Commentary
It’s Time for a Black Woman on the Supreme Court
Fortunately, there are plenty of Black women who represent the values of the civil rights community and are ready to serve.
![](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/773px-U.S._Supreme_Court_building-m.jpg)
I am eager to see a brilliant Black woman serving as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. I hope to celebrate her swearing-in later this year.
If you’re thinking, “Did I miss something?” the answer is no, there is no vacancy on the Court right now.
But there has been talk that Justice Stephen Breyer, who is 82 years old, might step down after the current Supreme Court term ends in June.
Some activists and legal scholars are encouraging Breyer to step down now. That would give President Joe Biden a chance to fulfill his campaign promise to name a Black woman to the high court. And it would let a Biden nominee be considered by a Senate that is not controlled by Republicans.
Never forget that when Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was majority leader, he abused his power to slow-walk President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees. And he refused to allow the Senate to even consider Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Merrick Garland, leaving a seat vacant for more than a year.
That same McConnell did everything he could to pack the courts with right-wing judges during the Trump administration—including a third Trump Supreme Court justice who was rammed through the Senate just days before voters turned Trump out of office. Those Trump judges threaten the legal legacy of the first Black person to serve on the Supreme Court, the brilliant Justice Thurgood Marshall. And that threatens all of us.
As a Marylander with deep roots in Baltimore, I am proud that a native son of that great city was the first Black justice on our country’s highest court. As a lifelong civil rights activist, I am grateful that a strategist for the civil rights movement was given the opportunity to advance equality under law as a Supreme Court justice.
As a Black man and father of Black children, I am thankful for the ways that Marshall changed history. And I am deeply committed to defending those changes at a time when they are under attack.
The threat to our lives, and to a multiracial, multiethnic democratic society, does not just come from violent white supremacists or abusive cops. It comes from Republican politicians whose response to high Black voter turnout in 2020 is to make it harder for many of us to vote. And it comes from judges who dismiss evidence of systemic racism and uphold voter suppression.
What better time to have a powerful Black woman on the high court as a voice for truth and accountability?
That is especially true now that another civil rights champion, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has left the court, and been replaced by a justice who does not share her values. We need someone to fill the shoes of both Marshall and Ginsburg, two of the most transformative lawyers in our nation’s history.
Fortunately, there are plenty of Black women who represent the values of the civil rights community and are ready to serve.
Black women lawyers are fighting for civil rights every day. Black women scholars are expanding our understanding of systemic racism and its impact on all of us. Black women strategists are defending voting rights. Black women activists are building coalitions and electing politicians who are committed to defending our rights and our communities.
Candidate Joe Biden demonstrated his recognition of the importance of Black women when he chose Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate. And he excited many of us with his promise to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court. The American people made Biden president and made Harris the first woman, first Black person, and first Asian American to serve as vice president.
I am looking forward to working with President Biden to confirm to the Supreme Court a phenomenal Black woman who will champion the values of freedom, justice, opportunity, and equality at a time when they urgently need champions.
It will be a relief to see her take her seat. And it will be glorious.
Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 24 – 30, 2024
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Activism
Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 17 -23, 2024
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Commentary
COMMENTARY: President Biden, The Constitution and Race
The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President. Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?
![Dr. John E. Warren contends that it is the race of Biden’s successor, Kamal Harris, that is the real issue underneath the fearmongering about the president’s age. Courtesy photo.](https://www.postnewsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/dr-john-warren-featured-web.jpg)
By Dr. John E. Warren, Publisher
The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint Newspaper
The Democratic Party needs to pause and reflect on the real issue, which is race and not an aging President.
Once again, we see the Kool-Aid of division being swallowed, not by the MAGA Right, but by Democrats who know better and openly profess a love for democracy and the Constitution of the United States. So, the question is how can one love the Constitution and at the same time only obey those sections that agree with our way of thinking?
When President Biden wins re-election, his age or any other issue will only become a problem when there are signs he is unable to fulfill the duties of the Office. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution handles the succession process setting out how the Vice President assumes the Office of the Presidency and how the Office of the Vice Presidency is to be filled. The elephant in the room is Vice President Kamala Harris, who happens to not only be a woman, but also Black.
This is the same Black woman who was Attorney General of the largest state in the Union. She was an elected U.S. Senator from that same state which had given us the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren and President Ronald Reagan.
She has been elected by the Democratic Party’s primary process which made Joe Biden the presidential candidate, and Harris the vice-presidential candidate.
So, is the real issue the age of a man who, in the last four years, rescued this nation from the brink of destruction?
Is it the Democrats opposing the President staying in the race who may have Alzheimer’s and memory loss, rather than the President who remembers what he has done and how he rescued a struggling nation?
Is it the Democrats complaining about the President and know that Trump has a better chance at winning against a last-minute replacement than running against a President who has already beaten him before? In knowing all these facts, especially the presence of the 25th Amendment, the only card left in the deck is race.
It appears that some White Liberal Democrats just don’t want a Black woman in the orbit of really becoming President and they would rather disgrace and destroy a good man because of a bad debate than take a chance on a Black woman running the White House.
Let’s not get it twisted. It was a Black Congressman from South Carolina, James Clyburn, who motivated Black America to vote for Joe Biden when it appeared that he was out of the race for the presidency.
It is the Black Vote that put him in office and it is the Black Vote of the Congressional Black Caucus who, in this race for the White House, is standing in unity with the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives in a Republican-controlled Congress against whimpering calls from a few democrats for the President to “step aside.”
Once again, the clarion call is to stand with the Constitution and not be like the Supreme Court who is now stomping upon all that it stands for in an effort to protect and insulate the convicted felon that we, the people, would keep out of the White House.
A move to oust President Biden would surely guarantee an election victory for Trump.
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