The political event that had an impact on my young adult life more than any other was the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings.
In October of 1991 I was 22-years-old and in my first month of graduate school. It was the first time I'd left the Eastern seaboard where I'd always used public transportation. Without understanding the Midwestern landscape I moved to Minnesota with no car. I had broken up with my East Coast boyfriend and I was the only Black student in my department. I couldn't afford long-distance calls and Al Gore hadn't invented the internet, so I was often glued to the television.
I watched the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings every day. Even though Anita Hill was a Republican social conservative, she was a Black woman who taught law, and that was my dream. I watched wondering, what if something horrible like this happened to me? No one believes her.
A few years later, I started teaching in a department (that I am no longer affiliated with), and I soon found out. We went on an international research trip. We were in a warm destination during January term, and my department chair asked me to go to a topless beach with him.
Similar to Anita Hill, I did not come forward. A well-meaning white colleague (like Nina Totenberg), told the Dean who insisted that I file a grievance. I was not tenured and couldn't imagine defying the Dean.
To make a long story short, an investigation was done, and I was not believed. Similar to Professor Hill, I was publicly vilified. Similar to Professor Hill, my career persevered.
I am sharing this story because a few years later I ran into my perpetrator's wife. Unlike Virginia Thomas, she never called my campus phone and she never asked me to apologize.
If Mrs. Thomas thinks that those of us who have experienced this are sorry that we spoke truth to power, well yes Virginia; there is a Santa Claus.
We apologize for the confusion.
US Chamber of Commerce accepting foreign monies.
Sadly, too many right wingers just can't stand truth.
They don't care about the truth.
And having someone yell "n-----r" at you isn't as bad as being lynched. So no racism.
Really--this is the best you can do?
It was a person in a position of authority attempting to use that authority to intimidate an underling. It was harrassment.
It's one thing to make a mistake (it's usually followed-up immediately with an apology) and another to offend/harass different individuals just once each . . . . Understand that our laws are here to protect the victims in much the same way they're here to protect the perpetrators' rights of due process.
I considered Anita Hill a hero in 1991 because she gave women hope that workplaces would soon be free of the sexual harrassment and retribution sufferred in silence. Virginia Thomas may never have faced the kind of male tormentors that some women my age faced. But, she should understand that sexual harrassment at the EEOC could have disqualified her husband from hearing discrimination cases from the bench.
Anita Hill was brave in the face of the prevailing thought of the day. The men on the juduciary committee were wrong to treat her with contempt.
The only proper way to thank Anita Hill is to nominate her to the Supreme Court.