That’s how Robert Pattinson describes his embodiment of Gotham City’s most famous superhero in “The Batman,” a film with the air of a noir thriller that is set to debut in the United States on Friday.
“(My Batman) would be listening to Norwegian black metal or maybe drone techno. That definitely seems like (what) would reflect his mental state,” the actor joked in an interview with Efe when imagining what musical tastes his dark take on Bruce Wayne (Batman’s real identity) might have.
Warner Bros. Pictures is counting on Matt Reeves’ direction and the charisma of Pattinson to help ensure the success of this reboot of the DC Comics franchise, a picture that entertainment magazine Variety says has a whopping $200 million budget.
Manifestantes sostienen carteles durante una protesta tras la muerte de asesinado Trayvon Martin en Sanford, Florida.Julie Fletcher (AP)
El 12 de febrero de 2012, Trayvon Martin, un joven de 17 años, caminaba con prisa bajo la lluvia por un suburbio de Orlando, Florida. Cubría su cabeza con la capucha de una sudadera y cargaba una bolsa con golosinas y una lata de té helado. A George Zimmerman, un vigilante vecinal de 28 años, le pareció sospechoso. Llamó al 911 para alertar sobre la presencia del joven, a quien empezó a perseguir, a pesar de que el equipo de emergencia le dijo que no lo hiciera. Hubo un altercado entre los dos hombres. El joven, que iba desarmado, murió producto de una bala en su pecho. Era negro. El vigilante, hispano, quedó absuelto de todos los cargos.
La muerte de Martin encendió la mecha del movimiento Black Lives Matter (traducido del inglés como “Las vidas negras importan”), una voz fundamental contra la brutalidad policial hacia la población negra en Estados Unidos. Una década después del suceso, los activistas continúan multiplicándose a medida que otros jóvenes con capucha mueren a tiros por parecer sospechosos, como Eric Garner, Tamir Rice o Freddie Gray.
Barack Obama era presidente cuando la comunidad negra salió a las calles a reclamar justicia. “Una de las cosas más importantes que surgieron de esta tragedia [la muerte de Martin] fue la activación de toda una nueva generación de líderes de derechos civiles”, afirmó Obama a The New York Times. Dos días después de la muerte de Martin, Obama dijo en los jardines de la Casa Blanca: “Si tuviera un hijo, se parecería a Trayvon”. Cuando brotaban las semillas del movimiento racial en las masivas protestas tras la absolución de Zimmerman, el mandatario escribió que era consciente de que el caso había “levantado pasiones, pero un jurado ha hablado”.
Desde la muerte de George Floyd en mayo de 2020 ha habido juicios sobre homicidios a negros desarmados con condenas duras, pero los activistas de los derechos civiles afirman que el problema es sistemático y que el sistema judicial es racista. 10 años atrás, el asesino de Trayvon Martin quedó libre porque el jurado le creyó cuando dijo que había actuado en defensa propia. La semana pasada, Kim Potter, una expolicía de Minnesota que mató a tiros a Daunte Wright, un afroamericano de 20 años que iba desarmado, recibió dos años de cárcel. La jueza le creyó cuando este afirmó que había sacado su arma de fuego por error, cuando en realidad quería utilizar su pistola táser. La madre del joven fallecido dijo que Potter había asesinado a su hijo y que el sistema de justicia lo había matado de nuevo.
Ben Crump, uno de los abogados de derechos civiles más destacados de Estados Unidos, representó a la familia de Martin y también a la de Floyd. “Creo que cuando miras la condena del asesino de George Floyd, la condena del asesino de Daunte Wright en Minnesota, la mafia del linchamiento de Ahmaud Arbery, todo se remonta a Trayvon Martin y eleva el nivel de conciencia de que las vidas negras importan”, reflexionaba esta semana en una entrevista al Orlando Sentinel. “Creo que, sin Trayvon, no veríamos nada del progreso que hemos logrado”.
Suscríbase aquí a la newsletter de EL PAÍS América y reciba todas las claves informativas de la actualidad de la región
Únete a EL PAÍS para seguir toda la actualidad y leer sin límites.
