There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of I Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. On March twenty one, the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Knagi Brown Jackson begins in the United States.
Her nomination is historic. She's the first black woman ever nominated for the Supreme Court, and because she's a black woman, her confirmation hearing is sure to be filled with disinformation based in racist sexist attacks on our character, not her actual record, actions, deeds, or values. And in fact, these attacks started before she was ever named as the nominee, when she was just a hypothetical black woman that Biden
intended to nominate to the Supreme Court. On the morning that Judge Jackson was named as the nominee, I sat down with my friends Sam and Annie from the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You to talk through her his storic nomination and how we can fight back against the kinds of racist sexist attacks we're sure to hear during
our confirmation hearing. It is so important that we have a digital media climate that allows for everyone to be judged by their merits, values and records, not unfair caricatures and stereotypes of who they are. Hey, this is Annie Samantha and welcome to Steff. I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. Today, we are once again thrilled to be joined by the amazing, award winning, fantastic Bridgit Todd, who we account ourselves so lucky to know and call
her friends. Congratulations on your recent award for Best Technology Podcast at the I Heart Radio Podcast Awards. That's so awesome. Congratulations to you and whole team. Oh my goodness, thank you so much. Uh yeah, and you know what I'm gonna say, it feels freaking good to win. I was kind of like, oh, like, you know, just being nominated as nice, but I deep down kind of do you ever have one of those times in your life where
you just really need to win? That's where I was at, so um I have to like briefly shout out my team. Tara Harrison is my producer and engineer. She's phenomenally talented. Jonathan Strickland is our EP. Phenomenally talented. Dr Michael A. Motto is our chief science officer and uh producer, so talented. I could not have one without them. They're so awesome. Yes, so thank you. Yes, especially when it's our personal friends. Yeah, I said that, I'm claiming its personal friend I know, Bridge,
thank you. I mean I feel the same way about you. I feel very honward to to know you all in real life. Yes. Yes, um. And in case you don't know listeners, which I'm assuming you do, this is for the podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet, which is You've got a new season coming right, Yes, yeah, I probably should have said the name of my own, but I'm trying to get better at like self promotion. Yes, the podcast is called There Are No Girls on the Internet.
We just want an I Heeart Award and we're coming back for a brand new season on March one. So um, we've kind of been in high on hiatus for a bit while we've been retooling, and I'm so excited that we're finally launching. So it would mean a lot to me if you all checked it out. Thank you for mentioning and Annie, I obviously cannot be trusted to remember to see the name of the thing I meant to
be promoting, but yeah, please check it out. We have all kinds of interesting conversations about how women and queer folks and trans folks and black folks and other marginalized voices, how we show up or don't show up online and in technology. So uh yeah, please check it out. If that sounds like something you're interested in, you absolutely should. I'm still waiting for the fan fiction episode. I'm ready, yes, TVs. Also just a fun fact about Tar, who's also a
good friend of ours. She always sings sitcom jingles at karaoke. It's the thing I adore about her. H and she refuses to see anything else and when someone interrupts her, she gets very annoyed. Rightly so, because this is her thing and she wants it and exclaimed it and has done well with it. How is it about? How have
I worked with Tari for two years? And if not, I mean, I guess covid as hell, but this I need to take her out that for karaoke to see this in action, or you know what, what's a better bridget? We need you to come to Atlanta and hosts a big karaoke night. H if. There's several great locations that we love, including my favorite spot towards before Highway ran by a Korean family who was as Korean as you think, and we adored them and they bring us fruit place
is a delight while we're seeing karaoke to our hearts content. Yeah, please put that on the agenda. The last time I was in Atlanta, I went to what is that spot called Church of Change. There was some karaoke happening. It was pretty fun. So yeah, Atlanta karaoke date. Literally anytime I am in, I need to see producer Tari in action singing these jingles one time and she was like, we're singing cheers together. It's okay. I love it. I
love it, I love it, I love it. Okay. So this topic you're bringing to us today, Bridget, is extremely timely. We're very excited to talk about it, and we have a lot to get into. So let's let's get into it. What are we talking about today? So today is Friday, February two, and I want to talk about the just recently announced new nominee for the Supreme Court, Judge Katangi
Brown Jackson. So I have to admit I was putting together all my notes for this episode last night, and so the notes were all like, oh, the potential nominee like when we have the nominee, it was all very like hypothetical, and then this morning news just drop that she is indeed the White House's pick to be the first ever black woman Supreme Court justice on our Supreme Court.
