Was Ketanji Brown Jackson Not Radical Enough Before The Senate? This Pastor Says Definitely

Pastor-author-activist Mark Charles laments that Ketanji Brown Jackson wasn't more radical during her confirmation hearings and presented herself as an Originalist when interpreting the Constitution, even if, he suspects, she only did so falsely to clear the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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This was a question by Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa...he's specifically questioning her about her method of constitutional interpretation...Is it a living document or a static document?

And her answer was both very political, but unfortunately, it leaned incredibly conservative... Even though she's not giving a label to her method of constitutional interpretation, she's adhering to and using the language of an Originalist, which many of the conservative judges on the Supreme Court are...Which is, let's interpret the Constitution, we are constrained by what the writers of the Constitution meant.

And this, again, is the problem, because the writers of the Constitution, even though not all of them supported the institution of chattel slavery, I would dare bet nearly all of them absolutely affirm the notion of white supremacy...So when you want to get down to the original meaning and you constrain yourself by what the founders meant, well, they were incredibly racist, incredibly sexist, and deeply infused with the lie of white supremacy.

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I tweeted that demonstrating a willingness to espouse the myth of American exceptionalism is the litmus test that white, landowning men use, from both sides of the aisle, from both parties, to determine if a person of color gets a seat at the table. And it's a highly effective method, right? It's working incredibly well.

Because either if they don't espouse the myth of American exceptionalism, they don't even get to the table, but if they do espouse it, then they're given a seat. But now they've essentially muted themselves from some of the things that they may truly believe or that they truly want to do. And that's what I'm concerned about, right?

Because again, we have serious problems in this country. Massive problems. We have huge racial disparities. We have a a constitution where slavery is still legal. We have Supreme Court case precedents that are saying Native nations have no rights in front of Congress, right?

We have all these massive problems, and to get a seat at the table, the people of color have to first give, they have to espouse the myth of American exceptionalism, which is rooted in the lie of white supremacy. You have to say, "Yeah, I'm not gonna rock the boat too much. I'm not gonna go off on these issues that are actually very important to me."

I'm sure there are times where Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson had to bite her tongue, and i'm sure she could have come back with some incredibly effective responses to senators from both sides of the aisle.

But again, because she needed the approval of white, landowning men to get on the Court, just as like this is what happens to all people of color, we don't challenge those things.

Source video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXhKoi0IlK8