August 3, 2024 • 50 mins
With the historic nomination of the first Black woman to the US Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, we're already seeing a flood of sexist and racist disinformation and misinformation. Bridget Todd stops by with a primer on SCOTUS and what to look out for in this nomination process in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you prediction of
iHeartRadio and because of some topics we're going to discuss
around the election and things that are happening here in
the United States. We had a couple of classics we
(00:28):
wanted to bring back. This is one and it was
something we did with bridget around disinformation and the Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court has become a huge topic of
conversation with suggestions about how to change it corruption allegations
which are but this episode was when Supreme Court Justice
(00:55):
Kaitanji Brown Jackson had just been nominated, So it is
a little dated in that way, but I think that
conversation within is very relevant still, right, Yeah, so we
want to bring this one back.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Hey, this is Annie, Hey Samantha, and welcome to Steph
I've Never told you a production of iHeartRadio. Today, we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Award winning, fantastic Bridget Todd, who we count ourselves so
lucky to know and call our friend. Congratulations Bridgid on
your recent award for Best Technology Podcast at the iHeartRadio
Podcast awards well deserved.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's so awesome. Congratulations to you and your whole team.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Yeah, you know what I'm going to say. It feel
was freaking good to win. I was kind of like, oh, like,
you know, just being nominated is nice, but I deep
down kind of you ever have one of those times
in your life where you just really need a win.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
That's where I was at.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
So I have to like briefly shout out my team.
Tari Harrison is my producer and engineer. She's phenomenally talented.
Jonathan Strickland is our EP, phenomenally talented doctor. Michael Lomato
is our chief science officer and producer.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
So talented.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
I could not have one without them. They're so awesome. Yes,
so thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yes, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Love a win, especially when it's our personal friends. Yeah,
I said it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I'm claiming you as a personal friend.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I know, Bridget thank you.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
I mean I feel the same way about you. I
feel very honored to know you all in real life.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And in case you don't know, listeners, which I'm assuming
you do, this was for the podcast. There are no
girls on the internet, which is you've got a new
season coming right.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Yes, yeah, I probably should have had the name of
my own podcast. No, I'm I'm trying to get better
at like self promotion. Yes, the podcast is called There
Are No Girls on the Internet. We just won an
iHeart Award and we're coming back for a brand new
season on March first. So we've kind of been on
hiatus for a bit while we've been retooling, and I'm
so excited that we're finally launching. So it would mean
(03:24):
a lot to me if y'all checked it out. Thank
you for mentioning and Annie, I obviously cannot be trusted
to remember to say the name of the thing I
meant to be promoting, but yeah, please check it out.
We have all kinds of interesting conversations about how women
and queer folks and trans folks and black folks and
other marginalized voices, how we show up or don't show
up online and in technology. So uh yeah, please check
(03:46):
it out. If that sounds like something you're interested.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
In, you absolutely should. I'm still waiting for the fan
fiction episode.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I'm ready.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Oh yes tbd.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Also just a fun.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Fact about Tari, who's also a good friend of ours.
She always seeing sitcom jingles at karaoke. Yeah, it's the
thing I adore about.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Her and she refuses to sing anything else and when
someone interrupts her, she gets very annoyed. Rightly so, because
this is her thing and she wants it and has
claimed it and has done well with it.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
How did I not?
Speaker 6 (04:18):
How have I worked with Tari for two years and
have not? I mean, I guess covid as hell, But yeah,
I know this. I need to take her out there
for karaoke.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Please to see this in action.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh you know what, what's a better bridget? We need
you to come to Atlanta and hosts a big karaoke night.
There's several great locations that we love, including my favorite
spot towards Beeford Highway, ran by a Korean family who
was as Korean as you think, and we adore them
and they bring us fruit. Place is a delight while
we sing karaoke to our hearts content.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Yeah, so please put that on the agenda. The last
time I was in Atlanta, I went to what is
that spot called Church of car Church. There was some
karaoke happening. It was pretty fun.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So yeah, Atlanta karaoke date literally anytime I am in.
I need to see producer Tari in action singing these jingles.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's the best one time. And she's like, we're singing
cheers together. Okay, I love it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I love it, I love it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So this topic you're bringing to us today, Bridget, is
extremely timely. We're very excited to talk about it, and
we have a lot to get into. So let's let's
get into it. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 6 (05:29):
So today is Friday, February twenty fifth, twenty twenty two,
and I want to talk about the just recently announced
new nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Katanji Brown Jackson.
So I have to admit I was putting together all
my notes for this episode last night, and so the
notes were all like, oh, the potential nominee, like when we.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Have the nominee. It was all very like hypothetical.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
And then this morning the news just dropped that she
is indeed the White House's pick to be the first
ever black women Supreme Court justice on our Supreme Court.
So very historic, very important, very exciting. But we know
that it also comes along with racist attacks, sexist attacks,
miss and disinformation that women of color who are in
(06:14):
public office unfortunately tend to face and so today I
really wanted to talk about how we got to this
place of having this historic black woman being nominated for
the Supreme Court, and what kind of attacks she's likely
to be facing, what kind of attacks she's already been facing,
and how we can sort of all work together to
create the conditions to have a better conversation about her nomination.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, and as you said, this is very ongoing. We're
trying to get this episode out as quickly as possible
because things are changing very quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
But we've already seen some of these attacks.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I know we're going to get into that in a minute,
but before we do that, can you give us some
history and background on what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Absolutely, So here's a little bit of background about the
calls to nominate a black women for the Supreme Court.
I have to shout out that she will rise. Campaign
organized by a great organization called Cistuscotus, and their whole
coalition is full of dynamic black women, women like April Rain,
who created the hashtag oscar so white sixteen nineteen project
creator Nicole Hannah Jones Alencia Johnson, who I love, I
(07:17):
used to work with her at Planned Parenthood Broadway Multi
Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. So, just a huge coalition
of dynamic, badass black women who have been advocating to
put a black woman on the Supreme Court. And so
in the over two hundred year history of the Supreme Court,
not one black woman has ever been confirmed or even
(07:37):
nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. There have been
one hundred and fifteen men and women who have served
on the Supreme Court, and only three of them have
been people of color. There have only been two Black
American members of the Supreme Court, Justice through Good Marshall
and Justice Clarence Thomas. And so that's obviously not a
very inclusive track record in terms of representation. And you know,
(07:58):
this idea of I thought this this was kind of
a new president, you know, a presidential candidate saying like, oh,
if I'm elected, I will put this kind of person
on the Supreme Court. However, there is actually a long
history and precedent for presidents pedging to pick a Scotist
nominee who represents a certain demographic of our population. So
this is from a really great New York Times out
(08:18):
ed by Walter Dellinger, who was the acting Solicitor General
of the United States under Bill Clinton.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
He writes, there is a long and important.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Tradition of presidents taking into consideration the demographic characteristics of
prospective justices, including geographic background, religion, race, and sex, to
ensure the Supreme Court is and remains a representative institution
in touch with the very facets of American life.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
More fundamentally, our.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
History shows the process of reaching out to expand the
personal backgrounds of the justices has often produced stellar jurists
who make historic contributions to our court and judicial system.
So he goes on to describe how President Reagan promised
to nominate a woman of the Supreme Court, and even
though a bunch of his Republican colleagues were very v
against it and kind of forced him to add some
(09:02):
men to his shortlist, President Reagan was really adamant about
picking a woman and eventually nominated Sandra de O'Connor, making
for the first ever female Associate Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And so that's some history that I didn't even know about.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
You know, how other presidents have set this president to
make the Supreme Court more inclusive.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, and I think. I mean, it's kind of a
waste of breath to call a lot of news organizations
and Republicans perhaps if they're critical, but they would have you.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Believe that this is a new thing, like, oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Never happen before, and it's ridiculous, right, And this is
not just an issue of representation, correct.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Absolutely, so representation is important. People often say like, representation matters,
and it absolutely does.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I'm not, you know, disagreeing with that.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
However, it's not just a problem because representation matters. It's
also a problem because we deserve a representative democracy, a
democracy with the people who are governing actually are able
to meaningfully represent the people they are governing on behalf of.
And you can't have that if your Supreme Court is
mostly men, mostly white, because then you have a Supreme
(10:12):
Court is not actually able to you know, meaningfully represent
the people they're meant to be advocating on behalf of,
or working on behalf of. A biographical database from the
Federal Judicial Center shows that of the three eight hundred
and forty three federal judges, less than two percent have
been black women. And so again it's not just the
Supreme Court. It really does go to show that we
(10:33):
have a long way to go in making sure that
the people who are actually representing us in the courts
actually are able to meaningfully represent us and like look
like the population that they're actually meant to serve.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, yes, And I think right now a lot of us,
for good reason, I would say, are on edge when
it comes to the Supreme Court and decisions that they're
tackling or thinking about, including abortion. So this is very,
very very important that we are representing accurately our country,
the people in our country. So can we talk a
(11:20):
little bit about the promise Biden made when it comes
to nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Absolutely, So this is one of those instances.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
Where Biden made a very clear campaign promise. Certainly the
administration has made other campaign promises and tbd if they
will come to fruition, but this was a very clear one.
So this is sort of making good on a very
exuplicit promise. You might hear black women referred to as
the backbone of the Democratic Party, and that's because we
are reliable voters who tend to vote Democrat, and we
(11:52):
tend to go out there and organize our friends and
our family and our communities to also vote as well.
If you look at the numbers, you know, black women,
but I think it was like less than one percent
of Black women voted for Trump.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
So we pretty much we are.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Pretty reliable voters for the Democrats. Has helped them it
that way, and an overwhelming majority of Black women, I
think it was ninety three percent supported Biden during his
presidential bid in twenty twenty, right before voting began in
South Carolina, during South Carolina's primary, Biden made a very
clear campaign promise to nominate a black woman to the
Supreme Court. And so yeah, this was a very clear
(12:29):
promise that he made to a constituency that is reliable,
that is really did a lot of the work and
a lot of the ground game of getting out the
vote and organizing our communities to get out the vote
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Right, and going back to what you mentioned, when it
comes to all of these sexist, racist attacks that a
lot of women and women of color, and especially black
women face when it comes to elections like this or
nominations like this, and then also misinformation and information, it's
one thing to kind of say that, like, Okay, let's
(13:04):
elect a black woman and then another to provide the
necessary support.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
So you know, we hear like I have a shirt
that says trust black women. You know, we hear a
lot of slogans about, you know, the importance of electing
black women and really amplifying our political leadership.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
And again, I feel like that that is great. Representation
is so great.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
However, it really does need to go along with the
work of creating the condition so these these women will
be supported that they're not it's going to be you know,
fodder for unfair, sexist, racist attacks purely based on their
identity who they are. And so I don't want to
just have black women, or women or women of color.