So very historic, very important, very exciting. But we know that it also comes along with racist attacks, sexist attacks, miss and disinformation that women of color who are in
public office unfortunately tend to face. And so today today I really wanted to talk about how we got to this place of having this historic black woman being nominated for the Supreme Court, and what kind of attacks she's likely to be facing, what kind of attacks she's already been facing, and how we can sort of all work together to create the conditions to have a better conversation about her nomination. Yes, and as you said, this is very ongoing. We're trying to get this episode out as
quickly as possible because things are changing very quickly. But we've already seen some of these attacks. I know we're gonna get into that in a minute, but before we do that, can you give us some some history and background on what's going on here? Absolutely, So here's a little bit of background about the calls to nominate a
black women for the Supreme Court. Um, I have to shout out that she will rise campaign organized by a great organization called Sister Scotus UM and their whole coalition is full of dynamic black women, women like April Rain, who created the hashtag oscar so white sixteen nineteen project creator Nicole Hannah Jones, Allencia Johnson, who I love. I used to work with her at Planned Parenthood Broadway, multi
Tony Award winner Audra McDonald. UM. So, just a huge coalition of dynamic, badass black women who have been advocating to put a black women on the Supreme Court. And so in the over two hundred year history of the Supreme Court, not one black woman has ever been confirmed or even nominated to serve on the Supreme Court. There have been a hundred and fifteen men and women who have served on the Supreme Court, and only three of
them have been people of color. There have only been two Black American members of the Supreme Court, Justice through Good Martial and Justice Clarence Thomas. And so that's obviously not a very inclusive of track record in terms of representation. And you know, this idea of I thought this was kind of a new precedent, you know, a presidential candidate saying like, oh, if I'm elected, I will put this
kind of person on the Supreme Court. However, there is actually a long history and precedent for presidents pedgant to pick a Scotus nominee who represents a certain demographic of our population. So this is from a really great New York Times oup ed by Walter Dellinger, who was the acting Solicitor General of the United States under Bill Clinton.
He writes, there is a long and important tradition of presidents taking into consideration the demographic characteristics of perspective justices, including geographic background, religion, race, and sex, to ensure the Supreme Court is and remains a representative institution in touch
with the very facets of American life. More fundamentally, our history shows the process of reaching out to expand the personal backgrounds of the justices has often produced stellar jurists who make historic contributions to our court and judicial system. So he goes on to describe how President Reagan promised to nominate a woman to the Supreme Court, and even though a bunch of his Republican colleagues were very vocally against it and kind of forced him to add some
man to his shortlist. President Reagan was really adamant about picking a woman and eventually nominated Sandra Day O'Connor, making for the first ever female Associate Supreme Court justice. Um. And so that's some like history that I didn't even know about. You know how other presidents have set this
precedent to make the Supreme Court up more inclusive. Yeah, and I think, I mean it's kind of a way to pract to call a lot of news organizations and Republicans perhaps if you're critical, but they would have you believe that this is a new thing, like, oh, this is never having before and it's ridiculous, right, And this is not just an issue of representation, correct, absolutely, so representation is important. People often say, like representation matters, and
it absolutely does. I'm not, you know, disagreeing with that. However, it's not just a problem because rep presentation matters. It's also a problem because we deserve a representative democracy, a democracy with the people who are governing actually are able to meaningfully represent the people they are governing on behalf of. And you can't have that if your Supreme Court is
mostly men. Mostly white, because then you have a Supreme Court is not actually able to, you know, meaningfully represent the people that are meant to be advocating on behalf of or working on behalf of. A biographical database from the Federal Judicial Center shows that of the three thousand, eight hundred and forty three federal judges, less than two percent have been black women. And so again it's not
