Keisha Russell, Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, spoke at Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to deny systemic racism, denounce critical race theory, and claim that both would make Jackson a biased justice.
Source: First Liberty Institute / First Liberty Institute
We’ve all seen that the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson have been a theatric display of not-so-veiled racism of white-tastic proportions and the enduring patience of Black women who are smarter than all the white people in the room. We saw Republican legislators line up to tell demonstrable lies about Jackson’s judicial record. We saw GOPropagandists like Sens. Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn bend all over themselves to link Jackson to critical race theory while demonstrating that they knew f*** all about what CRT is.
Of course, no caucasity theater would be complete without its final act. And for conservative lawmakers, that act begins with white people scouring the pits of the sunken place to find some random house negro nobody knows to condemn CRT and insinuate that Jackson’s Blackness and understanding of systemic racism will make her a biased justice.
Meet Keisha Russell.
Russell is Associate Counsel with First Liberty Institute, which focuses on “religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights,” according to the organization’s website. But on Wednesday, Russell had different focuses—CRT and Black justices who can’t do their jobs correctly because somehow being Black in America their entire lives has brought them to the conclusion that *gasp* racism is still a problem for Black people.
I see they brought in a young Black women to attack CRT & criticize Judge Ketanji Browm Jackson. We see you Keisha Russell of the First Liberty Institute. You are being used to attack another Black woman. pic.twitter.com/kaoDEFcFdC
— THEE Hercules Mulligan (@johnvmoore) March 24, 2022
When I saw those crispy edges I should’ve known this mess was coming. They will always find a self-hating disgrace to carry their water.
Y’all pray for me. My pressure is sky high. pic.twitter.com/aVWXAh3gMI
— yvette nicole brown (@YNB) March 24, 2022
“Adherence to CRT removes the principle of the quality before the law that is necessary for judicial decision making,” this random Candace Owens variant said on the final day of confirmation hearings. “Consider for example how CRT philosophy can influence a judge’s view on criminal sentencing. If a judge believes that the only way to correct racism is to provide advantages to Black and disadvantages to whites, this would create dire injustices practices. A judge who embraces CRT’s views may engage in favoritism and partiality contrary to the judicial canons.”
Russell continued saying that “a judge must uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary and she can not do so if she considers systemic racism in her decision making.”
“While racism is alive in the hearts of many in our country, it does not determine the outcome of any minorities’ educational, professional or economic accomplishments.”
I’m going to pause for a sec because I don’t want Black people hurling their phones against the wall reading this white nonsense spewed from a negro sockpuppet.
I mean, this woman is really out here imagining a Bizarro World scenario where Black people are advantaged in America’s justice system and white people are disadvantaged while ignoring the actual reality where the opposite is true.
She even started with the standard “while racism is alive” caveat then pump-faked us by saying it’s only alive “in the hearts” of people. And as for her erroneous claim that racism “does not determine the outcome of any minorities’ educational, professional or economic accomplishments,” while just about every scholarly study on racism in schools and in the workplace says the opposite thing, that doesn’t matter because Russell had something to cite that trump’s all other research—her mommy and daddy raised successful Black children.
“My own testimony is a reflection of this truth,” Russel declared. “I’m a first-generation American and the daughter of Jamaican-born parents, and despite the fact that my parents came to this country to build a life for themselves from the ground up, my parents still raised many successful children.”
“Racism doesn’t do anything since some Black people are successful” is quite the take, isn’t it?
Russell is basically deciding that being anecdotal trumps actual statistical proof of racial adversity. She has decided that Black individuals throughout history who have achieved levels of success in spite of them suffering under legally-sanctioned racism including slavery and Jim Crow laws are irrelevant to her naive-at-best narrative around racism. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was an entire community of affluent Black people—until white America decided it shouldn’t exist. That doesn’t matter though. Russell is basically going with an argument that is akin to white people’s claims that America couldn’t be racist because one out of 46 of its presidents has been Black.
The fact of the matter is, the GOP always needs to find fresh Black people to cosign white obliviousness. Why else would Russell—an unknown Black woman who has far less legal experience than Jackson (she apparently went to Emory University School of Law and worked as a law clerk for the Center’s Restoring Religious Freedom Project but has not actually worked as an officer of any court)—be invited to speak at a Supreme Court confirmation hearing as if she would know what TF she’s talking about?
But people like Russell will always have a place in the GOP because Republicans will always need their party to look less like a “whites only” party and more like a “conservative Blacks are OK too, I guess” party. Dismiss the testimonies and lived experiences of millions upon millions of Black people who believe systemic racism is alive and well in favor of whatever Black people they can scrounge up to say the opposite is true—that’s the Republican game.
This sh** is just sad.
Keisha Russell is the new Candace Owens. The struggle is real. pic.twitter.com/qm6SlLc8eH
— The Chanteezy For Real
(@iamchanteezy) March 24, 2022
SEE ALSO:
GOP Uses Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Confirmation Hearing To Push CRT Misinformation