(13:47):
I don't want to just have us be amplified as
leaders if we're going to be set up to fail,
if we're going to be set up to compete in
a completely unequal playing field. I want to amplify the
leader readership of women. But I also want to create
the conditions.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
That we actually can thrive.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
And so I think that that's really what I want
to get into today.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
About some of the ways that our media.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Landscape are kind of set up to ensure that this
person will not get a fair shake I have to say,
like I wasn't really thrilled watching Jinzaki from the White
House kind of give this tepid acknowledgment of the kind
of racism and sexism that would go along with picking
a black woman for the Supreme Court nominee. She said
that Biden's intention to pick a black woman for the
Supreme Court presented quote specific challenges, But in my opinion,
(14:35):
that really doesn't go far enough in naming and lifting
up the kind of racist, sexist attacks and media climate
that are setting this person up to face.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
And that can really be tricky.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Because, as I'm sure a lot of people listening can
probably attest to, it can be sometimes difficult to call
out the kind of unfair attacks that we face as
marginalized people. So if you're a woman who is facing sexism,
sometimes if you are the one to vocalize that, that
only kind of goes against you because then you're the complainer,
you're the nag. And so if you're in a climate
(15:07):
where you can't really call out what you're facing and
the people around you aren't going to explicitly call out
what you're facing, then it's just allowed to fester.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Like on called out Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I found it interesting because as you had brought this
to our attention, I hadn't realized he had made an announcement.
We just knew the promises that President Biden had given.
Finally naming a name and trying to look her up
and seeing who she was. Of course, one of the
top things that I saw was a congressman going in
on attacks and being repeatedly attacking them, just obviously already
(15:40):
ready to go. Oddly enough, the same congressman was the
one that had been one of three Republicans who had
voted her in her federal seat, and we were like, wait,
so how is she qualified then and not now? But
we know the answer obviously of why they are very
upset about this pick. In general, in all of the
game of politics, we understand that. But as it comes along,
(16:02):
that is part of that conversation where I'm like, I know,
I don't even want to mention who it is because
I don't want to amplify that even more. Instead, let's
talk about her qualifications and why she is qualified to
lead us in this type of position.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
Absolutely so, even before Judge Jackson was named as the nominee,
people were wasting no time lobbying these completely ridiculous, unfair
sexist attacks on her. Just we don't even know who
she is, to WHI she's a hypothetical person. Senator John
Kennedy he told Politico, I want a nominee who knows
a law book from a J Crew catalog. I want
(16:36):
a nominee who's not going to try to rewrite the
constitution every other Thursday to advance a woke agenda.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
And he was saying this, we didn't even.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Know who this person was yet, and they were already
lobbing these racist, sexist attacks, like why do you assume
that she's not going to know what a legal brief
from a J Crew catalog? Like that's like reading between
the lines. That is obviously meant to be a sexist swipe.
Because Biden had already expressed his intentions to nominate a
black woman, why do you assume this person is going
(17:04):
to be, you know, pushing a woke agenda? And what
does that even mean? I think when you really pull
apart some of these dog whistles that are used, it
just reveals itself as unfair attacks, rooted in identity, or
just complete hypocrisy, Like just like what you were saying,
were you referencing Lindsay Graham?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Who was you know? I think it was Literal.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
So I've been up working on this since like like
all day, right, I watched the announcement come in, I
watched all the responses. Lindsey Graham tweeted Literal minute after
she was announced, saying, quote, the radical left had won
over Biden.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Yet Graham also voted.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
To confirm Judge Deecks into the DC Federal Appeals Court,
which is the second most important court in the country,
just eight months ago, this past summer.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
So which is it? Is this a win for the
woke left?
Speaker 6 (17:52):
And like what was different eight months earlier when you
voted to confirm her?
Speaker 5 (17:55):
So it is very.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
Interesting at this point, I wouldn't even like the hypocrisy
is so clear that it's almost sort of like not
worth pointing out. It's like, of course, you are only
interested in a bad faith assessment. You know, you don't
even expect people to look back at your own voting
record to see where you actually stand on this issue.
You're just counting on people not actually spending a little
(18:18):
bit of time and thinking about what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Right, Yeah, we're both shaking our head with friends. Yeah,
it's true.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Though, it's so frustrating because it's like every time I
point out something that's hypocritical, it doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
They're like, yeah, Rose, it is.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I mean, essentially, it's kind of what we were talking
about when Amy Barrett Cohen was confirmed as well as Kavanaugh,
about the ridiculous hypocrisy that happened between Obama and administration
and the Trump administration. And now we're back again. Now
we're here again to the same conversation, and literally half
of the Republican candidates or the conservative politicians will agree, Yeah,
(18:56):
this is hypocritical. This is what we do, and they
kind of just leave it at that and assume that
nobody will notice. And typically people who are already dug
their hills in don't notice, won't notice because they want
what they want in whatever agenda it is they have
planted themselves firmly in. But yeah, let's talk about the
fact this is a whole different conversation, but that we
(19:17):
have different types of terms, and words like woke that
have been used as a positive has now flipped so
hard to a negative that everyone is automatically like, oh,
he said it. He's right, it's bad.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Oh my gosh, I could talk all day. I'llnestly. So
I have two things to say about this. One is
that you are so right.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
There are so many words that have just become meaningless.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Right.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
So if you're talking about a hypothetical Supreme Court nominee
and you're like, oh, we don't want somebody who's woke,
you don't know any This person doesn't is a hypothetical person,
so you're not You don't know anything about their record,
you don't know anything about like where they stand on
the issues. So saying woke it almost just just the
only thing we know about this person is that she's
going to be a black woman. So saying you don't
want someone who is woke, reading between the lines, you're
(20:04):
using that as a stand in for the word black, right,
And so I think that we see that time and
time again where these words become stand ins for identity,
and they also kind of become meaningless, right, Like cancel
culture is another one I remember reading this is.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
This is sort of silly, But there was this story a.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
While ago where this guy who had been running a
racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. His racehorse had been I
don't know, they like, I'm sure there's more details to it,
but essentially, his racehorse had been drug tested and he
had been like found to have drugs in a system,
so he was disqualified. And in an interview he was like, oh,
this is cancel culture strikes again. And I was like,
(20:47):
what are you even talking about, Like, how is cancel culture?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Like in what way you caught?
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Yeah, you gotta cut doping your horse and your horse
was disqualified.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
That's not cancel culture, even Like, I just.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
Have a lot of questions about the way that these
words are being used.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
But I think and that's kind of.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
The second point that I want to make about this
is that one of the reasons why I am so
adamant about things like disinformation, misinformation and just having a healthier,
more honest conversation and a media landscape that facilitates those
kinds of conversations is that we are no longer able
to have substantive, thoughtful conversations about the issue when our
(21:28):
ecosystem is flooded with bad faith, clearly hypocritical rhetoric and discourse.
And so you know, even if you're someone let's say
that you're listening and you are very conservative. You know,
you probably have hated this conversation that we've been having,
but you know, like even if you're someone who is
very conservative, you deserve to be able to, you know,
(21:49):
talk about your your issues, talk have a substantive conversation
and a substantive debate about where you stand on the issues.
And so I believe that when the discoord and the
space is just flooded with you know, charged rhetoric where
we're talking where we're talking about race or identity but
using different words, everybody loses because you're not able to
(22:12):
have a substantive conversation about where you might agree or
disagree with the Supreme Court nominee.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Right the ow.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
And so I think that that's my biggest issue is
that we have a media ecosystem that really amplifies the
most extreme, the most over the top statements, or the
most nonsense statements, and so everybody loses. Democrat, Republican, conservative, lefty, whoever.
Everybody loses when we have an ecosystem that amplifies the
least substantive takes because that takes away from the ability
(22:43):
to have an actual substantive, thoughtful debate or conversation about
the actual issues, and so I don't want to create
the conditions for Judge Jackson to only be judged by racist,
sexist tropes or caricatures or unfair attacks, because I want
to talk about her, her actual credentials, I want to
talk about her actual record. I want to talk about
(23:03):
her actual character. But disinformation and misinformation does not allow
for the actual issues to take the center stage that
they should.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Right you just kind of explained my whole conversation with
my parents over the holidays, but we won't get into
that right now.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
I'm just gon't put that there.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It was interesting, but you know, and them thinking about
this because when we talk about these terms and automatically
just becoming used by media as an ecosystem to bring
in the shock value, it makes me also realize that
in terms of what they're talking about in woke, it
is a black term that was created by the black
community to kind of gift non black people with Hey,
(23:46):
you woke up. Congratulations, you're finally seeing what we have
been going through all of our generations.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Welcome you have woke.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like, that's kind of that term, and I hate that
it has been weaponized to this point of being used
against people and when they're using it. When Kennedy used this,
he was weaponizing this terms to a woman, to an official,
to a judge, to a professional who didn't need to
be woke. She was already there. This was her life.
(24:14):
And not only that. If we do look at her
backgrounds and credentials, she has been doing this work. There's
no conversation of her being woke.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
She just is. So with that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Because I'm angry about this, can we talk about some
of those qualifications?
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Oh? Absolutely so.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
One of the best ways to counter all the kinds
of BS, racist, sexist attacks that you're definitely going to
hear about Judge Jackson is to flood the space to
counter that with accurate information. So I'm super excited to
talk about her actual qualifications. So a little bit of
background information about Judge Jackson. She was born in Washington,
d C. Shout out to d C, where I am
also from. She grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents
(24:53):
started their career as public school teachers and then later
became administrators in the Miami Dade County public school system.
I love this a little fun fact about her. Judge
Jackson was a star student, but she was told not
to set her sites too high by a guidance counselor.
When she told that guidance counselor that she wanted to
go to Harvard and guess where she ended up going
to college Harvard. Yes, that's right, So she definitely like
(25:19):
shut that guidance counselor right up. She studied government at
Harvard University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was
the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. So her
educational credentials are pretty solid.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I love that too.