just the Supreme Court. It really does go to show that we have a long way to go and making sure that the people who are actually representing us in the courts actually are able to meaningfully represent us and like look like the population that they're actually meant to serve. Yes, yes, And I think right now a lot of us, for good reason, I would say, are on edge when it comes to the Supreme Court and decisions they're tackling or
thinking about, including abortion. So this is very, very very important that we are representing accurately our country, the people in our country. So can we talk a little bit about the promise Biden made when it comes to nominating a black woman to the Supreme Court. Absolutely, so this is one of those instances where Biden made a very clear campaign promise. Certainly the administration has made other campaign promises and tb d if they will come to fruition,
but this was a very clear one. So this is sort of making good on a very ex iplicit promise. You might hear black women referred to as the backbone of the Democratic Party, and that's because we are reliable voters who tend to vote Democrat, and we tend to go out there and organize our friends and our family and our communities to also vote as well. Uh, if you look at the numbers, you know, black women, I think it was like less than one percent of Black
women voted for Trump. So we pretty much we are pretty reliable voters for for the Democrats. Help it that way, and an overwhelming majority of Black women, I think it was supported Biden during his presidential bid. Right before voting began in South Carolina, during South Carolina's primary, Biden made a very clear campaign promise to nominate a black woman
to the Supreme Court. And so, yeah, this was a a very clear promise that he made to a constituency that is reliable, that is really did a lot of the work and a lot of the ground game of getting out the vote and organizing their our communities to
get out the vote as well. Right, and and going back to what you mentioned when it comes to all of these sexist racist attacks that a lot of women and women of color, and especially black women face when it comes to elections like this or nominations like this, and then also misinformation and disinformation, It's one thing to kind of say that like, Okay, let's elect a black woman, and then another to provide the necessary support. Absolutely, so, you know, we hear, like I have a shirt that
says trust black women. You know, we hear a lot of slogans about, you know, the importance of electing black women and really amplifying our political leadership. And again I feel like that that is great. Representation is so great. However, it really does need to go along with the work of creating the conditions so these these women will be supported. That they're not it's going to be, you know, fodder for unfair sexist racist attacks purely based on their identity
who they are. And so I don't want to just have black women or women or women of color. I don't want to just have us be amplified as leaders if we're going to be set up to fail, if we're going to be set up to compete in a completely unequal playing field. I want to amplify the leadership of women, but I also want to create the conditions
that we actually can thrive. Um And so I think that that's really what I want to get into today about some of the ways that our media landscape are kind of set up to ensure that this person will not get a fair shake. I have to say, like, I wasn't really thrilled watching Jen Psaki from the White House kind of give this tepid acknowledgement of the kind of racism and sexism that would go along with picking
a black woman for the Supreme Court nominee. She said that Biden's intention to pick a black woman for the Supreme Court presented quote specific challenges, But in my opinion, that really doesn't go far enough in naming and lifting up the kind of racist, sexist attacks and media climate that are setting this person up to face. And that can really be tricky because, as I'm sure a lot of people listening can probably attest to, it can be sometimes difficult to call out the kind of unfair attacks
that we face as marginalized people. So if you're a woman who was facing sexism. Sometimes if you if you are the one to vocalize that, that only kind of goes against you, because then you're the complainer, you're the nag. And so if you're in a climate where you can't really call out what you're facing, and the people around you aren't going to explicitly call out what you're facing, then it's just allowed to fester like uncalled out. M Yeah.