Americans are starkly divided by race on the importance of President Joe Biden’s promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, with white Americans far less likely to be highly enthusiastic about the idea than Black Americans — and especially Black women.
That’s according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows 48% of Americans say it’s not important to them personally that a Black woman becomes a Supreme Court Justice. Another 23% say that’s somewhat important, and 29% say it’s very or extremely important. Only two Black men have served on the nation’s highest court, and no Black women have ever been nominated.
A new AP-NORC poll finds that 7 in 10 Black women say it’s extremely or very important for a Black woman to become a Supreme Court justice. Black Americans are much more likely than white Americans to say so.
The poll shows Biden’s pledge is resonating with Black Americans, 63% of whom say it’s very or extremely important to them personally that a Black woman serves on the court, compared with just 21% of white Americans and 33% of Hispanics. The findings come as Biden finalizes his pick to fill the seat that is being vacated by Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement last month.
“While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decisions 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,” Biden said in his remarks on Breyer’s impending retirement. “It’s long overdue, in my view.”
Black women are particularly moved by the idea, with 70% placing high importance on the nomination, compared to 54% of Black men.
Diana White, a 76-year-old Democrat from Hanley Hills, Missouri, said Biden wouldn’t choose someone if “she didn’t have the potential and the professionalism and the knowledge to do the job.”
White, who is Black, said making a groundbreaking nomination could be inspirational to younger people.
“That’s what I think about, things for other people to look forward to later in life,” she said.
Any enthusiasm that could be generated by Biden’s nomination could benefit his party in this year’s midterm elections, when Democrats risk losing control of Congress. So far Biden has struggled to deliver on other goals for the Black community, such as police reform legislation and voting rights protections.
Some 91% of Black voters backed Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate.
But recent polls suggest Biden’s approval rating has dipped substantially among Black Americans since the first half of 2021, when about 9 in 10 approved of how he was handling his job. The new poll shows that his approval among Black Americans stands at 67%.
Jarvis Goode, a 35-year-old Democrat from LaGrange, Georgia, agreed that it’s “overdue” to have a Black woman on the court.
Goode, who is Black, said he hopes the nomination would provide further proof that “women can do the same as men.”
Biden first promised to choose a Black women for the Supreme Court when he was running for president. According to a person familiar with the process, he’s interviewed at least three candidates for the position — judges Ketanji Brown Jackson, J. Michelle Childs and Leondra Kruger — and he’s expected to announce his decision next week.
The poll shows that most Democrats say a Black woman on the court is at least somewhat important, though only half think it’s very important. Among Republicans, about 8 in 10 say it’s not important.
John Novak, a 52-year-old Republican from Hudson, Wisconsin, said he disliked Biden’s pledge to choose a Black woman, saying there’s too much focus on “checking boxes” when it comes to nominating people.
“It should have been stated that we’re going to pick the best candidate who is going to follow the Constitution,” said Novak, who is white. “And then throw in that we’d like her to be a woman and woman of color.”
There’s been a mixed reaction from Republican elected officials.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, described Biden’s promise as “offensive” because it sends a message to most Americans that “I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible.”
However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said it did not bother him, and he noted that President Donald Trump and President Ronald Reagan had promised to nominate women for the Supreme Court.
“I heard a couple of people say they thought it was inappropriate for the president to announce he was going to put an African American woman on the court. Honestly, I did not think that was inappropriate,” said McConnell said during a Tuesday event in his home state.
The poll found that Americans’ faith in the Supreme Court continues to wane. Only 21% said they have a great deal of confidence in the high court, while 24% said they have hardly any confidence. The latter number has risen somewhat from 17% in September 2020, the last time the question was asked.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,289 adults was conducted Feb. 18-21 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
During February, a special ritual takes place backstage at The Lion King musical on Broadway.
On show days, the four young actors who play the lion cubs Simba and Nala seek out fellow actor Bonita J. Hamilton in the moments before the curtain goes up at the Minskoff Theatre.
The youngsters have learned their lines and choreography, of course, but during Black History Month, they also tell Hamilton what they’ve learned about a Black historical figure. It might include a birthdate, the figure’s biggest achievements and some facts about their lives.