I hope that that the guidance counselor knows.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Oh he knows now.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
So something else about her is that she's absurdly qualified
in experienced. So this is from Steve Ladek. Judge Jackson
has eight point nine years of prior judicial experience.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
That's more than four of our current.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan and Barrett had combined. It's also
more than four of the last ten justices had at
their confirmations, nine of the last seventeen and forty three
of fifty eight appointed since nineteen hundred. So anybody who
tells you she is not experienced, anybody that tells you
that she's not qualified. Anybody that tells you that she
(26:17):
only got this position because she's a black woman is
just misinformed and they're spreading misinformation because as we can see,
she's very qualified, more qualified than some of the current
Supreme Court justices, right.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Which is infuriating.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
But yes, also, as you mentioned, she's already gone through
a lot of vetting, right.
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Absolutely, So this is something else that I think people
really need to understand. She has been vetted a ton,
She has a proven track record of attracting bipartisan support
in the Senate. She's already been confirmed three times on
a bipartisan vote, so there is no reason to not
expect the same now that she's being considered for the
Supreme Court again. Lindsey Graham voted to confirm her, Murkowski
(26:59):
voted to confirm her, and Collins voted to confirm her.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
So these are Republicans who broke ranks with their party
to side with Democrats to vote to confirm her. And so,
having already gone through this process, I would really want
someone like Lindsay Graham to sit down with me and
explain what changed over the last eight months. When he
voted to confirm her to the second most important court
in the country.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
To now, if he is saying.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
That she is not an appropriate choice, I'm the same
with Collins and Murkowski.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
There's no reason to expect that she.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
Should not be able to be confirmed by the Senate,
considering she's been vetted and gone through this process three
different times before.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
There are certain people that like thinking about talking to
them makes my skin crawl.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Graham as one of them.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But yes, I do find it interesting, and this is
a whole different conversation again. You know how I love
the sidetrack that it is an interesting strategy that Biden
(28:04):
and his administration has pulled, not only because this is
obviously telling is like, Okay, this is one of the
most qualified people that we could find that we think
is deserving and has earned a place in this position.
If you who oppose everything we do, are sot to
start arguing, is going to be a telltale sign of
who you are and what you're doing. So it's an
(28:24):
interesting turn. Again, that's a whole different conversation because I've
always interested in good political thriller and this feels like,
you know, I have to do everything a little fictional
or movie s.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 6 (28:37):
Because, like you know, and thinking I was thinking about
that this morning. I do think it's clear to me
that the administration picked someone who had already been like
gone through this process a few times just so that
it will be, you know, just sort of shut down
any kind of you know, consternation there might be in
terms of like you know, like vetting her and all
of that.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
And I think it really demonstrates something. I'm not totally sure.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
This is not a completely fleshed out thought, and I'm
not totally sure how it fits into this conversation, but
I do think there is this standard for women, women
of color and black women where we have to be
extra special qualified.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Kind of that standard of women have to do one
hundred and thirty forty fifty percent more than men in general,
and then when you're a part of the marginalized community,
add on another twenty percent, and then if you're a
black woman, add on another thirty percent of exceeding the standard,
exceeding the qualifications because for some reason, you have to
(29:36):
be on that level in order to be seen as serious.
So that's just in general, So let's put that in
this federal level where they are putting her under a
microscope in every way, and not only putting her in
micro under a microscope to twist and turn truth. They're
going to tell flat out wies. We know this, It's
already happening, that's what they're doing. And we saw this
(29:57):
with Kamala Harris, which I really found fascinating because Kamala
Harris has a track record as the Attorney General. They
lasted her rightful, it's so for her track record in
criminalizing people in general. And when I found out Judge
Jackson comes from the public defender filed correct.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
That's right, So super super exciting. Not only would she
be historic as the first black woman on the Supreme Court,
but also the first public defender to serve on the Court,
which is a big deal.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
She has a long.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Personal history of working as a public defender. While she
was at Harvard, a relatively sentenced to life in prison
for a non violent drug offense, and she helped convince
a law firm to take his case pro bono, eventually
leading to having President Obama commute his sentence. And so
it is a big deal to have somebody on the
Supreme Court who has this legacy of public service in
this way.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
My brother's a lawyer.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
He got his start as a public defender in Durham,
North Carolina. I just love the idea of having someone
who has this history because it's important, you know. I
think that it's often easy to forget that public service
should be a pipeline into bigger things, you know, like
I want to see more teachers, public educators, public servants
(31:10):
be elevated on a national way like this.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
So I love that aspect of.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Her amen former social worker.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
A men.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
We have this attitude where it's like, if you choose
to serve the public, you're some kind of a like.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
I don't think we give people who serve the public
the like props they deserve, and they deserve a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And you know what, I have been feeling some emotions
for our people in Texas who are social workers that
we know what's happening there, most people do, I think,
especially our listeners. And my heart has been breaking because
I already know how divisive that type of conversation is.
But going back to Judge Jackson and her public defense, like, yeah,
I have worked with many a public defenders, and a
(31:59):
good public defender is invaluable the way that they have
to advocate and push for truth and justice, true justice
meaning that we are hearing the side and that they
are not guilty till proven otherwise. And how often times,
especially in I'm assuming DC Atlanta is very similar, how
often that gets wrong, and that when we would find
(32:22):
as social worker who worked in the judicial system, when
I found a good defender, I went and talked to
them personally to try to get them onto cases for
my kids specifically to make sure that they got what
was fair. And that is so huge, So I do
my heart is soaring to know that we have someone
in that field coming to this point.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
Yeah, it's a pretty historic thing. And yeah, people who
serve the public like thoughtfully and meaningfully, they really care
about people. And so I applaud you for, you know,
going the extra mile to create the conditions for your
kids to get real justice and to have a real advocate,
because that's not everybody is like that.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
That's like a special thing.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, this is something that's been on my mind and
I think a lot of our minds lately.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Which is a separate podcast, but I'll mention it here.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
It's like I feel in this country, we have a
real problem with glorifying like male ass story as being successful,
like oh, you managed the system, get your money, like
it doesn't matter. Kind of like what we're talking about
here with the critical nature of all these arguments being made,
and it's more to me, it feels more about the
show and like, ooh, I'm a politician, I'm on TV now,
(33:34):
like it's glorified, Whereas we have people who are working
for the public, and in a lot of ways these
are kind of more gendered as feminine and therefore lesser
in nature, like not worth the attention, not worth the accolades,
not worth the money, even though it's so critical to
a functioning society.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
But yeah, oh my gosh, I mean I could talk
all day. The way that we have harmed everyone, like
a deep, deep societal harm is our legacy of not
respecting jobs that we code as feminine traditionally feminine, so
care work, you know, social work, education, all of these
(34:16):
things that we have coded as feminine. The deprioritization and
just like outright degradation and disrespect of those I think
that the ramifications we will never fully be able to
contend with as a society. How much that has harmed
us the way that you know, people who do care
work are underpaid, if they're paid at all, just the
(34:37):
way that we don't even factor it in and it
just falls on unpaid women, right Like, This is what
I mean when I say women are the backbone of
our country and our society, and oftentimes that work is
just completely not just unpaid, but unseen, unacknowledged. It's just
like the cost of society functioning. And so I think
that this country sometimes the only thing that is standing
(35:00):
between our country and like complete collapse is the effort
and labor of some exhausted women right way.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Right, And let's be honest at this point in time,
is black women like that? I think, like when we
talked about the elections before Biden, the Biden administration, the
amount of work that has to be done, when we
talked about cases like Aubrey Ahmed and all of those,
how women have been forefront and protesting and bringing up
all of these conversations and the continued work that they
(35:29):
have to do. But not only that, like, not only
are they working to do good, but they're often having
to combat all of the disinformation and harmful things that
are being said about them. Because they are doing the
hard work exactly.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
I mean, that really leads us back to, you know,
Judge Jackson. Just so, Judge Jackson, I think I got
the email that she was.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Going to be the pick at like.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
Eight point thirty this morning, and so we're talking at
two pm, and so already in a couple of hours.
Here are some of the unfair or just complete misleading
attacks I've seen on her. One is that you know,
her decisions have been overturned, when in reality, of her
roughly six hundred decisions that she has authored, she has
been overruled just two percent of the time, right, And
(36:11):
so if someone is telling you that in her career
as a judge, her decisions have been routinely overruled or.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Overturned, that's just not true. It's that less than two
percent of the time.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
The idea that she's an affirmative action higher, that she
only got the job because she's a black woman, when
in reality she is clearly absurdly qualified, to the point
where even talking about it seems ridiculous. This idea that
she's too woke or too radical. One thing I would
say is really be wary of people throwing things like
that around without being able to point to.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
A specific ruling or policy or argument that she makes.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
Right, So, just saying somebody so and so is too
radical and then not having it be attached to any
kind of actual policy that you think, demonstrates that be
wary of people are who are saying that, because, in
my opinion, nine times out of ten, when someone saying that,
what they actually mean is this person as a black woman.
And then this idea of just sort of kind of
(37:06):
connecting her to things.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
For no real reason, with no real.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Explanation as to like why you are connecting her to
these things? And so earlier today, Mitch McConnell tweeted, the
Senate must conduct a rigorous, exhaustive review of Judge Jackson's
nomination to the Supreme Court. This is especially crucial as
American families face major crises that connect directly to our
legal systems, such as skyrocketing violent crime and open borders.
(37:30):
So what does Judge Jackson have to do with open borders? Exactly?
What does she have to do with violent crime?
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Exactly?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
You know the fact that he's just throwing her in,
you know, connecting her to these things. I think, really,
I think this is a moment where we will really
be rewarded by really thinking critically about what people are
saying and what they're saying in between the lines. And
I think that really, to me demonstrates a tricky truth
about the nature of racialized and gender disinformation. I think
(37:58):
most people can tell you that there is misleading or
an accurate information out there about like COVID or vaccines,
But misinformation can be a lot trickier to spot and
talk about when it relies on dog whistles, you know,
the same way that someone might say like, oh, a
woman is too emotional to lead, and that's just code
for being a woman. Oftentimes people are using dog whistles
(38:20):
or coded language to attack women, women of color, and
other marginalized folks with this kind of like highly coded
language that can be so tough to really call out
and talk about for what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and it's such a again, it's one of those things.
It's such a double standard and it's so hypocritical. But
I think back to Cavanaugh, He's like crying these angry tears.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
It's like confirmation.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Wait, this is what you're not gonna call him emotional notes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
He's being awarded for being emotional as a man because
that's difficult for.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Them because he's trying because he's being accused of sexual assault. Right.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
Yes, isn't it funny how like we've we've branded anger
as not an emotion, so like women are too emotional?
It's like, well men, if men get angry in public,
is that not an emotion? And how come the too emotional?