I found it interesting because as you had brought this to our attention, I hadn't realized he had made an announcement. We just knew the promises that President Biden had given. Finally naming a name and trying to look her up and seeing who she was. Of course, one of the top things that I saw was a congressman going in on attacks and being repeatedly attacking them, just obviously already
ready to go. Oddly enough, the same congressman was the one that had been one of three Republicans who had voted her in her federal seat, and we were like, wait, so how is she qualified then and not now? But we know the answer obviously of why they are very upset about this pick. In general, in all of the game of politics, we understand that, but as it comes along, that is part of that conversation where I'm like, I know, I don't even want to mention who it is because
I don't want to amplify that even more. Instead, let's talk about her qualifications and why she is qualified to lead us in this type of position. Absolutely so, even before Judge Jackson was named as the nominee, people were wasting no time lobbying these completely ridiculous, unfair sexist attacks on her. Just we don't even know who she is. She was just a hypothetical person. Senator John Kennedy he told Politico, I want a nominee who knows a law
book from a J Crew catalog. I want a nominee who's not going to try to rewrite the constitution every other Thursday to advance a woke agenda. And he was saying this, we didn't even know who this person was yet, and they were already lobbying these racist, sexist attacks, like why do you assume that she's not going to know what a legal brief from a J Crew catalog? Like that's like reading between the lines. That is obviously meant to be a sexist swipe. Because Biden had already expressed
his intentions to nominate a black woman. Why do you assume this person is going to be, you know, pushing awoke agenda? And what does that even mean? I think when you really pull apart some of these dog whistles that are used, it just reveals itself as unfair attacks, rooted in identity, or just complete hypocrisy. Like just like what you were saying, were you referencing Lindsay Graham? Who
was you know? And I think it was Literal. So so I've been up working on this since like like all day right where I watched the announcement come in, I watched all the all the responses. Lindsay Graham tweeted Literal minute after she was announced, saying, quote, the radical left had won over Biden. Yet Graham also voted to confirm Judge Jacks into the DC Federal Appeals Court, which is the second most important court in the country, just eight months ago this past summer. So which is it
is this win for the woke left? And like what was different eight months earlier when you voted to confirm her. So it's very interesting at this point, I wouldn't even like the hypocrisy is so clear that it's almost sort of like not worth plating out. It's like, of course, you're only interested in a bad faith assessment. You know, you don't even expect people to look back at your own voting record to see where you actually stand on this issue. You're just counting on people not actually spending
a little bit of time and thinking about what you're saying. Right, Yeah, we're both shaking our head. Was It's true, though. It's so frustrating because it's like every time I point out something that's hypocritical, it doesn't matter anymore. They're like, yeah, I mean, essentially, it's kind of what we were talking about when um Amy Barritt Cohen was confirmed as well as Kavanaugh, about the ridiculous hYP hypocrisy that happened between
Obama and administration and the Trump administration. And now we're back again. Now we're here again to the same conversation, and literally half of the Republican candidates with the in servative politicians will agree, yeah, this is hypocritical. This is what we do, and they kind of just leave it
at that and assume that nobody will notice. And typically people who are already dugs their hills in don't notice, won't notice, because they want what they want in whatever agenda it is that they have planted themselves firmly in.
