured and tenure-track academic hires, only one was a minority. Of these 32, only seven were women. All this in the 21st Century.

President Obama says Elana Kagen is a "trail blazing leader"

"She's a trailblazing leader," Obama said. "The first woman to serve as dean of Harvard Law School and one of its most successful and beloved deans in its history. And she is a superb solicitor general, our nation's chief lawyer, representing the American people's interests before the Supreme Court. The first woman in that position as well."

President Obama stood up for Elana Kagen and Lilly Ledbetter Lilly Ledbetter. He should also stand up for Judge Diane Woods and African American women everywhere.

Ain't we a woman? We voted for you too. Don't we have the right to have our voices heard? I thought since democrats won two elections things were going CHANGE? I thought we'd had ENOUGH? I thought we weren't the red states or the blue states, but the United States of America, with liberty and justice for all, not some.

What If Wednesday

Black Agenda Report Managing Editor Bruce Dixon ask What if BP were a human being instead of a corporation?

What if BP, the principal corporate entity responsible for the monstrous oil well rupture a mile beneath Gulf of Mexico were a human being, a flesh and blood person instead of a faceless transnational corporation? It's a fair and simple question, and the answers tell us a lot more about the world we live in.

What if they really do hate us for our freedoms? It used to aggravate me to no end to hear Bush/Dick and the Talking TeeVee Pundit heads say the "Terrist hate us for our freedoms" claiming it was why we were attacked on 911. First, we need to figure out who they are.But what if they were right (pun intended) and they really do hate us for our freedom only "they" are not the terrist but our government, because lately those freedoms we love and cherish and who are sons and daughters are "fighting for" in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming under attack.

Do they hate us for our right to vote and have our votes counted?
Do they hate us for our Miranda Rights?
Do they hate us for our right to Habeas Corpus?
Do they hate us because we are a nation of immigrants?
Do they hate for our freedom of speech?

What if President Obama had nominated the most qualified man/woman to the fill the vacancy on the United States Supreme Court? Hate to say it but the Repubs are right (pun intended) about Elana Kagen not being qualified for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. But hey, even a broken clock/watch is right twice a day. Lilian Sergura tells us Six things we may not know about Elana Kagen.

The nomination of Elana Kagen to the Supreme Court has produced many more questions than answers, but that has not stopped the avalanche of news stories, which could take days to sift through. Nevertheless, it seems pretty clear from what we know so far that this is not good news for anyone who hoped that the president might choose a nominee that would continue in the liberal tradition of the justice she's replacing, John Paul Stevens.

Which is why progressives must fight the nomination of Elana Kagen;

For more than 15 months, evidence has mounted that President Obama routinely combines progressive rhetoric with contrary actions. As one bad decision after another has emanated from the Oval Office, some progressives have favored denial -- even though, if the name "Bush" or "McCain" had been attached to the same presidential policies, the same progressives would have been screaming bloody murder.

What if we were investing in America's future instead of all war all the time?

Congress is being asked to vote on another appropriations bill for billions more dollars to fund military operations in Afghanistan despite reservations among many members about the corrupt regime of Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai. Operations that many in the Pentagon are beginning to question from both an tactical and strategic standpoint:

What if 9 Alabama State University students hadn't been expelled under pressure from then Governor John Patterson for protesting off campus? Note to Alabama gubernatorial candidate Artur Davis, these are the "old school" civil rights pioneers who were in the trenches when you were just a twinkle in your mother's eye. These are the "old school" warriors who helped Dr. Joe Reed with the help of African American political organizations pave the way for you to be the sitting Congressman from the 7th district of Alabama. These are the "old school" people you disrespect and threw under the bus to pander to the white, I mean right. Shame on you.

What if I hadn't been banned from Left in Alabama and they really did connect progressive voices for a new direction in Alabama politics instead of disconnecting progressive voices in favor or neo-liberal voices? :)

I thought affimative action and quotas were behind us? #SupremeCourt

Judge Wood in a robe owned by the late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. Wood clerked for him in 1976 and 1977.

Seriously, I thought with the election of Barack Obama, America had entered a "post racial" era, and the country had "moved past race" (what ever the heck that means)?  Evidently it's not about being the most qualified, or the "content of ones character" when it comes to United States Supreme Court nominees. Evidently it's about being white, attending Yale or Harvard, and being Catholic and/or Jewish. Qualified, competent, protestant/atheist, African Americans, male or female need not apply. Especially if you didn't matriculate at Yale or Harvard.

During the selection process, Obama reviewed the writings of two dozen potential Justices. That list was narrowed to 10 for more research. Obama and Biden spoke with four candidates privately, including both Kagan and Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Wood, who were both finalists last year for the open seat that went to Sonia Sotomayor. Klain said Obama heard from several Senators about a desire to find someone, like Kagan, who had not already served as a judge.

Oh really now? Obama heard from several Senators about a desire to find someone, like Kagan, who had not already served as a judge you say? Now why in the world would several Senators desire someone, like Kagen, who had not already served as a judge? Is it because Diane Woods is a Judge and just happens to be an African American female? Since when is it not desirable for Supreme Court Justices not to be judges? I'm just asking?

