Sen. Cory Booker brought tears to Ketanji Brown Jackson’s eyes as he spoke of the “joy” of this historic moment of a Black woman being the likely next Supreme Court justice of the United States.
On the third day of the Supreme Court nominee’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Booker (D-N.J.) pointed to the ugly, disrespectful lines of questioning the federal judge has faced by Republican senators.
“This has been not a surprise, given the history that we all know, but perhaps a little bit of a disappointment, some of the things that have been said in this hearing,” Booker said, crediting Jackson’s “grit and grace” and “extraordinary demeanor” in response to the GOP senators’ attacks.
Republicans repeatedly interrupted Jackson’s responses, some yelled, others stormed out and several raged about child porn and falsely accused her of being too lenient on sex offenders.
Booker noted the “challenges and indignities that are still faced” by Black people. “And you’re here,” he said to Jackson.
“You got here how every Black woman in America who’s gotten anywhere has done… like Ginger Rogers said: ‘I did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels,’” he added. “Nobody’s stealing my joy.”
In his impassioned remarks, Booker celebrated how much Jackson’s nomination to the nation’s highest court means to Black women specifically.
“You’re a person who is so much more than your race and gender,” Booker said to Jackson with tears in his eyes. “It’s hard for me not to look at you and see my mom, my cousins… I see my ancestors and yours.”
“Nobody is gonna steal the joy,” Booker went on. “You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American…. You’re here. And I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”
Booker called Jackson’s historic nomination his “harbinger of hope” that “this country is getting better.”