But yeah, let's talk about the fact this is a whole different conversation, but that we have different types of terms, and words like woke that have been used as a positive has now flipped so hard to a negative that everyone is automatically like, oh, he said that, he's right. It's bad. Oh my gosh, I could talk all days. So I have two things to say about this. One is that you are so right. There are so many
words that have just become meaningless. Right. So, if you're talking about a hypothetical Supreme Court nominee and you're like, oh, we don't want somebody who's a woke, you don't know any This person doesn't is a hypothetical person, so you're not You don't know anything about their record, you don't know anything about like where they stand on the issues. So saying woke it almost just just the only thing we know about this person is that she's going to
be a black woman. They're saying, you don't want someone who is woke. Reading within the lines, you're using that as a stand in for the word black, right, And so I think that we see that time and time again where these words become stand ins for identity and they also kind of become meaningless, right, Like cancel culture is another one I remember reading this is this is sort of silly, But there was this story a while ago where this um guy who had been running a
racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. His racehorse had been I don't know that, I'm sure there's more details to it, but essentially his racehorse had been drug tested and we had been like found to have drugs in a system, so he was disqualified. And then an interview he was like, oh, this is cancel culture strikes again, And I was like, what are you even talking about, Like, how is the cancel culture? Like in what way? Yeah, don't been your
horse and your course was disqualified. That's not cancel culture. Even like I, I just have a lot of questions about the way that these words are being used. But I think and that's kind of the second point that I want to make about this is that one of the reasons why I am so adamant about things like disinformation, misinformation and just having a healthier, more honest conversation and
a media landscape that facilitates those kinds of conversations. Is that we are no longer able to have substitutive, thoughtful conversations about the issue when our ecosystem is flooded with bad faith, clearly hypocritical rhetoric and discourse. And so, you know, even if you're someone let's say that you're listening and you are very conservative, you know, you probably have hated
this conversation that we've been having. But you know, like even if you're someone who is very conservative, you deserve to be able to, you know, talk about your your issues, talk have have a substitutive conversation and a sub sort
of debate about where you stand on the issues. And so I believe that when the discourse and the space is just flooded with you know, charged rhetoric where we're talking where we're talking about race or identity but using different words, everybody loses because you're not able to have a substitutive conversation about where you might agree or disagree with the Supreme Court nominee, right you're the And so I think that that's my biggest issue is that we
have a media ecosystem that really amplifies the most extreme, the most over the top statements, or the most nonsense statements, and so everybody loses. Democrat, Republican, conservative, lefty, whoever. Everybody loses when we have an ecosystem that amplifies the least substitutive takes because that takes away from the ability to have an actual substitutive, thoughtful debate or conversation about the
actual issues. And so I don't want to create the conditions for Judge Jackson to only be judged by racist, sexist tropes or caricatures or unfair attacks, because I want to talk about her actual credentials. I want to talk about her actual record. I want to talk about her actual character. But disinformation and misinformation does not allow for the actual issues to take the center stage that they
should write. You just kind of explained my whole conversation with my parents over the holidays, but we won't get into that right now. I'm just gonna put that there. Um, it was interesting, but you know, and then thinking about this because when we talk about these terms and automatically just becoming used by media as an ecosystem to bring
in the shock value. Uh, it makes me also realize that in terms of what they're talking about in woke, it is a black term that was created by the black community to kind of gift non black people with, Hey, you woke up. Congratulations, you're finally seeing what we have been going through all of our generations. Welcome you have woke, Like, that's kind of that term, and I hate that it has been weaponized to this point of being used against
people and when they're using it. When Kennedy used this, he was weaponizing this terms to a woman, to an official, to a judge, to a professional who didn't need to be woke. She was already there. This was her life and not only that. If we do look at her backgrounds and credentials she has been doing this work, there's no conversation of her being woke. She just is. So with that. Because I'm angry about this, can we talk
about some of those qualifications? Oh? Absolutely? So. One of the best ways to counter all the kinds of bs, racist, sexist attacks that you're definitely going to hear about Judge Jackson is to flood the space to counter that with accurate information. So I'm super excited to talk about her actual qualifications. So a little bit of background information about Judge Jackson. She was born in Washington, d C. Shout out to d C, where I am also from. She
grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents started their career as public school teachers and then later became administrators in the Miami Dade County public school system. I love this little fun fact about her. Judge Jackson was a star student, but she was told not to set her sights too high by a guidance counselor when she told that guidance counselor that she wanted to go to Harvard. And guess
where she ended up going to college Harvard. That's right, So she definitely like shut that guidance counselor right up. She studied government at Harvard University and attended Harvard Law School, where she was the supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. So her educational credentials are pretty solid. Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I love that too. I hope that the guidance counselor knows. Oh he knows now. So something else about her is that she is absurdly qualified and experienced.
So this is from Steve Ladek Judge Jackson has eight point nine years of prior judicial experience. That's more than four of our current justices Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, and Barrett had combined. It's also more than four of the last ten justices had at their confirmations, nine of the last seventeen, and the forty three of fifty eight appointed since nineteen hundred.