You know, banner is not used to identify that as
an emotion.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yes, Oh, I could talk about that forever.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
What is the cartoon with all the emotions?
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Inside out?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, inside out taught me different anger's emotion. I saw it.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I'm surprised. I just saw that you avoid those said
so do.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I cried, well, he'll again, I was said. Last night
and my partner tried to make me watch Paddington again.
I was like, how dare you? I cried, No, it
is it Paddington too. I didn't trust them after the
first one.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Anyway, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Uh. Something else that I has been on my mind
and has been a source of frustration for a lot
of us, and that we've talked about on your segments
when you come on Bridge it is this kind of
what you mentioned is like not only is Judge Jackson
facing all of this like job interview that's very intensive,
(40:16):
But then there's all of these attacks online that are
racist and sexist, and I we've talked about it. It's
not unique to this area because we've talked about it
in terms of video games, so we've talked about it
in terms of entertainment. But I feel like that's already
a term of gatekeeping. That's already an extra thing you're
asking people and the people that know them, like their
families and friends, to deal with. And we just seem
(40:40):
to accept that as the status quo of being a
marginalized person that exists in our media landscape.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
Absolutely, you know, I'm so glad that you put it
that way, because I think that we have this understanding
that it's just the cost of doing business as a
marginalized person. And if you don't want this kind of
thing to happen to you, then just don't speak and
don't express opinions, and don't strive, and don't put yourself
out there, and don't become a public figure and don't
serve your public, and don't like it's just a whole
(41:10):
list of dots. And so I really want to urge
people to have a shift around their understanding of that
and say, like, we deserve to have a media landscape
where everybody can speak up, everybody can participate, and that
you're not going to be attacked unfairly based on your
identity just for putting yourself out there. And so I
want to quickly talk about some research from the Institute
for Strategic Dialogue and they analyze social media abuse of
(41:32):
candidates and found that women of color candidates are targeted
on social media at alarming rates.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
They analyze all these different.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Messages that these candidates were getting, and they found that
abusive messages accounted for more than fifteen percent of those
directed at every female lawmaker they analyze, compared with around
five to ten percent of the male candidates. Women of
color were particularly likely to be targeted. Representative Ilhan Omar
got the highest proportion thirty nine percent of abusive messages
of all the candidates, and AOC you got the highest
(42:01):
ratio of abusive comments on Facebook. And when you're talking
about women, the abuse directed towards women is much more
likely to be about their gender than the abuse that's
targeting men. Abuse targeting men was much more generalized and
focus on their political stances, while messages directed at women
were much more likely to focus on either appearance or
general competence. And so, yeah, I mean you, if you
(42:23):
are a woman or a marginalized person who is putting
yourself out there in this way, you deserve to be
judged on your merits, your record, your words, your deeds,
your values, not your identity, not racist sexist tropes, not
you know, nonsense about women or women of color not
being good leaders or being unqualified. You deserve to really
have your record speak for itself. And I have to
(42:44):
say it's not just sort of I talk a lot
about you know, online bad actors. It's not just fringe extremists.
We also see mainstream media outlets playing a huge role
in legitimizing and mainstreaming racist, sexist attacks on women of
color in public office. And so you know, you might
see things like an article about some complete racist nonsense
(43:06):
or a complete racist attack being quoted in the headline
of an article so that when people share it on
social media, it provides the impression that this is a
legitimate grievance that somebody might have instead of just a
racist attack.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Right, And so we are.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Really calling on media to not create the conditions for
these kind of racist sexist attacks to fester and spread. Right,
I think that this is a time that really requires everybody,
whether you are a journalist or an editor or just
a regular person on social media, to really be careful
and thoughtful about how you are talking about this very
(43:43):
visible black woman who is going up for this very
visible position in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Okay, I feel like you just let us into this.
So tell us the listeners and us voters and constituents
who are here to not only look and see and
view be the audience, but participate in help stopping this
harmful disinformation. What do we need to do to make
sure that we are not only engaging in that, but
(44:09):
not being a part of that, but not spreading that.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So.
Speaker 6 (44:13):
First, it's just you know, if you see like a
harmful racist sexist attack or a conspiracy theory, first and foremost,
don't spread it. Nine times out of tenant you see
this kind of thing, if you retweet it or like
comment on it, you're actually just helping it grow and spread.
Speaker 5 (44:28):
Because of the.
Speaker 6 (44:29):
Algorithmic nature of most of our social media platforms and
so the platform is going to think like, oh, this
person is engaging with this, it must be good content.
I'm going to surface it for more people. So don't
do that. Focus instead on sharing accurate, timely information about
the issues and the candidates. Right, So, talk to people
about Judge Jackson's actual record, talk to people about her
(44:50):
actual positions and where she actually stands. That will kind
of provide a little bit of taking the oxygen out
of the kinds of racist, sexist, gendered attacks we are
short to see. You can go to we are ultraviolet
dot org and check out our media kit. Really asking
for the media to create the conditions for this person
to be you know, fairly judged and fairly talked about
(45:11):
and fairly assessed by the American public. And also the
last one I would say is like, just really ask
questions and be be I think this is a time
where we will really be rewarded if we are interested
in being critical thinkers. Right, So, when someone says like, oh,
she's too radical, but can't give you a single thing
that backs up what they're saying, or when someone says like, oh,
(45:32):
she's just going to be really woke, you know, really
being able to ask you know what do you mean
by that?
Speaker 5 (45:36):
Is when you say woke? Like, what does that mean?
What are you trying to say?
Speaker 6 (45:39):
I have found that to be really useful when I'm
having conversations, particularly with people that may not be aligned
with me politically, you know, really getting down to what
is the substantive thing that you are trying to say.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
And if the answer is, well, I just.
Speaker 6 (45:53):
Don't like her because she's a black woman and I
don't like black women, then say that so we can
so we can you know, address that for.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
What it is.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Be loud about it, because you know you're already pretty
much saying.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
It right, like say it? What's your chest?
Speaker 1 (46:06):
If you're gonna say it right, like, just do it,
you're already doing it. It feels hypocritical for me to
ask this, so I apologize from the jump, But as
non black women and for our male identifying listeners, what
can we do to make sure because we know, we
already know black women are stressed the out But the
(46:28):
fact of the matter is with this is going to
come on to so many more attacks is visceral. We
know what's going to happen, We know it, and it's
going to be harmful. And it's going to be gross.
And not only should we do all the things that
you told us to do, but what can we do
to ease the load a but help fight for y'all?
(46:48):
In general?
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I love this question.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
I would say, first of all, it's probably a tall order,
but I would love to see a shift where we
understand that this spite is all of our fight, like
we are the you know, the more marginalized you are,
the more you are a target. But this kind of
thing really harms us all, and so I think seeing
this work as all of our work to create a
(47:11):
healthy democracy is really key. And so these kinds of attacks,
they don't just hurt the women that are subjected to them,
they really have a meaningful impact on the health and
well being of our democracy because we can't have a
fully functioning representative democracy if everybody is not able to
use their voice, if everybody is not able to participate,
(47:33):
and so step one of that really comes with having
a healthy media ecosystem and a healthy climate for everybody
to be able to participate. And so I would say,
really working to see these attacks on marginalized people as
all of our fight, because all of us are invested
in having a healthy democracy, whether you are a man,
a woman, black, white, like, it is all of our fight.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
And so really being able to.
Speaker 6 (47:59):
See this as something that you're meaningfully invested in, not
just because it's the right thing to do, which it is,
but because we all deserve to have a functioning democracy.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yes, I love it, well said as always, bridget any
other resources you want to shout out any final thoughts.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
Yeah, I would.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
I have to just again shout out the work of
Cisti Scotus. They have been really doing a lot of
the work of building this infrastructure to hold Biden accountable
for this campaign promise that he made. So their website
is awesome, The women who run it are awesome, so
definitely check them out. You can check out Ultra Violet's work.
You know, we are doing a lot of the work
of trying to inoculate folks against disinformation and like help
(48:39):
people spot it when they see it and identify it.
So can check us out at we are ultraviolet dot org.
And of course you can always check out my podcast.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
There are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
Check out our new season which is dropping March first,
and yeah, we would love to have you there.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yes, yes, award winning podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yes, I haven't pbscribe button already?
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Why?
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yes, yes, I agree? Why what are you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
What are you doing with your life?
Speaker 5 (49:11):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Which as this episode releases, that should just be airing
so perfectly timely, very exciting, and we can't wait to
talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Bridget. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much as
always for being here.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
You are the best. We love you.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 6 (49:26):
It's been kind of fun talking about this like very
timely issue that is like happening today as opposed to
looking back on it.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
So thank you for giving me the space to do that.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yes, absolutely anytime, and thank you listeners for listening. If
you would like to contact us, you can Our email
is stuff to You mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Thanks is always to our super producer Christie.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
We love you, do Christta.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yes, You're the best. We love you, and thanks to
you for listening. Stuff I Ever told you. Disquction of
iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
that heart radio app. I have a podcast or where
we listened toavorite shows,
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff I Never told you prediction of
iHeartRadio and because of some topics we're going to discuss
around the election and things that are happening here in
the United States. We had a couple of classics we
(00:28):
wanted to bring back. This is one and it was
something we did with bridget around disinformation and the Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court has become a huge topic of
conversation with suggestions about how to change it corruption allegations
which are but this episode was when Supreme Court Justice
(00:55):
Kaitanji Brown Jackson had just been nominated, So it is
a little dated in that way, but I think that
conversation within is very relevant still, right, Yeah, so we
want to bring this one back.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Hey, this is Annie, Hey Samantha, and welcome to Steph
I've Never told you a production of iHeartRadio. Today, we
are once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Award winning, fantastic Bridget Todd, who we count ourselves so
lucky to know and call our friend. Congratulations Bridgid on
your recent award for Best Technology Podcast at the iHeartRadio
Podcast awards well deserved.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
That's so awesome. Congratulations to you and your whole team.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Oh my goodness, thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
Yeah, you know what I'm going to say. It feel
was freaking good to win. I was kind of like, oh, like,
you know, just being nominated is nice, but I deep
down kind of you ever have one of those times
in your life where you just really need a win.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
That's where I was at.
Speaker 6 (02:13):
So I have to like briefly shout out my team.
Tari Harrison is my producer and engineer. She's phenomenally talented.
Jonathan Strickland is our EP, phenomenally talented doctor. Michael Lomato
is our chief science officer and producer.