“February is my favorite month because the children — the cubs — get to teach me about Black history,” said Hamilton, who plays the hyena leader Shenzi onstage and offstage looks after the cubs with warmth and respect. “Every day in the month of February, they bring me a Black history fact.”
Hamilton has led the voluntary ritual for 17 years and the children seem to enjoy the challenge. “Telling Miss Bonita my fact is just really fun to do,” said Sydney Elise Russell, 10, who plays young Nala.
This month, the kids have honored Aretha Franklin, Shirley Chisholm, Whitney Houston, Billie Holiday, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Michael Jordan, George Washington Carver, Angela Davis, Ethel Waters, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali, Dorothy Height and Mabel Fairbanks, among others.
“They’re learning, I’m learning. Because I say, ‘You’re teaching me something,'” said Hamilton, a graduate of Alabama State University and Brandeis University. “You’ve got to know whose shoulders you’re standing on.”
Last Friday night, Vince Ermita, 12, who plays Simba for four performances a week, sought out Hamilton to recite what he’d lately learned online about music icon Louis Armstrong.
“Louis Armstrong was born on Aug. 4, 1901, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was a jazz trumpeter and vocalist, and one of the most iconic people he performed with was Ella Fitzgerald,” Vince said, without notes.
“His improvisation changed the landscape of jazz, and some of his most famous songs were What a Wonderful World, West End Blues and Hello, Dolly! And he passed away on July 6, 1971.”
Vince Ermita, from left, Alayna Martus, Sydney Elise Russell and Bonita J. Hamilton pose in the lobby of the Minskoff Theatre before a performance of Broadway’s ‘The Lion King’ on Feb. 18, 2022, in New York.
Vince had clearly nailed the assignment, and Hamilton beamed. But she had a follow-up question: What was Armstrong’s nickname?
“Satchmo?” he answered.
“All right!” Hamilton exclaimed, giving him a hand slap.
The other young actors also offered their facts. Alayna Martus, 12, picked gymnast Dominique Dawes — nicknamed Awesome Dawesome — and Sydney picked writer and poet Phillis Wheatley Peters, whose most famous poem is On Being Brought from Africa to America.
Hamilton also had a question when Sydney was done: “Do you know the name of Peters’ first published book?” Sydney did not but promised to return with the answer.
“Circle back, good job. Good job, guys. Thank you. I learned something today,” said Hamilton.
The backstage February ceremonies have had a lasting impact on generations of actors who have cycled in and out of the show, under Hamilton’s charismatic leadership. This year, several former child alumni of The Lion King — led by Caleb McLaughlin of the Netflix series Stranger Things — got together to make a video for Hamilton — each submitting their Black History figures for February.
Hamilton, from Montgomery, Alabama, the home of the civil rights movement which her family aided, started the tradition after coming to The Lion King and asking her then-young co-stars about the meaning of February.
“One day, just so casually, I said, ‘It’s Black History Month, guys. Let’s talk about it. What do you know about Black History Month?’ And they said, ‘Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks,'” she recalls, shaking her head. “There’s so much more to our history.”
Hamilton mixed it up a bit this year, kicking off the month by picking the names of several Black heroes from South Africa and putting them into a cup for the cubs to pick: Chris Hani, Steve Biko, Mamphela Ramphele and Tsietsi Mashinini, among them. The Lion King is set in South Africa, after all.
“They make me very proud. It’s like a game. It’s not anything that’s homework. Learning can be fun,” she said.
It’s a fitting ritual for a show in which Africa is celebrated and there are six Indigenous languages sung and spoken: Swahili, Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana and Congolese.
“The Lion King is steeped in ritual tradition, tribal things. Even the fabrics that we wear in the show have tribal markings, the mask, the makeup — all of it is tribal,” said Hamilton.
The ceremony clearly honors a legacy of greatness — updated, naturally, as the inclusion of gymnast Simone Biles can attest — but also teaches the children to respect how they got here.
“They have to know that there was a time when we weren’t allowed to perform on stage or, if we were, we couldn’t walk into the front door of the theater,” said Hamilton.
“It is a privilege to be able to share your gifts on the world’s largest stage. And that’s what I try to instill in them because we weren’t always able to do it.”