So anybody who tells you she is not experienced, Anybody that tells you that she's not qualified, anybody that tells you that she only got this position because she's a black woman's just missinformed and they're spreading misinformation because as we can see, she's very qualified, more qualified than you know, some of the current Supreme Court justices, right, which is infuriating.
But yes, also, as you mentioned, she's already gone through a lot of vetting, right, absolutely, So this is something else that I think people really need to understand. She has been vetted a ton, she has a proven track record of attracting bipartisan support in the Senate. She's already been confirmed three times on a bipartisan vote, so there is no reason to not expect the same now that
she is being considered for the Supreme Court. Again, Lindsay Graham voted to confirm her, Murkowski voted to confirm her, and Collins voted to confirm her. Right, So these are Republicans who broke ranks with their party to side with
Democrats to vote to confirm her. And so, having already gone through this process, I would really want, you know, someone like Lindsay Graham to sit down with me and explain what changed over the last eight months when he voted to confirm her to the second most important court in the country. Uh to now if he is saying that she is not an appropriate choice, I'm the same
with Collins and Murkowski. There's no reason to expect that she should not be able to be confirmed by the Senate, considering she's been vetted and gone through this process three different times before. There are certain people that like thinking about talking to them makes my skin curl one of them. But yes, I do find it interesting, and this is
a whole different conversation. Again, you know how I love the side track that it is an interesting strategy that Biden in his administration has pulled, not only because this is obviously telling it's like, Okay, this is one of the most qualified people that we could find that we think is deserving and has earned a place in this position. If you who opposed everything we do, are so gonna start arguing, is gonna be a telltale son of who
you are and what you're doing. So it's an interesting turn. Again, that's a whole different conversation because I've always interested in good political thriller, and this feels like, you know, I have to do everything a little fictional or movie es. It's so true because like you know, and thinking I
was thinking about that this morning. I do think it's clear to me that the administration picked someone who had already been like gone through this process a few times, just so that it would be you know, test sort of shut down any kind of you know, const nation there might be in terms of like you know, like vetting her and all of that. And I think it
really demonstrates something. I'm not totally sure. This is not a completely fleshed out Bob, and I'm not totally sure how it fits into this conversation, but I do think there is this standard for women, women of color and black women where we have to be extra special qualified kind of that standard of women have to do a D thirty more than men in general. And then when you're part of the marginalized community, add on another twenty percent.
And then if you're a black woman, add on another of exceeding the standard, exceeding the qualifications because for some reason, you have to be on that level in order to be seen as um serious. So that's just in general. So let's put that in this federal level where they are putting her under a microscope in every way, and not only putting her in under a microscope to twist and turn truth, they're going to tell flat out. Wise,
we know of this. It's already happening. That's what they're doing. Uh. And we saw this with Kamala Harris, which I really found fascinating because Kamala Harris has a track record as the Attorney General. They lasted her rightful. It's so for her track record in criminalizing people in general. And when I found out Judge Jackson comes from the public defender
of filth, correct, that's right, so super super exciting. Not only would she be historic as the first black woman on the Supreme Court, but also the first public defender to serve on the Court, which is a big deal. She has a long personal history of working as a public defender. While she was at Harvard, a relative was sentenced to life in prison for a non violent drug offense, and she helped convince a law firm to take his case pro bono, eventually eating to having President Obama commute
his sentence. And so it is a big deal to have somebody on the Supreme Court who has this legacy of public service in this way. My brother is a lawyer. He got his start as a public defender in Durham, North Carolina. I just love the idea of having someone who has this history because it's it's important, you know.
I think that it's often easy to forget that public service should be a pipeline into bigger things, you know, like I want to see more teachers, public educators, public servants be elevated on the nation on a national way like this. So I love that aspect of her. Amen, former social worker, you a men. We have this attitude where it's like, if you choose to serve the public, you're some kind of like I don't know, I don't think.
