A Step Closer

This week in America, we reached a long overdue milestone. The first Black female Justice of the Supreme Court was confirmed. Certainly, this is a time for celebrating our country’s progress in trying to afford all Americans equality and opportunity, yet I can’t help but realize that we still have so very far to go.

Of course, each step on the journey to full equality brings us one step closer to the ultimate goal, but it’s been decades since Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that bus and little black children were escorted into an all-white school surrounded by a cordon of men needed to protect them. It’s been decades during which the divide has moved forward a step and in the next breath moved backwards several steps.

Why is the concept of treating everyone equally so hard to embrace?  Are some people afraid that by giving everyone equal standing they are somehow diminished?  Does it somehow threaten the “haves” when the “have nots” are allowed the same privileges?  Since our existence, people have been segregated by class – rich versus poor; educated versus not; black versus white; and even country versus country but just because it has always happened doesn’t make it right.

For those who believe that the confirmation of soon to be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was a mistake, do you hold that opinion based on the side of the aisle you align with?  Did you even listen to the confirmation hearings?  Or is it more likely you made a decision based on the political party of the President who nominated her or the color of her skin? 

We are all human.  We all have opinions about everything and the great thing is that here in America we are allowed to voice those opinions.  However, here in America, we also have the social and moral obligation to agree to disagree even if that concept now seems foreign to so many Americans.

The Supreme Court is the ultimate jury in this country.  Juries are designed to be “of our peers”.  There are hundreds of thousands and more black women in this country.  I think it’s about time they too had a peer on the highest court in the land.  This week’s action was, to paraphrase Neil Armstrong, “a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind”. 

Let’s keep that momentum going until there truly is equality for all and events like this weeks’ confirmation become the norm rather than the exception.

Be well my friends….

~BAL