Veteran NFL coach Anthony Lynn appreciates the league policy that requires teams to interview minority candidates for their top jobs, and he has even benefited from it.
Like many of his peers, though, the assistant head coach for the San Francisco 49ers believes the policy has fallen short of its good intentions: There were three non-white head coaches when the rule went into effect in 2003; today, there are five.
The figure has risen and fallen slightly over the past 20 years, but skepticism about NFL hiring practices has remained steady among minority job candidates even after the league introduced the so-called Rooney Rule, named after former Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who oversaw the league’s diversity committee.
Lynn, who is Black, long ago added his own personal amendment to the Rooney Rule: As his star rose as one of the league’s top assistants in the mid-2010s, Lynn would only meet with teams to discuss a head coaching vacancy if they had already brought in at least one other minority candidate, something the Rooney Rule didn’t require until 2021.
“I just didn’t want to be a token interview,” Lynn told The Associated Press. “I really believe in the spirit of the Rooney Rule, but I just saw how people were abusing it and I didn’t want to be a part of that.”
FILE – Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn watches during warmups before an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles in Detroit, Oct. 31, 2021.
The racial discrimination lawsuit filed this month against the NFL and several teams by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores has magnified attention on the league’s hiring practices and stirred up long-simmering frustrations with the Rooney Rule. It has also prompted comparisons from Lynn and others to corporate America, which has also struggled to diversify its leadership ranks.
Lynn’s perseverance paid off in 2017 when the Los Angeles Chargers made him the first Black head coach in team history.
The candidates Lynn beat out for the job included Teryl Austin, who is now a defensive coordinator for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Austin’s interview with the Chargers was one of 11 occasions where he earned a face-to-face meeting, but failed to land the head coaching job.
There were times when Austin felt like he was really in contention, and others when he felt he “was one of those guys where they were checking a box” to comply with the mandate.
Austin’s personal journey is included in Flores’ lawsuit as evidence of a discriminatory system that is failing qualified job candidates.
FILE – Pittsburgh Steelers assistant coach Teryl Austin watches the team warm up before an NFL football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Sept. 26, 2021, in Pittsburgh.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell partially pushed back on Wednesday, saying the league has made a “tremendous amount of progress in a lot of areas.” He acknowledged, though, that the league is lagging when it comes to head coaches.
“We have more work to do and we’ve got to figure that out,” Goodell said in Los Angeles ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium. Goodell said the NFL has already engaged “outside experts” to help it review hiring policies and he didn’t rule out the possibility of eliminating the Rooney Rule.
The two teams playing in this year’s Super Bowl — the Cincinnati Bengals and the Los Angeles Rams — are led by offensive-minded, white head coaches in their 30s. There is considerable diversity, however, among the dozens of coaches that oversee their offenses, defenses and special teams. Half of the coaches working for Rams head coach Sean McVay are Black.
Art Rooney II — Dan’s son and the current Steelers president — defended the impact of his father’s eponymous hiring policy.
“While I acknowledge that we have not seen progress in the ranks of head coaches, we have seen marked improvement in the hiring of women and minorities in other key leadership roles,” he said.
In many cases, there was nowhere to go but up.
The NFL is running in place in terms of diversifying its most visible leadership positions. While over a third of assistant coaches are Black, only two teams employed Black offensive coordinators this season, considered the final rung of the ladder before becoming a head coach. Nearly 85% of the league’s general managers and player personnel directors are white, according to a report by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
FILE – These are 31 of the 32 NFL football team head coaches as of Feb. 10, 2022. The Minnesota Vikings head coaching position is currently vacant.
“This is a willingness and heart issue,” said Troy Vincent, a former player who is now the league’s executive vice president of football operations. “You can’t force people, so we have to continue to educate and share with those in the hiring cycle.”
Players also have a role in promoting change, says Richard Lapchick, the director of the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
Lapchick points to the NBA, where players have taken an increasingly public role in social activism. Nearly half of the NBA’s 30 teams are led by Black coaches and over a quarter employ Black general managers.