I don't think we give people who serve the public that the like prompts they deserve, and they deserve a lot. And you know what, I have been feeling some emotions for our people in Texas who are social workers, that we know what's happening. They are most people do, I think, especially our listeners. And my heart has been breaking because I already know how divisive that type of conversation is.
But going back to Judge Jackson and her public defense, like, yeah, I have worked with many public defenders, and a good public defender is invaluable in the way that they have to advocate and push for truth and justice. True justice meaning that we are hearing the side and that they
are not guilty until proven otherwise. And how oftentimes, especially in I'm assuming DC Atlanta was very similar, how often it that gets wrong, and that when we would find as social worker who worked in the judicial system, when I found a good defender, I would and talked to them personally to try to get them onto cases for my kids specifically to make sure that they got what was fair. And that is so huge, So I do my heart is soaring to know that we have someone
in that field coming to this point. Yeah, it's it's a pretty historic thing. And yeah, people who serve the public like thoughtfully and and meaningfully, they really care about people, And so I I applaud you for for you know, going the extra mile to create the conditions for your kids to get real justice and to have a real advocate, because that's not everybody is like that. That's like a special thing. Yeah, this is something that's been on my mind and I think a lot of our minds lately.
Which is a separate podcast, but I'll mention it here. Is like I feel in this country we have a real problem with glorifying like male asspilary as being successful, like oh, you manage the system, get your money, like
it doesn't matter. Kind of like what we're talking about here with the hypocritical nature of all these arguments being made, and it's more to me, it feels more about the show and like, oh, I'm a politician, I'm on TV, like it's glorified, Whereas we have people who are working for the public, and in a lot of ways, these are kind of more gendered as feminine and therefore lesser in nature, like not worth the attention, not worth the accolades, not worth the money, even though it's so critical to
a functioning society. But yeah, oh my gosh, I mean
I could talk all day. The way that we have harmed everyone, like a deep, deep societal harm is our legacy of not respecting jobs that we code as feminine, the traditionally feminine, so care work, you know, social work, education, all of these things that we have coded as feminine, The de prioritization and just like outright degradation and disrespect of those I think that the ramifications we will never fully be able to contend with as a society, how
much that has harmed us. The way that you know, people who do care work are are underpaid, if they're paid at all, just the just the way that we don't even factor it in and it just falls on unpaid women, right, Like, this is what I mean when I say women are the backbone of our country and our society, and oftentimes that work is just completely not just unpaid, but unseen, unacknowledged. It's just like the cost
of society functioning. And so I think that this country sometimes the only thing that is standing between our our country and like complete collapse is the effort and labor of some exhausted women. Right and let's be honest at
this point in time, is black women like that? I think like when we talked about the elections before Biden, the Biden administration, the amount of work that has to be done, when we talked about cases like Aubrey Ahmed and all of those, how women have been forefront in protesting and bringing up all of these conversations and the
continued work that they have to do. But not only that, like, not only are they working to do good, but they're often having to combat all of the disinformation and harmful things that are being said about them because they are doing the hard work exactly. I mean, that really leads us back to, you know, Judge Jackson. Just so so, Judge Jackson, I think I got the email that she was going to be the pick at like eight thirty this morning, and so we're talking at two pm and
so already to send in a couple of hours. Here are some of the unfair or just completely misleading attacks I've seen on her. One is that you know, her decisions have been overturned, when in reality, of her roughly six hundred decisions that she has authored, she has been overruled just two percent of the time, right, And so if someone is telling you that in her career as a judge, her decisions have been routinely overruled or overturned. That's just not true. It's happened two percent of less
than two percent of the time. Uh, the idea that she's an affirmative action higher, that she only got the job because she's a black woman, when in reality she is clearly absurdly qualified. To the point we're even talking
about it seems ridiculous. Um, this idea that she's too woke or too radical, one thing I would say is really be wary of people throwing things like that around without being able to point to a specific ruling or policy or argument that she makes right, So, just saying somebody so and so is too radical and then not having it be attached to any kind of actual policy
