discrimination. yes. and and while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota, the majority of the court may be saying writ large, it s unconstitutional. we ll see how that irony works out. i m not sure if senator whitaker here has some sort of psychic powers, but how exactly would he know so much about the qualifications of someone who hasn t even been chosen yet. to be clear, presidents pledging to pick supreme court candidates from a specific demographic is not a new phenomenon. several republicans have done it before. back in 1980 then presidential candidate ronald reagan promised to name a woman to the supreme court. and of course republicans favorite, president trump in 12020 made it clear his replacement for justice ginsburg would be a woman. that ended up being amy coney
there s one thing we actually know for certain. while i ve been studying candidates backgrounds in writing, i ve made no decision except one. the person i will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity. and that person will be the first black woman ever nominated to the united states supreme court. now, this isn t exactly new information to be clear. biden was simply reiterating a pledge he made during his presidential campaign. but, as you can imagine, in washington, d.c., that did not stop republicans from falling over themselves to criticize a nominee that hasn t even been named yet. members of the gop say biden s promise would bring identity politics into the supreme court. just take a listen to mississippi senator roger whitaker here. the irony is that the supreme court is at the very same time hearing cases about about this sort of affirmative racial
barrett. here s what senator whitaker said to barrett at the time. i have five granddaughters, and i think you re going to be an inspiration to those five granddaughters. so, clearly the senator understands the power of representation and what it means. so, don t young black girls in this country also deserve to have that kind of inspiration? shouldn t they be able to see themselves reflected on the nation s highest court? but let s be honest here for a moment. let s be clear. the issue here isn t identity politics. the court has always been intertwined with identity from its inception in 1789 until 1967 when thurgood marshal joined the bench, the entirety of the court was made up of white men. it s not really the idea of taking identity into account
president s ear. it seems to me like he s picking favorites here. but among the republicans that have in the past expressed support for confirming a nominee so long as that person is qualified is senator graham. so in that sense it s a lot more consistent than what we ve seen from republicans. you ve got senator whitaker, he is comparing biden s commitment to nominate a black woman to affirmative action. he did that in a radio interview on friday. well, it feels that at least some republicans here are going to be doing something, though, which i call begging the question, which is decrying the potential of nomination of somebody who isn t qualified but basing that on the fact that it is a black woman.
also promising to nominate a woman. yes. and if we looked at the list of president trump s choices, we recognize that that wasn t the most diverse list that you could have had. so, i mean, there are these steps that people could have taken to show some to show some truth and voracity behind their statements but they haven t. and this is where this conversation becomes so misinformed. it s so frustrating because the fact is when you have people like senator kennedy, when you have people like senator whitaker and senator cruise who are put in a position to vote on these individuals, that is the problem because they do not understand the issues of race in this country. dare i say, and it will this is going to make its rounds, i m sure. but dare i say, one of the cruellest jokes that this country has ever played on black folk was replacing thurgood marshal with clarence thomas. but this would go over their head because they do not understand thurgood marshal s