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President Biden is promising to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, and while critics are taking aim at his plan, it’s critical that he make a move sooner rather than later. Biden’s nominee will take the place of Stephen Breyer, a liberal who recently announced his retirement. It will not change the balance of the six to three conservative court, so there should be no problem getting a new justice confirmed. However, Biden’s pledge to name a Black woman is stirring up the right.
Now, this is really an issue where you have to be able to think beyond just black and white. Some on the right have reacted and said, that is racism. You are saying, I am going to pick someone not based on qualifications, but rather simply on race. I’m excluding white people. It’s also sexist because I’m excluding men. That’s a very childish and also factually inaccurate position.
First and foremost, Ronald Reagan did it. And Donald Trump did it. Not with black women, but both Reagan and Trump announced, I am determined to choose a woman for the court, and the same argument that’s being made here about race could have been made about sex at the time. Nobody had a problem with it who now is saying what Joe Biden is doing is wrong. Now you could take the position. It was always wrong. Okay. That’s a different argument.
Recent polling shows a majority of Americans want Biden to consider all qualified candidates, but considering that in the history of this country, we’ve never had a Black woman on the court and there’s no shortage of qualified Black women, what’s the issue?
Finally, are Republicans going to try some funny business in terms of the midterms? Remember when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in March 2016, seven months before the election, and Republicans blocked it? Let’s not give them a chance to do that again.
