Black History

COMMENTARY: Judiciary Committee Hearings Enough; Ketanji Brown Jackson Should Be on Supreme Court

“I do consider myself having been born in 1970 to be the first generation to benefit from the Civil Rights Movement,” said Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. “From the legacy of all of the work of so many people that went into changing the laws of this country so that people like me could have an opportunity to be sitting here before you today.”

Published

3 years ago

April 4, 2022

Oakland Post

When Democratic Sen. Cory Booker took his turn on Day 3, he provided reassuring comfort.

By Emil Guillermo

Watching four days of the Judiciary Committee Hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson, I discovered we shared a few things. We were both debaters in high school. And we both did OO (Original Oratory) in the NFL. Football? No, National Forensics League. We both went to Harvard, too, though I was there 15 years earlier.

On the first day of the hearings, I was struck by the introduction given by one of her college roommates, Lisa Fairfax, now a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Fairfax talked about meeting Jackson in her freshman year. “Those first moments when you wonder if you belong,” Fairfax said. “She’s the friend that made sure we all did.”

Fairfax went on: “She was the role model who makes you believe in what she said, ‘You can do it and here’s how.’ And she showed us how, by the power of her example of hard work, preparation and excellence that transforms the seemingly impossible into the achievable.”

I wish I had that kind of college friend in my time in Cambridge. When I needed a pep talk, the best I got was, “Come on, Emil, let’s get a pizza.”

On Day 3 of the hearings, Jackson called herself, “a Black woman [and]lucky inheritor of the civil rights dream.”

With humility, she sounded like she understood the journey all people of color are on.

“I do consider myself having been born in 1970 to be the first generation to benefit from the Civil Rights Movement,” Jackson said. “From the legacy of all of the work of so many people that went into changing the laws of this country so that people like me could have an opportunity to be sitting here before you today.”

That was said before more of the onslaught from Senators Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley, Republicans all.

And if you watched it all like I did, you felt the impact of each attack.

So, when Democratic Sen. Cory Booker took his turn on Day 3, he provided reassuring comfort.

“You have earned this spot,” he said to Jackson, perhaps to help to ward off any self-doubt or a sense of “imposter syndrome” thoughts that may be lurking. “You are worthy. You are a great American.”

Booker was just warming up. As one of the last five senators to question Jackson, he was bringing it home. And it worked. Because I found I could totally relate to Jackson.

If you have experienced even the most minor transgression because of race in America, you know. Did you see yourself as she sat in the committee chamber? I did.

“There is a love in this country that is extraordinary,” Booker said to Jackson. Booker then referenced the racial segregation laws affecting Jackson’s family, as well as the laws that would have prevented her own marriage to a white man. The same anti-miscegenation laws that kept Asians like my Filipino father from marrying whites. “But [people] didn’t stop loving this country, even though this country didn’t love them back.”

That hit me.

It’s the reason Jackson was before the committee, Booker said. It was about all the people who came here and said, “I’m going to show this country that I can be free here, that I can make this country love me as much as I love it.”

And then Booker mentioned Asian Americans, specifically.

“Chinese Americans first forced into near slave labor building our railroads connecting our country saw the ugliest of America, but they were going to build their home here [and say] ‘America, you may not love me yet, but I’m going to make this nation live up to its promise and hope.’”

That statement infused a much-needed sense of diversity and inclusion and love, yes, that word, in a room that had been stripped of it by the preening Republicans.

“And so, you faced insults here that were shocking to me,” Booker said to Jackson. “But you are here because of that kind of love.”

People of color know the struggle of getting to where Jackson sits.

She’s in that seat for us.

As Booker talked, Jackson wiped her eyes.

And that’s all we really needed to know about the judge.

It’s good to know a nominee’s judicial philosophy. But we want to know they are human, too. That they have a heart. And that given individual circumstances, they can break the cookie-cutter and responsibly balance punishment with a sense of public forgiveness, a constructive empathy. If I had a vote, I would cast it in a second for Ketanji Brown Jackson. A vote for history.

Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator. His web talk show is on Facebook.com/emilguillermo.media; YouTube; and Twitter@emilamok

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Activism

Four Bills Focus on Financial Compensation for Descendants of Enslaved People

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of loss property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

Edward Henderson
California Black Media

Last week, California Black Media (CBM) provided an update on four bills in the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) 2025 Road to Repair package.

The 16 bills in the Black Caucus’s 2025 “Road to Repair” package focus on “repairing the generational harms caused by the cruel treatment of African American slaves in the United States and decades of systemic deprivation and injustice inflicted upon Black Californians,” said the CLBC in a release.

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of lost property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Here are summaries of these bills, information about their authors, and updates on how far each one has advanced in the legislative process.

Assembly Bill (AB) 57

AB 57, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), would require that at least 10% of the monies in the state’s home purchase assistance fund be made available to applicants who meet the requirements for a loan under the home purchase assistance program and are descendants of formerly enslaved people.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing the legislation.

Assembly Bill (AB) 62

AB 62, also introduced by McKinnor, would require the Office of Legal Affairs to review, investigate, and make specific determinations regarding applications from people who claim they are the dispossessed owners of property seized from them because of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill would define “racially motivated eminent domain” to mean when the state acquires private property for public use and does not provide just compensation to the owner, due in whole or in part, to the owner’s race.

AB 62 is currently under review in the Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill (SB) 464

SB 464, introduced by Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), aims to strengthen the existing civil rights laws in California concerning employer pay data reporting. The bill mandates that private employers with 100 or more employees submit annual pay data reports to the Civil Rights Department. These reports must include detailed demographic information — including race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation — pertaining to their workforce distribution and compensation across different job categories. Furthermore, beginning in 2027, public employers will also be required to comply with these reporting requirements.

The Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment, and Rules is currently reviewing SB 464. A hearing is expected to be held on April 23.

Senate Bill (SB) 518

SB 518, introduced by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), establishes the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to address and remedy the lasting harms of slavery and the Jim Crow laws suffered by Black Californians.

SB 518 is under review in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing is expected to be held on April 22.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

2 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.