Speaker 5 (02:29):
So talented.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
I could not have one without them. They're so awesome. Yes,
so thank you.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Yes, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Love a win, especially when it's our personal friends. Yeah,
I said it.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I'm claiming you as a personal friend.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
I know, Bridget thank you.
Speaker 6 (02:46):
I mean I feel the same way about you. I
feel very honored to know you all in real life.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
And in case you don't know, listeners, which I'm assuming
you do, this was for the podcast. There are no
girls on the internet, which is you've got a new
season coming right.
Speaker 6 (03:02):
Yes, yeah, I probably should have had the name of
my own podcast. No, I'm I'm trying to get better
at like self promotion. Yes, the podcast is called There
Are No Girls on the Internet. We just won an
iHeart Award and we're coming back for a brand new
season on March first. So we've kind of been on
hiatus for a bit while we've been retooling, and I'm
so excited that we're finally launching. So it would mean
(03:24):
a lot to me if y'all checked it out. Thank
you for mentioning and Annie, I obviously cannot be trusted
to remember to say the name of the thing I
meant to be promoting, but yeah, please check it out.
We have all kinds of interesting conversations about how women
and queer folks and trans folks and black folks and
other marginalized voices, how we show up or don't show
up online and in technology. So uh yeah, please check
(03:46):
it out. If that sounds like something you're interested.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
In, you absolutely should. I'm still waiting for the fan
fiction episode.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
I'm ready.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Oh yes tbd.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Also just a fun.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Fact about Tari, who's also a good friend of ours.
She always seeing sitcom jingles at karaoke. Yeah, it's the
thing I adore about.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Her and she refuses to sing anything else and when
someone interrupts her, she gets very annoyed. Rightly so, because
this is her thing and she wants it and has
claimed it and has done well with it.
Speaker 5 (04:17):
How did I not?
Speaker 6 (04:18):
How have I worked with Tari for two years and
have not? I mean, I guess covid as hell, But yeah,
I know this. I need to take her out there
for karaoke.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
Please to see this in action.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Oh you know what, what's a better bridget? We need
you to come to Atlanta and hosts a big karaoke night.
There's several great locations that we love, including my favorite
spot towards Beeford Highway, ran by a Korean family who
was as Korean as you think, and we adore them
and they bring us fruit. Place is a delight while
we sing karaoke to our hearts content.
Speaker 5 (04:48):
Yeah, so please put that on the agenda. The last
time I was in Atlanta, I went to what is
that spot called Church of car Church. There was some
karaoke happening. It was pretty fun.
Speaker 6 (05:00):
So yeah, Atlanta karaoke date literally anytime I am in.
I need to see producer Tari in action singing these jingles.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
It's the best one time. And she's like, we're singing
cheers together. Okay, I love it.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I love it, I love it. Okay.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So this topic you're bringing to us today, Bridget, is
extremely timely. We're very excited to talk about it, and
we have a lot to get into. So let's let's
get into it. What are we talking about today?
Speaker 6 (05:29):
So today is Friday, February twenty fifth, twenty twenty two,
and I want to talk about the just recently announced
new nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Katanji Brown Jackson.
So I have to admit I was putting together all
my notes for this episode last night, and so the
notes were all like, oh, the potential nominee, like when we.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
Have the nominee. It was all very like hypothetical.
Speaker 6 (05:53):
And then this morning the news just dropped that she
is indeed the White House's pick to be the first
ever black women Supreme Court justice on our Supreme Court.
So very historic, very important, very exciting. But we know
that it also comes along with racist attacks, sexist attacks,
miss and disinformation that women of color who are in
(06:14):
public office unfortunately tend to face and so today I
really wanted to talk about how we got to this
place of having this historic black woman being nominated for
the Supreme Court, and what kind of attacks she's likely
to be facing, what kind of attacks she's already been facing,
and how we can sort of all work together to
create the conditions to have a better conversation about her nomination.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yes, and as you said, this is very ongoing. We're
trying to get this episode out as quickly as possible
because things are changing very quickly.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
But we've already seen some of these attacks.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
I know we're going to get into that in a minute,
but before we do that, can you give us some
history and background on what's going on here?
Speaker 6 (06:54):
Absolutely, So here's a little bit of background about the
calls to nominate a black women for the Supreme Court.
I have to shout out that she will rise. Campaign
organized by a great organization called Cistuscotus, and their whole
coalition is full of dynamic black women, women like April Rain,
who created the hashtag oscar so white sixteen nineteen project
creator Nicole Hannah Jones Alencia Johnson, who I love, I
(07:17):
used to work with her at Planned Parenthood Broadway Multi
Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. So, just a huge coalition
of dynamic, badass black women who have been advocating to
put a black woman on the Supreme Court. And so
in the over two hundred year history of the Supreme Court,
not one black woman has ever been confirmed or even
(07:37):
nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. There have been
one hundred and fifteen men and women who have served
on the Supreme Court, and only three of them have
been people of color. There have only been two Black
American members of the Supreme Court, Justice through Good Marshall
and Justice Clarence Thomas. And so that's obviously not a
very inclusive track record in terms of representation. And you know,
(07:58):
this idea of I thought this this was kind of
a new president, you know, a presidential candidate saying like, oh,
if I'm elected, I will put this kind of person
on the Supreme Court. However, there is actually a long
history and precedent for presidents pedging to pick a Scotist
nominee who represents a certain demographic of our population. So
this is from a really great New York Times out
(08:18):
ed by Walter Dellinger, who was the acting Solicitor General
of the United States under Bill Clinton.
Speaker 5 (08:23):
He writes, there is a long and important.
Speaker 6 (08:26):
Tradition of presidents taking into consideration the demographic characteristics of
prospective justices, including geographic background, religion, race, and sex, to
ensure the Supreme Court is and remains a representative institution
in touch with the very facets of American life.
Speaker 5 (08:40):
More fundamentally, our.
Speaker 6 (08:41):
History shows the process of reaching out to expand the
personal backgrounds of the justices has often produced stellar jurists
who make historic contributions to our court and judicial system.
So he goes on to describe how President Reagan promised
to nominate a woman of the Supreme Court, and even
though a bunch of his Republican colleagues were very v
against it and kind of forced him to add some
(09:02):
men to his shortlist, President Reagan was really adamant about
picking a woman and eventually nominated Sandra de O'Connor, making
for the first ever female Associate Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
And so that's some history that I didn't even know about.
Speaker 6 (09:16):
You know, how other presidents have set this president to
make the Supreme Court more inclusive.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, and I think. I mean, it's kind of a
waste of breath to call a lot of news organizations
and Republicans perhaps if they're critical, but they would have you.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Believe that this is a new thing, like, oh, this is.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
Never happen before, and it's ridiculous, right, And this is
not just an issue of representation, correct.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
Absolutely, so representation is important. People often say like, representation matters,
and it absolutely does.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
I'm not, you know, disagreeing with that.
Speaker 6 (09:52):
However, it's not just a problem because representation matters. It's
also a problem because we deserve a representative democracy, a
democracy with the people who are governing actually are able
to meaningfully represent the people they are governing on behalf of.
And you can't have that if your Supreme Court is
mostly men, mostly white, because then you have a Supreme
(10:12):
Court is not actually able to you know, meaningfully represent
the people they're meant to be advocating on behalf of,
or working on behalf of. A biographical database from the
Federal Judicial Center shows that of the three eight hundred
and forty three federal judges, less than two percent have
been black women. And so again it's not just the
Supreme Court. It really does go to show that we
(10:33):
have a long way to go in making sure that
the people who are actually representing us in the courts
actually are able to meaningfully represent us and like look
like the population that they're actually meant to serve.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, yes, And I think right now a lot of us,
for good reason, I would say, are on edge when
it comes to the Supreme Court and decisions that they're
tackling or thinking about, including abortion. So this is very,
very very important that we are representing accurately our country,
the people in our country. So can we talk a
(11:20):
little bit about the promise Biden made when it comes
to nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Absolutely, So this is one of those instances.
Speaker 6 (11:30):
Where Biden made a very clear campaign promise. Certainly the
administration has made other campaign promises and tbd if they
will come to fruition, but this was a very clear one.
So this is sort of making good on a very
exuplicit promise. You might hear black women referred to as
the backbone of the Democratic Party, and that's because we
are reliable voters who tend to vote Democrat, and we
(11:52):
tend to go out there and organize our friends and
our family and our communities to also vote as well.
If you look at the numbers, you know, black women,
but I think it was like less than one percent
of Black women voted for Trump.
Speaker 5 (12:03):
So we pretty much we are.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Pretty reliable voters for the Democrats. Has helped them it
that way, and an overwhelming majority of Black women, I
think it was ninety three percent supported Biden during his
presidential bid in twenty twenty, right before voting began in
South Carolina, during South Carolina's primary, Biden made a very
clear campaign promise to nominate a black woman to the
Supreme Court. And so yeah, this was a very clear
(12:29):
promise that he made to a constituency that is reliable,
that is really did a lot of the work and
a lot of the ground game of getting out the
vote and organizing our communities to get out the vote
as well.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Right, and going back to what you mentioned, when it
comes to all of these sexist, racist attacks that a
lot of women and women of color, and especially black
women face when it comes to elections like this or
nominations like this, and then also misinformation and information, it's
one thing to kind of say that, like, Okay, let's
(13:04):
elect a black woman and then another to provide the
necessary support.
Speaker 5 (13:09):
Absolutely.
Speaker 6 (13:10):
So you know, we hear like I have a shirt
that says trust black women. You know, we hear a
lot of slogans about, you know, the importance of electing
black women and really amplifying our political leadership.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
And again, I feel like that that is great. Representation
is so great.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
However, it really does need to go along with the
work of creating the condition so these these women will
be supported that they're not it's going to be you know,
fodder for unfair, sexist, racist attacks purely based on their
identity who they are. And so I don't want to
just have black women, or women or women of color.
(13:47):
I don't want to just have us be amplified as
leaders if we're going to be set up to fail,
if we're going to be set up to compete in
a completely unequal playing field. I want to amplify the
leader readership of women. But I also want to create
the conditions.
Speaker 5 (14:03):
That we actually can thrive.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
And so I think that that's really what I want
to get into today.
Speaker 5 (14:08):
About some of the ways that our media.