Read all about Judge Pamela Diane Wood, who was born on the 4th of July BTW, and tell me she isn't qualified for a life time appointment to the Supreme Court. Here is a snippet;

Diane Pamela Wood (born July 4, 1950) is a federal judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

Wood was born in Plainfield, New Jersey. When she was young, she moved with her family to Texas, where her mother still lives. Wood graduated with a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin's Plan II Honors program in 1971. She earned her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1975, where she was an editor of the Texas Law Review, graduated with high honors and Order of the Coif, and was among the first women at the University of Texas admitted as a member of the Friar Society. Wood then clerked for Judge Irving Goldberg of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals from 1975 to 1976 and for Associate Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1976 to 1977. She was among the first women to clerk at the Supreme Court.

After working in private practice and the Executive Branch, Wood became the third woman ever hired as a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Wood was nominated to the Seventh Circuit by President Bill Clinton on March 31, 1995. She is considered a liberal intellectual counterweight to the Seventh Circuit's conservative heavyweights, Richard Posner and Frank Easterbrook.

The United States Senators advising President Obama are members of a United States Senate that is 96% white, 1% African American, 1% Hispanic, 1% Japanese American, 1% native American. Out of 50 Senators, 17 are white females. Did they change the criteria to exclude Judge Wood in favor of Elana Kagen? Is the first African American President afraid to stand up for the rights of African American women? I HOPE not, but it sure looks that way to Moi.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with Elana Kagen, but I wanted a liberal/progressive African American female to be nominated this time. Heck, I want a liberal/progressive African American period to sit on the Supreme Court. Our Hispanic brothers and sisters have Justice Sotomayer and African Americans get Clarence Thomas? That's messed up.

This is the kind of discussion/debate concerning the Kagen nomination I wish we had instead of the discussion/debate we are having. Strike that. This is the kind of discussion/debate we need to have concerning the Kagen nomination instead of the non discussion/non debate we are having.

What Shanti said;

Apparently this administration isn't change you can believe in.

And what dthomas_85 replied;

If that change includes the muzzling of black progressives, coupled with the erosion of political lobbying done on African Americans behalf (something that is done on the behalf of every other interest group, whether it's Gays and Lesbians, the religious right or AIPAC), then no, I don't believe in that type of change. I refuse to contribute to the political irrelevance of black people all for the sake of protecting the political viability of one elected black man. That's insanity.

What the rude pundit said too!(warning rude language)

What actually pisses the Rude Pundit off in not nominating Diane Wood is the Ivy League hegemony that owns the court. Really? An Upper West Side New Yorker who went to Princeton and Harvard? How about the woman who went to school at the University of Texas? How about a little diversity in how the justices learned the law?

Peace be with you.

The Neo Liberals Win Again

Fair warning, I'm getting ready to slam the race card down on the table. Hard.

We already have two white women on the Supreme Court do we need three? I mean, really? Are there no African American women qualified, competent, and intelligent enough to sit on the Supreme Court? To paraphrase Sojourner Truth ain't we a woman?

And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Once again progressives/liberals/and African Americans are overlooked and our loyalty taken for granted. I don't care if Elana Kagen is a direct descendant of the late Thurgood Marshall, can't we have one progressive/liberal African American on the Supreme Court? And NO, Clarence Thomas doesn't count. In the words of the Langston Hughes poem Mother to Son, life for black women ain't been no crystal stair.

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.

Historically African American women have always been marginalized and minimized. In the days of slavery they watched helplessly when their children were snatched from their arms and sold down the river. Their bodies weren't their own and they endured rape and humiliation by their owners. African American men were powerless to protect and defend them from the horrors, brutality and disrespect.

The media is spinning Kagen as an ultra liberal because she attended Harvard, clerked for Thurgood Marshall, donated to Obama blah, blah, blah, but we really know very little about her because she doesn't "have a paper trail" or a track record. We do know as the Solicitor General she argued against former Governor Don Siegelman getting a new/fair trail.

Oh how I wish progressive/democrats could be organized in their opposition like the republicans. One of my friends writes:
One of the things that burns me up is that when Bush nominated Harriet Myers, the Conservative Republicans had no problem organizing opposition to the nomination, and they got the job done in record time (25 days). The one thing missing in the Liberal/Progressive base is the ability to effectively organize, when the President makes a mistake like Kagan and the "Mandatory Insurance" issue

Oh how I wish President Obama would stop pandering to the neo liberals at the expense of progressives/liberals.

Was President Obama afraid to nominate a qualified African American woman because he felt white Senators wouldn't vote for her?

If so, what does that say about the white Senators?

If so, what does it say about President Obama? I mean he has the power and the opportunity to validate African American women. African American women like his mother in law Marion Robinson. African American women like his wife Michelle. African American women like his daughters Sasha and Malia. He could have paved the way for his daughters and young black women all over this land, but he chose to play it safe.

Life for black women ain't no crystal stair because we ain't a woman. A woman with equal rights.

The Neo Liberals win again.

Sigh.