By T.M. Bonner
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| Anita Hill Testifying in October 1991 (YouTube Screenshot from "Anita" Trailer) |
By the time I found myself watching
a second major milestone take place in Anita Hill’s life, I
had long stopped finding the harmlessness in the popular phrase “women and
minorities.”
That second
time, I was in a movie theatre in New York City. I was watching the documentary
“Anita,” released in March 2014. It chronicles the impact of the decision
of a young, African-American Hill who dared to speak up about sexual harassment
at the hands of then U.S. Supreme Court Nominee Clarence Thomas.
The first
time, I was watching that drama play out live on television as Hill, then a
tenured law professor at the University of Oklahoma, testified
before Congress in October of 1991 during the now infamous Thomas confirmation
hearings.
I was too young and had more
limited life experience to really connect all of the complicated dots of this controversy
back then. But what didn’t escape my observation was that despite the
professional credentials she held, and the poise, confidence and consistency she
displayed throughout her lengthy testimony, this was a black woman in trouble
as she faced the doubting and accusing eyes of the all-white and all-male Senate Judiciary Committee.
In fact, Hill’s historic testimony on sexual harassment was less of an Aha! Moment and more of an Oh No! Moment.
Hill was a woman accusing a high-powered
man of sexual harassment. Hill was an African-American woman accusing a high-powered man of
sexual harassment. Hill was a African-American woman accusing a high-powered African-American man of
sexual harassment. And while white women would and have faced maltreatment and
credibility challenges when standing up against sexual harassment, it is the
intersection of gender and race in
the case of African-American women like Hill that presents an unfortunate
chasm in a gender-shared experience.
The all-male Senate committee was
already having a difficult time understanding sexual harassment. Asking the also all-white Senate Committee to
see the deeper implications of race for an African-American woman accuser was a
stretch – especially when many in this nation struggle with seeing beyond
stereotypes when interacting with African-Americans on any level.
To illustrate my point, in Time
Magazine’s coverage of the hearings, an October 21, 1991 headline read: “Sex, Lies and Politics: He Said, She Said: As
the nation looks on, two credible, articulate witnesses present irreconcilable
views of what happened nearly a decade ago.” So when the media is still
impressed that two Yale-educated African-American attorneys are “articulate”
(as the headline read), getting an understanding of the more complicated, really
deep stuff would take some work. In case anyone thinks things have changed,
remember: President Barack Obama was
described as “articulate, “bright,” and “clean” in 2007 by current Vice-President
Joe Biden (who also led the Thomas hearings in 1991, by the way).
So behind the scenes, Hill was
pulverized by many African-American men (and even many women) for “trying to
bring down a successful black man.” In other words, Hill’s right as a woman to
protection from sexual harassment from an African-American man should take a back seat to
protection of the ‘race’ and African-American men. Many of these aggravating and disappointing
conversations I even remember hearing at the time. A 1992 study of opinion polls on the Hill/Thomas controversy showed that only 33% of white women, 27% of white men, 26% of black men, and 26% of black women believed Hill was telling the truth. Meanwhile, the all-male Senate Judiciary Committee – having to decide between the word of a black woman
versus the word of a black man (He said, she said) – the word of the “He Said” came
out the victor. And Thomas was confirmed as the second African-American U.S. Supreme Court Justice after Thurgood
Marshall on October 15, 1991.
The Hill/Thomas controversy
represents how misguided lumping minority women and men together in a category
can be via the concept of “women and minorities.” Because if we want to just be
100 percent real about what that phrase means, it separates African-American
women (and other minority women) from white women (“women”) and lumps them all
together with minority men (“minorities.”)
It is true that minority
women and men do share some important experiences and concerns being minorities
in America. But it is also true that minority women also have some very different
experiences and issues as result of them carrying the dual burden of racism and
sexism. The Thomas hearings illustrate that even in a showdown of two prominent
African-Americans who rose up from abject poverty while enduring racism, sexism will always be a
factor for the African-American woman. While African-American women like Hill
are accused of being a “gold digger” and of “trying to bring a black man down”
for bringing sexual harassment complaints, African-American men like Thomas
don’t have to worry about being confronted with sexism-based accusations
and doubt when they stand up for themselves against injustices they may feel
they are facing. They also are not made to feel that it is their responsibility to 'protect the race' and the honor of other African-American men.
There is also the problem of
lumping together all minority women – as if all of our histories and life
experiences are similar. Many minority women felt more comfortable believing
the word of Thomas over the African-American woman Hill – with whom America
assumes they are united with in ‘female minorityhood’ through the concept of
“women and minorities.” And let's not forget that an all-female jury that included five white women
and one woman of Puerto Rican ethnicity acquitted George Zimmerman of the
murder of Trayvon Martin despite an assumed understanding of a ‘mother’s pain.’
But a second problem with “women
and minorities” is not just the lumping together, but also the separating out of
white women from minority women. This has implications of separate priorities for women’s issues – a racial hierarchy
of women’s needs, if you will.
And such a racial hierarchy of response to women's needs from white women down to minority women has been
playing out in this country since recent memory.
While President Obama and other
special interest groups critique gender pay inequality, it is clear that the
issue of pay inequality for women goes deeper than just gender. African-American
women earned $610 per week compared to $718 for white women in the second
quarter of 2013, according to a study from the Center for American Progress.
And while white women only earned 78.1 cents to the dollar compared to a white,
non-Hispanic man in 2010, African-American women earned even less - just 64
cents to that same dollar.
On the health front, while white
women are more likely to have breast cancer, African-American women have higher
overall mortality rates from breast cancer, according to that same study.
And at the time of the study, only
14 out of the total 98 women in Congress were African-American, while only two
women of color have ever served in the Senate. There has never been an African-American woman U.S. Supreme Court Justice, while there have been two African-American men appointed.
So, it is time to stop putting women
into compartmentalized categories that ignore or perpetuate inequality among
women.
It is time to stop putting minority women into
compartmentalized categories with minority men whose self-interests and needs may collide with minority women. It is time to stop feeding African-American women, in particular, the message that standing up against abuse (domestic violence, sexual harassment, etc.), or sexism in the black community will mean being demonized in the black community as a traitor to her 'race.'
It is time to do away with the
concept of “women and minorities” and the implications behind it.
Perhaps by the time a third major
milestone of Anita Hill crosses my path many years ahead, we will have finally
gotten that lesson.
*********************
T.M. Bonner is a writer, filmmaker, MBA, Social Justice Advocate, and is also a professional in Social Policy/Social Service in New York City.
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