“I don’t think that the (NFL) office can do it on their own,” Lapchick said. “The impact will only take place … when the athletes themselves raise their voice and say it’s important.” Roughly 70% of NFL players are Black.
Corporate America has run into many of the same diversity challenges as the NFL, and the same legal problems.
“The NFL is no different than the rest of society,” said Lynn of the 49ers. “Look at the top Fortune 500 companies. How many minority CEOs do you have in that industry versus ours? Our percentage may be higher.”
Over 90% of Fortune 500 presidents and CEOs are white and only 3% are Black, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.
Former Morgan Stanley chief diversity officer Marilyn Booker sued the bank in 2020 for racial discrimination and retaliation. She alleged that the company’s overwhelmingly white executives stymied her plans to diversify its management structure. The two sides eventually settled out of court.
Last year, five of the largest banks — J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, U.S. Bancorp and Wells Fargo — agreed to make public commitments to policies that echo the Rooney Rule, according to a spokesman at the AFL-CIO, which helped secure the agreements.
But experts say many of the biggest companies still have further to go.
“Many companies are engaging in these types of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts as performance-art theatrics,” said Nicholas Pearce, clinical professor of management and organizations at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
Whether in sports or business, Pearce says one easy way for hiring managers to reduce the effects of implicit bias would be to require more diverse panels to conduct job interviews.
With the exception of Jacksonville’s Shad Khan and Buffalo co-owner Kim Pegula, all NFL teams are privately owned by white men, with the exception of the Green Bay Packers, which is publicly owned.
Jerod Mayo, a 35-year-old linebackers coach for the New England Patriots, has ambitions of one day becoming a head coach. And Mayo, who is Black, is optimistic that by the time he’s ready, many of the challenges that veterans such as Lynn, Austin and Flores have faced, will be a thing of the past.
“You know, that’s a beautiful day where we don’t need the Rooney Rule.”
Seven predominately Black schools in Washington were evacuated over bomb threats Wednesday and later cleared, including a high school that was threatened a day earlier during a visit by U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, authorities said.
The District of Columbia Police Department said four public high schools and three charter schools had received threats.
Washington police later declared Dunbar High School, where Harris’ husband, Douglas Emhoff, was rushed to safety after Tuesday’s bomb threat, and the others “cleared with no hazardous material found.”
Authorities have not indicated a connection to race in the spate of bomb threats, and police said Tuesday’s incident did not appear targeted at Emhoff, who was visiting Dunbar for a Black History Month event.
But the incidents have further raised fears among Black communities already rattled by a series of bomb threats made last week to at least a dozen historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, nationwide.
“Americans have a right to be safe at work, in houses of worship and at school,” Harris said in a statement. “We must stand up against any threat of violence in our communities.”
No explosives were found at any of the HBCUs, but the threats are being investigated by the FBI. Washington police say they are investigating this week’s threats to Dunbar, considered the first high school for Black Americans in the United States, and the other schools.
“These are troublesome incidents that we take very seriously,” D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said, adding the school system “will continue to offer support to our school communities while the (police) investigations are ongoing.”
The FBI says it is investigating a series of bomb threats earlier this week at historically Black colleges and universities.
There were no explosions, and no bombs were found.
“This investigation is of the highest priority for the Bureau and involves more than 20 FBI field offices across the country,” the FBI said in a statement Wednesday. “These threats are being investigated as Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremism and hate crimes.”
It added it was not able to provide any more details on the threats, citing an ongoing investigation.
Several historically African-American colleges received a second round of bomb threats Tuesday following similar threats Monday.
Among those receiving threats Tuesday were Howard University in Washington, D.C.; University of the District of Columbia; Edward Waters University in Jacksonville, Florida; Kentucky State University; Fort Valley State University in Georgia; Xavier University of Louisiana; Spelman College in Atlanta; and Morgan State University in Baltimore.
On Monday, Howard University, Southern University and A&M College (Louisiana), Bethune-Cookman University (Florida), Bowie State University (Maryland), Albany State University (Georgia) and Delaware State University (Delaware) confirmed similar threats.
The threats resulted in canceled classes and shelter-in-place orders.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press.