Speaker 6 (14:11):
Landscape are kind of set up to ensure that this
person will not get a fair shake I have to say,
like I wasn't really thrilled watching Jinzaki from the White
House kind of give this tepid acknowledgment of the kind
of racism and sexism that would go along with picking
a black woman for the Supreme Court nominee. She said
that Biden's intention to pick a black woman for the
Supreme Court presented quote specific challenges, But in my opinion,
(14:35):
that really doesn't go far enough in naming and lifting
up the kind of racist, sexist attacks and media climate
that are setting this person up to face.
Speaker 5 (14:44):
And that can really be tricky.
Speaker 6 (14:45):
Because, as I'm sure a lot of people listening can
probably attest to, it can be sometimes difficult to call
out the kind of unfair attacks that we face as
marginalized people. So if you're a woman who is facing sexism,
sometimes if you are the one to vocalize that, that
only kind of goes against you because then you're the complainer,
you're the nag. And so if you're in a climate
(15:07):
where you can't really call out what you're facing and
the people around you aren't going to explicitly call out
what you're facing, then it's just allowed to fester.
Speaker 5 (15:16):
Like on called out Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I found it interesting because as you had brought this
to our attention, I hadn't realized he had made an announcement.
We just knew the promises that President Biden had given.
Finally naming a name and trying to look her up
and seeing who she was. Of course, one of the
top things that I saw was a congressman going in
on attacks and being repeatedly attacking them, just obviously already
(15:40):
ready to go. Oddly enough, the same congressman was the
one that had been one of three Republicans who had
voted her in her federal seat, and we were like, wait,
so how is she qualified then and not now? But
we know the answer obviously of why they are very
upset about this pick. In general, in all of the
game of politics, we understand that. But as it comes along,
(16:02):
that is part of that conversation where I'm like, I know,
I don't even want to mention who it is because
I don't want to amplify that even more. Instead, let's
talk about her qualifications and why she is qualified to
lead us in this type of position.
Speaker 6 (16:14):
Absolutely so, even before Judge Jackson was named as the nominee,
people were wasting no time lobbying these completely ridiculous, unfair
sexist attacks on her. Just we don't even know who
she is, to WHI she's a hypothetical person. Senator John
Kennedy he told Politico, I want a nominee who knows
a law book from a J Crew catalog. I want
(16:36):
a nominee who's not going to try to rewrite the
constitution every other Thursday to advance a woke agenda.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
And he was saying this, we didn't even.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Know who this person was yet, and they were already
lobbing these racist, sexist attacks, like why do you assume
that she's not going to know what a legal brief
from a J Crew catalog? Like that's like reading between
the lines. That is obviously meant to be a sexist swipe.
Because Biden had already expressed his intentions to nominate a
black woman, why do you assume this person is going
(17:04):
to be, you know, pushing a woke agenda? And what
does that even mean? I think when you really pull
apart some of these dog whistles that are used, it
just reveals itself as unfair attacks, rooted in identity, or
just complete hypocrisy, Like just like what you were saying,
were you referencing Lindsay Graham?
Speaker 5 (17:22):
Who was you know? I think it was Literal.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
So I've been up working on this since like like
all day, right, I watched the announcement come in, I
watched all the responses. Lindsey Graham tweeted Literal minute after
she was announced, saying, quote, the radical left had won
over Biden.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
Yet Graham also voted.
Speaker 6 (17:41):
To confirm Judge Deecks into the DC Federal Appeals Court,
which is the second most important court in the country,
just eight months ago, this past summer.
Speaker 5 (17:49):
So which is it? Is this a win for the
woke left?
Speaker 6 (17:52):
And like what was different eight months earlier when you
voted to confirm her?
Speaker 5 (17:55):
So it is very.
Speaker 6 (17:56):
Interesting at this point, I wouldn't even like the hypocrisy
is so clear that it's almost sort of like not
worth pointing out. It's like, of course, you are only
interested in a bad faith assessment. You know, you don't
even expect people to look back at your own voting
record to see where you actually stand on this issue.
You're just counting on people not actually spending a little
(18:18):
bit of time and thinking about what you're saying.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
Right, Yeah, we're both shaking our head with friends. Yeah,
it's true.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Though, it's so frustrating because it's like every time I
point out something that's hypocritical, it doesn't matter anymore.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
They're like, yeah, Rose, it is.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I mean, essentially, it's kind of what we were talking
about when Amy Barrett Cohen was confirmed as well as Kavanaugh,
about the ridiculous hypocrisy that happened between Obama and administration
and the Trump administration. And now we're back again. Now
we're here again to the same conversation, and literally half
of the Republican candidates or the conservative politicians will agree, Yeah,
(18:56):
this is hypocritical. This is what we do, and they
kind of just leave it at that and assume that
nobody will notice. And typically people who are already dug
their hills in don't notice, won't notice because they want
what they want in whatever agenda it is they have
planted themselves firmly in. But yeah, let's talk about the
fact this is a whole different conversation, but that we
(19:17):
have different types of terms, and words like woke that
have been used as a positive has now flipped so
hard to a negative that everyone is automatically like, oh,
he said it. He's right, it's bad.
Speaker 5 (19:29):
Oh my gosh, I could talk all day. I'llnestly. So
I have two things to say about this. One is
that you are so right.
Speaker 6 (19:37):
There are so many words that have just become meaningless.
Speaker 5 (19:41):
Right.
Speaker 6 (19:41):
So if you're talking about a hypothetical Supreme Court nominee
and you're like, oh, we don't want somebody who's woke,
you don't know any This person doesn't is a hypothetical person,
so you're not You don't know anything about their record,
you don't know anything about like where they stand on
the issues. So saying woke it almost just just the
only thing we know about this person is that she's
going to be a black woman. So saying you don't
want someone who is woke, reading between the lines, you're
(20:04):
using that as a stand in for the word black, right,
And so I think that we see that time and
time again where these words become stand ins for identity,
and they also kind of become meaningless, right, Like cancel
culture is another one I remember reading this is.
Speaker 5 (20:22):
This is sort of silly, But there was this story a.
Speaker 6 (20:25):
While ago where this guy who had been running a
racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. His racehorse had been I
don't know, they like, I'm sure there's more details to it,
but essentially, his racehorse had been drug tested and he
had been like found to have drugs in a system,
so he was disqualified. And in an interview he was like, oh,
this is cancel culture strikes again. And I was like,
(20:47):
what are you even talking about, Like, how is cancel culture?
Speaker 5 (20:50):
Like in what way you caught?
Speaker 6 (20:52):
Yeah, you gotta cut doping your horse and your horse
was disqualified.
Speaker 5 (20:56):
That's not cancel culture, even Like, I just.
Speaker 6 (21:00):
Have a lot of questions about the way that these
words are being used.
Speaker 5 (21:03):
But I think and that's kind of.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
The second point that I want to make about this
is that one of the reasons why I am so
adamant about things like disinformation, misinformation and just having a healthier,
more honest conversation and a media landscape that facilitates those
kinds of conversations is that we are no longer able
to have substantive, thoughtful conversations about the issue when our
(21:28):
ecosystem is flooded with bad faith, clearly hypocritical rhetoric and discourse.
And so you know, even if you're someone let's say
that you're listening and you are very conservative. You know,
you probably have hated this conversation that we've been having,
but you know, like even if you're someone who is
very conservative, you deserve to be able to, you know,
(21:49):
talk about your your issues, talk have a substantive conversation
and a substantive debate about where you stand on the issues.
And so I believe that when the discoord and the
space is just flooded with you know, charged rhetoric where
we're talking where we're talking about race or identity but
using different words, everybody loses because you're not able to
(22:12):
have a substantive conversation about where you might agree or
disagree with the Supreme Court nominee.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
Right the ow.
Speaker 6 (22:19):
And so I think that that's my biggest issue is
that we have a media ecosystem that really amplifies the
most extreme, the most over the top statements, or the
most nonsense statements, and so everybody loses. Democrat, Republican, conservative, lefty, whoever.
Everybody loses when we have an ecosystem that amplifies the
least substantive takes because that takes away from the ability
(22:43):
to have an actual substantive, thoughtful debate or conversation about
the actual issues, and so I don't want to create
the conditions for Judge Jackson to only be judged by racist,
sexist tropes or caricatures or unfair attacks, because I want
to talk about her, her actual credentials, I want to
talk about her actual record. I want to talk about
(23:03):
her actual character. But disinformation and misinformation does not allow
for the actual issues to take the center stage that
they should.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Right you just kind of explained my whole conversation with
my parents over the holidays, but we won't get into
that right now.
Speaker 5 (23:19):
I'm just gon't put that there.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
It was interesting, but you know, and them thinking about
this because when we talk about these terms and automatically
just becoming used by media as an ecosystem to bring
in the shock value, it makes me also realize that
in terms of what they're talking about in woke, it
is a black term that was created by the black
community to kind of gift non black people with Hey,
(23:46):
you woke up. Congratulations, you're finally seeing what we have
been going through all of our generations.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Welcome you have woke.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Like, that's kind of that term, and I hate that
it has been weaponized to this point of being used
against people and when they're using it. When Kennedy used this,
he was weaponizing this terms to a woman, to an official,
to a judge, to a professional who didn't need to
be woke. She was already there. This was her life.
(24:14):
And not only that. If we do look at her
backgrounds and credentials, she has been doing this work. There's
no conversation of her being woke.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
She just is. So with that.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Because I'm angry about this, can we talk about some
of those qualifications?
Speaker 5 (24:28):
Oh? Absolutely so.
Speaker 6 (24:30):
One of the best ways to counter all the kinds
of BS, racist, sexist attacks that you're definitely going to
hear about Judge Jackson is to flood the space to
counter that with accurate information. So I'm super excited to
talk about her actual qualifications. So a little bit of
background information about Judge Jackson. She was born in Washington,
d C. Shout out to d C, where I am
also from. She grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents
(24:53):
started their career as public school teachers and then later
became administrators in the Miami Dade County public school system.
I love this a little fun fact about her. Judge
Jackson was a star student, but she was told not
to set her sites too high by a guidance counselor.
When she told that guidance counselor that she wanted to
go to Harvard and guess where she ended up going
to college Harvard. Yes, that's right, So she definitely like
(25:19):
shut that guidance counselor right up. She studied government at
Harvard University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was
the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. So her
educational credentials are pretty solid.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I love that too.
I hope that that the guidance counselor knows.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Oh he knows now.
Speaker 6 (25:44):
So something else about her is that she's absurdly qualified
in experienced. So this is from Steve Ladek. Judge Jackson
has eight point nine years of prior judicial experience.
Speaker 5 (25:53):
That's more than four of our current.
