EXCLUSIVE: Melissa Harris-Perry Interviews Anita Hill, 25 Years Later [View all]

[Starry Messenger]

Great interview--I'm looking forward to seeing "Confirmation" with Kerry Washington as Hill. Can't believe it's been 25 years.

http://www.essence.com/2016/04/06/exclusive-melissa-harris-perry-interviews-anita-hill-25-years-later

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HARRIS-PERRY: What difference did it make in the hearings that those stories were lost and that the -nation does not have a context for understanding Black women’s experiences?

HILL: I’ve had almost 25 years to think about this. Let me ask this very basic question: What if the Senate had actually taken me seriously? What if they decided that they were going to use this as an opportunity to reflect best practices in the workplace? I think they would have done a thorough investigation, not a rushed investigation led by the FBI, which had, as far as we know, very little experience investigating sexual harassment. It would have meant calling qualified experts in sexual harassment. It would have meant throwing out irrelevant testimonies and calling all the witnesses who were testifying to similar patterns of behavior. What if they had reflected best practices? How much pain and anguish could they have saved American women? How might that have changed the way women in this country think about our -workplaces and about how we are represented in our government? That’s the question I want people to be asking 25 years later—what if they had done the right thing and not the politically expedient thing?

HARRIS-PERRY: Has any member of that Senate Judiciary Committee ever reached out to you over the course of the past 25 years and asked you what the right thing would have looked like from your perspective?

HILL: Never. I have never been asked that question by a member of the committee. They could have asked me very simply,

“As a citizen who was involved in the process, what do we owe you? As a citizen with information, how can we make sure you are heard?” Even 25 years later it is still worth asking how we can make sure that when representatives call citizens to speak, their government actually hears them. Maybe we could still have that conversation now, because it truly meant something to me. I knew that there was a risk in speaking, but I also knew that it was a responsibility I had as a citizen. It is important for our government to honor that.

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