As he struggled to survive the 2020 Democratic primary, Joe Biden made a striking pledge before voting began in heavily African American, must-win South Carolina: His first Supreme Court appointment would be a Black woman.
On Thursday, with his poll numbers reaching new lows and his party panicking about the midterm elections, Biden turned again to the Democratic Party’s most steadfast voters and reiterated his vow to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer with the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court.
The striking promise is a reflection of Black women’s critical role in the Democratic Party and the growing influence of Black women in society. It’s also a recognition that Black women have been marginalized in American politics for centuries and the time has come to right the imbalance of a court made up entirely of white men for almost two centuries, a change Biden said Thursday is “long overdue.”
Black women are the most loyal Democrats — 93% of them voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.
And it’s Black women’s reliability as Democratic voters that makes it so important for the party to respond to their priorities and keep them in the fold, said Nadia Brown, a professor of government at Georgetown University. “Democrats know Black women are going to turn out for them so they have everything to lose if they don’t do this.”
Black women turned out to vote for Biden in greater numbers than for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and they were vital in Biden’s wins in states like Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Overall, they made up 12% of Biden’s voters and reached even higher percentages in heavily African American states like Georgia, where they represented 35% of his support. In that state, which Biden won by just over 12,000 votes, he earned the backing of 95% of Black women.
Biden, in particular, owes Black voters, and especially women, a debt from the primaries. His campaign was on life support before South Carolina’s primary in late February 2020, when he secured the endorsement of Rep. James Clyburn, the kingmaker of the state’s Democratic political orbit, by pledging to select a Black woman for the Supreme Court.
“His campaign was struggling,” Clyburn recalled on Thursday, citing Biden’s three straight losses in the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. “This was quite frankly do or die for him, and I urged him to come out publicly for putting an African American woman on the Supreme Court.”
Biden already made a fundamentally important statement about the importance of Black women in his coalition by selecting Kamala Harris as his vice president. But putting a Black woman on the court is another historic step. Republican Ronald Reagan, in his 1980 presidential campaign, vowed to put the first woman on the Supreme Court and nominated Justice Sandra Day O’Connor once in office.
But Biden’s pledge also responds to issues Black women care about, said Glynda Carr, president of Higher Heights For America PAC, which advocates for Black women in politics. “Black women are very in tune with knowing the court is important to our daily lives,” said Carr, citing big cases on voting rights and abortion.
The decision isn’t just a win for Black women but for all voters concerned with ensuring that government reflects the actual population, said Tom Bonier, a Democratic data analyst. As such, he said, it should rally Democrats of all races.
“To the extent that Biden, at this point, is suffering from lower approval ratings, part of his challenge is just reassembling his coalition and reminding those voters who sent him to the White House why that vote mattered,” Bonier said.
President Joe Biden will choose a replacement for Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. His choice could be among these women. (Click image to enlarge)
Biden’s early discussions about a successor to Breyer have focused on U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs and California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss White House deliberations.
Childs is a favorite of Clyburn. The House majority whip said Thursday that she had “everything I think it takes to be a great justice.”
The robust roster of Black women for the Supreme Court is a testament to their growing professional progress over the past few decades, experts say. Black women — like women of all races — have been increasingly likely to earn college degrees over the past two decades. Although they still lag in other crucial categories such as pay, the court seat is another milestone.
“We could not have imagined the sheer number of overqualified women a few decades ago,” Brown said.
The nomination of a Black woman is also significant for Black men, said Adrianne Shropshire of BlackPAC, a political organization that tries to elect more Black Democrats. That’s in part because the current sole African American on the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas, is a conservative Republican whose decisions often go against the desires of the heavily Democratic Black community.
While Black men are not quite as Democratic as Black women, they still overwhelmingly back the party — 87% voted for Biden in 2020, according to AP VoteCast.
Still, Shropshire warned, a Supreme Court appointment is only one step in ensuring Black voters are motivated in 2022 and beyond.
“For Black folks in the country, the thing that looms largest is, are their daily lives changed?” Shropshire said. “For the president — and the vice president — it is going to be more than this appointment.”
“I don’t think it’s helpful for people to say, ‘Well, the one thing we got is a nomination on the Supreme Court,'” Shropshire added.