Speaker 6 (25:55):
Justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan and Barrett had combined. It's also
more than four of the last ten justices had at
their confirmations, nine of the last seventeen and forty three
of fifty eight appointed since nineteen hundred. So anybody who
tells you she is not experienced, anybody that tells you
that she's not qualified. Anybody that tells you that she
(26:17):
only got this position because she's a black woman is
just misinformed and they're spreading misinformation because as we can see,
she's very qualified, more qualified than some of the current
Supreme Court justices, right.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Which is infuriating.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
But yes, also, as you mentioned, she's already gone through
a lot of vetting, right.
Speaker 6 (26:37):
Absolutely, So this is something else that I think people
really need to understand. She has been vetted a ton,
She has a proven track record of attracting bipartisan support
in the Senate. She's already been confirmed three times on
a bipartisan vote, so there is no reason to not
expect the same now that she's being considered for the
Supreme Court again. Lindsey Graham voted to confirm her, Murkowski
(26:59):
voted to confirm her, and Collins voted to confirm her.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
Right.
Speaker 6 (27:01):
So these are Republicans who broke ranks with their party
to side with Democrats to vote to confirm her. And so,
having already gone through this process, I would really want
someone like Lindsay Graham to sit down with me and
explain what changed over the last eight months. When he
voted to confirm her to the second most important court
in the country.
Speaker 5 (27:20):
To now, if he is saying.
Speaker 6 (27:21):
That she is not an appropriate choice, I'm the same
with Collins and Murkowski.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
There's no reason to expect that she.
Speaker 6 (27:27):
Should not be able to be confirmed by the Senate,
considering she's been vetted and gone through this process three
different times before.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
There are certain people that like thinking about talking to
them makes my skin crawl.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Graham as one of them.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
But yes, I do find it interesting, and this is
a whole different conversation again. You know how I love
the sidetrack that it is an interesting strategy that Biden
(28:04):
and his administration has pulled, not only because this is
obviously telling is like, Okay, this is one of the
most qualified people that we could find that we think
is deserving and has earned a place in this position.
If you who oppose everything we do, are sot to
start arguing, is going to be a telltale sign of
who you are and what you're doing. So it's an
(28:24):
interesting turn. Again, that's a whole different conversation because I've
always interested in good political thriller and this feels like,
you know, I have to do everything a little fictional
or movie s.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Yeah, it's so true.
Speaker 6 (28:37):
Because, like you know, and thinking I was thinking about
that this morning. I do think it's clear to me
that the administration picked someone who had already been like
gone through this process a few times just so that
it will be, you know, just sort of shut down
any kind of you know, consternation there might be in
terms of like you know, like vetting her and all
of that.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
And I think it really demonstrates something. I'm not totally sure.
Speaker 6 (29:02):
This is not a completely fleshed out thought, and I'm
not totally sure how it fits into this conversation, but
I do think there is this standard for women, women
of color and black women where we have to be
extra special qualified.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Kind of that standard of women have to do one
hundred and thirty forty fifty percent more than men in general,
and then when you're a part of the marginalized community,
add on another twenty percent, and then if you're a
black woman, add on another thirty percent of exceeding the standard,
exceeding the qualifications because for some reason, you have to
(29:36):
be on that level in order to be seen as serious.
So that's just in general, So let's put that in
this federal level where they are putting her under a
microscope in every way, and not only putting her in
micro under a microscope to twist and turn truth. They're
going to tell flat out wies. We know this, It's
already happening, that's what they're doing. And we saw this
(29:57):
with Kamala Harris, which I really found fascinating because Kamala
Harris has a track record as the Attorney General. They
lasted her rightful, it's so for her track record in
criminalizing people in general. And when I found out Judge
Jackson comes from the public defender filed correct.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
That's right, So super super exciting. Not only would she
be historic as the first black woman on the Supreme Court,
but also the first public defender to serve on the Court,
which is a big deal.
Speaker 5 (30:26):
She has a long.
Speaker 6 (30:28):
Personal history of working as a public defender. While she
was at Harvard, a relatively sentenced to life in prison
for a non violent drug offense, and she helped convince
a law firm to take his case pro bono, eventually
leading to having President Obama commute his sentence. And so
it is a big deal to have somebody on the
Supreme Court who has this legacy of public service in
this way.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
My brother's a lawyer.
Speaker 6 (30:48):
He got his start as a public defender in Durham,
North Carolina. I just love the idea of having someone
who has this history because it's important, you know. I
think that it's often easy to forget that public service
should be a pipeline into bigger things, you know, like
I want to see more teachers, public educators, public servants
(31:10):
be elevated on a national way like this.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
So I love that aspect of.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Her amen former social worker.
Speaker 5 (31:17):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
A men.
Speaker 6 (31:23):
We have this attitude where it's like, if you choose
to serve the public, you're some kind of a like.
Speaker 5 (31:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (31:29):
I don't think we give people who serve the public
the like props they deserve, and they deserve a lot.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
And you know what, I have been feeling some emotions
for our people in Texas who are social workers that
we know what's happening there, most people do, I think,
especially our listeners. And my heart has been breaking because
I already know how divisive that type of conversation is.
But going back to Judge Jackson and her public defense, like, yeah,
I have worked with many a public defenders, and a
(31:59):
good public defender is invaluable the way that they have
to advocate and push for truth and justice, true justice
meaning that we are hearing the side and that they
are not guilty till proven otherwise. And how often times,
especially in I'm assuming DC Atlanta is very similar, how
often that gets wrong, and that when we would find
(32:22):
as social worker who worked in the judicial system, when
I found a good defender, I went and talked to
them personally to try to get them onto cases for
my kids specifically to make sure that they got what
was fair. And that is so huge, So I do
my heart is soaring to know that we have someone
in that field coming to this point.
Speaker 6 (32:43):
Yeah, it's a pretty historic thing. And yeah, people who
serve the public like thoughtfully and meaningfully, they really care
about people. And so I applaud you for, you know,
going the extra mile to create the conditions for your
kids to get real justice and to have a real advocate,
because that's not everybody is like that.
Speaker 5 (33:03):
That's like a special thing.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
Yeah, this is something that's been on my mind and
I think a lot of our minds lately.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Which is a separate podcast, but I'll mention it here.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
It's like I feel in this country, we have a
real problem with glorifying like male ass story as being successful,
like oh, you managed the system, get your money, like
it doesn't matter. Kind of like what we're talking about
here with the critical nature of all these arguments being made,
and it's more to me, it feels more about the
show and like, ooh, I'm a politician, I'm on TV now,
(33:34):
like it's glorified, Whereas we have people who are working
for the public, and in a lot of ways these
are kind of more gendered as feminine and therefore lesser
in nature, like not worth the attention, not worth the accolades,
not worth the money, even though it's so critical to
a functioning society.
Speaker 6 (33:55):
But yeah, oh my gosh, I mean I could talk
all day. The way that we have harmed everyone, like
a deep, deep societal harm is our legacy of not
respecting jobs that we code as feminine traditionally feminine, so
care work, you know, social work, education, all of these
(34:16):
things that we have coded as feminine. The deprioritization and
just like outright degradation and disrespect of those I think
that the ramifications we will never fully be able to
contend with as a society. How much that has harmed
us the way that you know, people who do care
work are underpaid, if they're paid at all, just the
(34:37):
way that we don't even factor it in and it
just falls on unpaid women, right Like, This is what
I mean when I say women are the backbone of
our country and our society, and oftentimes that work is
just completely not just unpaid, but unseen, unacknowledged. It's just
like the cost of society functioning. And so I think
that this country sometimes the only thing that is standing
(35:00):
between our country and like complete collapse is the effort
and labor of some exhausted women right way.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Right, And let's be honest at this point in time,
is black women like that? I think, like when we
talked about the elections before Biden, the Biden administration, the
amount of work that has to be done, when we
talked about cases like Aubrey Ahmed and all of those,
how women have been forefront and protesting and bringing up
all of these conversations and the continued work that they
(35:29):
have to do. But not only that, like, not only
are they working to do good, but they're often having
to combat all of the disinformation and harmful things that
are being said about them. Because they are doing the
hard work exactly.
Speaker 6 (35:42):
I mean, that really leads us back to, you know,
Judge Jackson. Just so, Judge Jackson, I think I got
the email that she was.
Speaker 5 (35:49):
Going to be the pick at like.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
Eight point thirty this morning, and so we're talking at
two pm, and so already in a couple of hours.
Here are some of the unfair or just complete misleading
attacks I've seen on her. One is that you know,
her decisions have been overturned, when in reality, of her
roughly six hundred decisions that she has authored, she has
been overruled just two percent of the time, right, And
(36:11):
so if someone is telling you that in her career
as a judge, her decisions have been routinely overruled or.
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Overturned, that's just not true. It's that less than two
percent of the time.
Speaker 6 (36:22):
The idea that she's an affirmative action higher, that she
only got the job because she's a black woman, when
in reality she is clearly absurdly qualified, to the point
where even talking about it seems ridiculous. This idea that
she's too woke or too radical. One thing I would
say is really be wary of people throwing things like
that around without being able to point to.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
A specific ruling or policy or argument that she makes.
Speaker 6 (36:45):
Right, So, just saying somebody so and so is too
radical and then not having it be attached to any
kind of actual policy that you think, demonstrates that be
wary of people are who are saying that, because, in
my opinion, nine times out of ten, when someone saying that,
what they actually mean is this person as a black woman.
And then this idea of just sort of kind of
(37:06):
connecting her to things.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
For no real reason, with no real.
Speaker 6 (37:10):
Explanation as to like why you are connecting her to
these things? And so earlier today, Mitch McConnell tweeted, the
Senate must conduct a rigorous, exhaustive review of Judge Jackson's
nomination to the Supreme Court. This is especially crucial as
American families face major crises that connect directly to our
legal systems, such as skyrocketing violent crime and open borders.
(37:30):
So what does Judge Jackson have to do with open borders? Exactly?
What does she have to do with violent crime?
Speaker 5 (37:34):
Exactly?
Speaker 6 (37:35):
You know the fact that he's just throwing her in,
you know, connecting her to these things. I think, really,
I think this is a moment where we will really
be rewarded by really thinking critically about what people are
saying and what they're saying in between the lines. And
I think that really, to me demonstrates a tricky truth
about the nature of racialized and gender disinformation. I think
(37:58):
most people can tell you that there is misleading or
an accurate information out there about like COVID or vaccines,
But misinformation can be a lot trickier to spot and
talk about when it relies on dog whistles, you know,
the same way that someone might say like, oh, a
woman is too emotional to lead, and that's just code
for being a woman. Oftentimes people are using dog whistles
(38:20):
or coded language to attack women, women of color, and
other marginalized folks with this kind of like highly coded
language that can be so tough to really call out
and talk about for what it is.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, and it's such a again, it's one of those things.
