How racism and sexism shaped the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearing

[ismnotwasm]

After Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall announced his retirement, President George H.W. Bush announced on July 1, 1991, his pick for Marshall's successor: Clarence Thomas, a 43-year-old US Court of Appeals judge. The nomination was political from the start — Thomas's record was decidedly more conservative than that of the civil rights icon he'd be replacing.

But Thomas's road to the Supreme Court would become much more dramatic after the public learned about a woman named Anita Hill, a 35-year-old black attorney whose allegations of sexual harassment against Thomas — her former boss at the Department of Education and later the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — were leaked to the public just days before his confirmation hearing.

The ensuing three-day hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee was a monumental moment of political theater and is now the basis of HBO's new film Confirmation, starring Kerry Washington and Wendell Pierce, premiering April 16.

But as the film shows, this wasn't just partisan drama — its themes of racism, sexism, and the intersection of the two resonate 25 years later. And although allegations of racism against Thomas derailed the conversation about Hill's accusations in the moment, the hearing irrevocably changed the way Americans view sexual harassment in the workplace.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/16/11408576/anita-hill-clarence-thomas-confirmation

[MuseRider]

1. I started it but had to stop

to watch later. It was almost like a flashback. I was horrified the first time watching live, the little I saw brought it all back. I am glad to read that it was not sugar coated. I will start it all over tomorrow and watch it all. Thanks.