It's such a double standard and it's so hypocritical. But
I think back to Cavanaugh, He's like crying these angry tears.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
It's like confirmation.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Wait, this is what you're not gonna call him emotional notes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
He's being awarded for being emotional as a man because
that's difficult for.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Them because he's trying because he's being accused of sexual assault. Right.
Speaker 6 (39:02):
Yes, isn't it funny how like we've we've branded anger
as not an emotion, so like women are too emotional?
It's like, well men, if men get angry in public,
is that not an emotion? And how come the too emotional?
You know, banner is not used to identify that as
an emotion.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yes, Oh, I could talk about that forever.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
What is the cartoon with all the emotions?
Speaker 5 (39:29):
Inside out?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Well, inside out taught me different anger's emotion. I saw it.
Speaker 3 (39:35):
I'm surprised. I just saw that you avoid those said
so do.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
I cried, well, he'll again, I was said. Last night
and my partner tried to make me watch Paddington again.
I was like, how dare you? I cried, No, it
is it Paddington too. I didn't trust them after the
first one.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
Anyway, that's fair.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Uh. Something else that I has been on my mind
and has been a source of frustration for a lot
of us, and that we've talked about on your segments
when you come on Bridge it is this kind of
what you mentioned is like not only is Judge Jackson
facing all of this like job interview that's very intensive,
(40:16):
But then there's all of these attacks online that are
racist and sexist, and I we've talked about it. It's
not unique to this area because we've talked about it
in terms of video games, so we've talked about it
in terms of entertainment. But I feel like that's already
a term of gatekeeping. That's already an extra thing you're
asking people and the people that know them, like their
families and friends, to deal with. And we just seem
(40:40):
to accept that as the status quo of being a
marginalized person that exists in our media landscape.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
Absolutely, you know, I'm so glad that you put it
that way, because I think that we have this understanding
that it's just the cost of doing business as a
marginalized person. And if you don't want this kind of
thing to happen to you, then just don't speak and
don't express opinions, and don't strive, and don't put yourself
out there, and don't become a public figure and don't
serve your public, and don't like it's just a whole
(41:10):
list of dots. And so I really want to urge
people to have a shift around their understanding of that
and say, like, we deserve to have a media landscape
where everybody can speak up, everybody can participate, and that
you're not going to be attacked unfairly based on your
identity just for putting yourself out there. And so I
want to quickly talk about some research from the Institute
for Strategic Dialogue and they analyze social media abuse of
(41:32):
candidates and found that women of color candidates are targeted
on social media at alarming rates.
Speaker 5 (41:37):
They analyze all these different.
Speaker 6 (41:38):
Messages that these candidates were getting, and they found that
abusive messages accounted for more than fifteen percent of those
directed at every female lawmaker they analyze, compared with around
five to ten percent of the male candidates. Women of
color were particularly likely to be targeted. Representative Ilhan Omar
got the highest proportion thirty nine percent of abusive messages
of all the candidates, and AOC you got the highest
(42:01):
ratio of abusive comments on Facebook. And when you're talking
about women, the abuse directed towards women is much more
likely to be about their gender than the abuse that's
targeting men. Abuse targeting men was much more generalized and
focus on their political stances, while messages directed at women
were much more likely to focus on either appearance or
general competence. And so, yeah, I mean you, if you
(42:23):
are a woman or a marginalized person who is putting
yourself out there in this way, you deserve to be
judged on your merits, your record, your words, your deeds,
your values, not your identity, not racist sexist tropes, not
you know, nonsense about women or women of color not
being good leaders or being unqualified. You deserve to really
have your record speak for itself. And I have to
(42:44):
say it's not just sort of I talk a lot
about you know, online bad actors. It's not just fringe extremists.
We also see mainstream media outlets playing a huge role
in legitimizing and mainstreaming racist, sexist attacks on women of
color in public office. And so you know, you might
see things like an article about some complete racist nonsense
(43:06):
or a complete racist attack being quoted in the headline
of an article so that when people share it on
social media, it provides the impression that this is a
legitimate grievance that somebody might have instead of just a
racist attack.
Speaker 5 (43:19):
Right, And so we are.
Speaker 6 (43:20):
Really calling on media to not create the conditions for
these kind of racist sexist attacks to fester and spread. Right,
I think that this is a time that really requires everybody,
whether you are a journalist or an editor or just
a regular person on social media, to really be careful
and thoughtful about how you are talking about this very
(43:43):
visible black woman who is going up for this very
visible position in the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
Okay, I feel like you just let us into this.
So tell us the listeners and us voters and constituents
who are here to not only look and see and
view be the audience, but participate in help stopping this
harmful disinformation. What do we need to do to make
sure that we are not only engaging in that, but
(44:09):
not being a part of that, but not spreading that.
Speaker 5 (44:12):
Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So.
Speaker 6 (44:13):
First, it's just you know, if you see like a
harmful racist sexist attack or a conspiracy theory, first and foremost,
don't spread it. Nine times out of tenant you see
this kind of thing, if you retweet it or like
comment on it, you're actually just helping it grow and spread.
Speaker 5 (44:28):
Because of the.
Speaker 6 (44:29):
Algorithmic nature of most of our social media platforms and
so the platform is going to think like, oh, this
person is engaging with this, it must be good content.
I'm going to surface it for more people. So don't
do that. Focus instead on sharing accurate, timely information about
the issues and the candidates. Right, So, talk to people
about Judge Jackson's actual record, talk to people about her
(44:50):
actual positions and where she actually stands. That will kind
of provide a little bit of taking the oxygen out
of the kinds of racist, sexist, gendered attacks we are
short to see. You can go to we are ultraviolet
dot org and check out our media kit. Really asking
for the media to create the conditions for this person
to be you know, fairly judged and fairly talked about
(45:11):
and fairly assessed by the American public. And also the
last one I would say is like, just really ask
questions and be be I think this is a time
where we will really be rewarded if we are interested
in being critical thinkers. Right, So, when someone says like, oh,
she's too radical, but can't give you a single thing
that backs up what they're saying, or when someone says like, oh,
(45:32):
she's just going to be really woke, you know, really
being able to ask you know what do you mean
by that?
Speaker 5 (45:36):
Is when you say woke? Like, what does that mean?
What are you trying to say?
Speaker 6 (45:39):
I have found that to be really useful when I'm
having conversations, particularly with people that may not be aligned
with me politically, you know, really getting down to what
is the substantive thing that you are trying to say.
Speaker 5 (45:51):
And if the answer is, well, I just.
Speaker 6 (45:53):
Don't like her because she's a black woman and I
don't like black women, then say that so we can
so we can you know, address that for.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
What it is.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
Be loud about it, because you know you're already pretty
much saying.
Speaker 5 (46:04):
It right, like say it? What's your chest?
Speaker 1 (46:06):
If you're gonna say it right, like, just do it,
you're already doing it. It feels hypocritical for me to
ask this, so I apologize from the jump, But as
non black women and for our male identifying listeners, what
can we do to make sure because we know, we
already know black women are stressed the out But the
(46:28):
fact of the matter is with this is going to
come on to so many more attacks is visceral. We
know what's going to happen, We know it, and it's
going to be harmful. And it's going to be gross.
And not only should we do all the things that
you told us to do, but what can we do
to ease the load a but help fight for y'all?
(46:48):
In general?
Speaker 5 (46:50):
I love this question.
Speaker 6 (46:51):
I would say, first of all, it's probably a tall order,
but I would love to see a shift where we
understand that this spite is all of our fight, like
we are the you know, the more marginalized you are,
the more you are a target. But this kind of
thing really harms us all, and so I think seeing
this work as all of our work to create a
(47:11):
healthy democracy is really key. And so these kinds of attacks,
they don't just hurt the women that are subjected to them,
they really have a meaningful impact on the health and
well being of our democracy because we can't have a
fully functioning representative democracy if everybody is not able to
use their voice, if everybody is not able to participate,
(47:33):
and so step one of that really comes with having
a healthy media ecosystem and a healthy climate for everybody
to be able to participate. And so I would say,
really working to see these attacks on marginalized people as
all of our fight, because all of us are invested
in having a healthy democracy, whether you are a man,
a woman, black, white, like, it is all of our fight.
Speaker 5 (47:55):
And so really being able to.
Speaker 6 (47:59):
See this as something that you're meaningfully invested in, not
just because it's the right thing to do, which it is,
but because we all deserve to have a functioning democracy.
Speaker 2 (48:08):
Yes, I love it, well said as always, bridget any
other resources you want to shout out any final thoughts.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
Yeah, I would.
Speaker 6 (48:16):
I have to just again shout out the work of
Cisti Scotus. They have been really doing a lot of
the work of building this infrastructure to hold Biden accountable
for this campaign promise that he made. So their website
is awesome, The women who run it are awesome, so
definitely check them out. You can check out Ultra Violet's work.
You know, we are doing a lot of the work
of trying to inoculate folks against disinformation and like help
(48:39):
people spot it when they see it and identify it.
So can check us out at we are ultraviolet dot org.
And of course you can always check out my podcast.
Speaker 5 (48:47):
There are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
Check out our new season which is dropping March first,
and yeah, we would love to have you there.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
Yes, yes, award winning podcasts.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
Yes, I haven't pbscribe button already?
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Why?
Speaker 5 (49:02):
Yes, yes, I agree? Why what are you waiting for?
Speaker 2 (49:06):
What are you doing with your life?
Speaker 5 (49:11):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Which as this episode releases, that should just be airing
so perfectly timely, very exciting, and we can't wait to
talk to you again.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Bridget. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much as
always for being here.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
You are the best. We love you.
Speaker 5 (49:25):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 6 (49:26):
It's been kind of fun talking about this like very
timely issue that is like happening today as opposed to
looking back on it.
Speaker 5 (49:33):
So thank you for giving me the space to do that.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Yes, absolutely anytime, and thank you listeners for listening. If
you would like to contact us, you can Our email
is stuff to You mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Thanks is always to our super producer Christie.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
We love you, do Christta.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Yes, You're the best. We love you, and thanks to
you for listening. Stuff I Ever told you. Disquction of
iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
that heart radio app. I have a podcast or where
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