that you think demon's strates that. Be wary of people who are who are saying that, because, in my opinion, nine times out of ten, when someone is saying that, what they actually mean is this person as a black woman. And then this idea of just sort of kind of connecting her to things for no real reason, with no real explanation as to like why you are connecting her to these things? And so earlier today, miss McConnell, tweeted, the Senate must conduct a vigorous, exhaustive review of Judge
Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court. This is especially crucial as American families face major crises that connect directly to our legal systems, such as skyrocketing violent crime and open borders. So what does Judge Jackson have to do with open borders? Exactly? What does she have to do with violent crime? Exactly? You know, the fact that he's just throwing her in,
you know, connecting her to these these things. I think, really, I think this is a moment where we will really be rewarded by really thinking critically about what people are saying and what they're saying in between the lines. And I think that really, to me, demonstrates a tricky truth
about the nature of racialized and gender disinformation. I think most people can tell you that there is misleading or an accurate information out there about like COVID or vaccines, But misinformation can be a lot trickier to spot and talk about when it relies on dog whistles, you know, the same way that someone might say like, oh, a woman is too emotional to lead, and that's just code for being a woman Oftentimes people are using dog whistles
or coded language to attack women, women of color, and other marginalized folks with this kind of like highly coded language that can be so tough to to really call out and talk about for what it is. Yeah, and it's such a again, it's one of those things. It's such a double standard and it's so hypocritical. But I think back to Kavanaugh. He's like crying these angry tears.
He's like confirmation, Wait, this is what you're not going to call him emotional notes He's being awarded for being emotional as a man because that's difficult for them, because he's crying because he's being accused of sexual assault. Yes, isn't it funny how like we've we've branded anger as not an emotion, so like him, they are too emotional. It's like, well, men, if men get angry in public, is that not an emotion? And how come the two emotional?
You know, banner is not used to identify that as an emotion. Yes, Oh, I could talk about that forever. What is the cartoon with all the emotions inside out? And well inside out taught me different anger's emotion. I saw it. I'm surprised. I just saw that you avoid those said so do. I cried, well good. I was sad last night. My partner trying to made me watch Paddington again. I was like, how dare you know? It was Paddington too? I didn't trust them after the first one. Anyway,
That's fair. Uh. Something else that I has been on my mind and has been a source of frustration for a lot of as in that we've talked about on your segments when you come on bridges, this kind of what you mentioned is like, not only is Judge Jackson facing all of this like job interview that's very intensive, but then there's all of these attacks online that are
racist and sexist, and I we've talked about it. It's not unique to this area, because we've talked about it in terms of video games, and we've talked about in terms of entertainment. But I feel like that's already a term of gatekeeping. This is already an extra thing you're asking people and the people that know them, like their families and friends, to deal with, and we just seem to accept that as the status quo of being a
marginalized person that exists in our media landscape. Absolutely you know, I I I'm so glad that you put it that way, because I think we have this understanding that it's just the cost of doing business as a marginalized person. And if you don't want this kind of thing to happen to you, then just don't speak and don't express opinions and don't strive, and don't put yourself out there and don't become a public figure and don't serve your public and don't like it's just a whole list of dots.
And so I really want to urge people to have a shift around their understanding of that and said and say like, we deserve to have a media landscape where everybody can speak up, everybody can participate, and that you're not going to be attacked unfairly based on your identity
just for putting yourself out there. And so I want to quickly talk about some research from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, and they analyze social media abuse of candidates and found that women of color candidates are targeted on
social media at alarming rates. UM. They analyze all these different messages that UM these candidates were getting, and they found that abusive messages accounted for more than fifteen percent of those directed at every female lawmaker they analyze, compared with around five to ten percent of the male candidates. Women of color were particularly likely to be targeted. Represent it of il han Omar got the highest proportion thirty nine of abusive messages of all the candidates, and AOC
got the highest ratio of abusive comments on Facebook. And when you're talking about women, uh, the abuse directed towards women is much more likely to be about their gender than the abuse that's targeting men. Abuse targeting men was much more generalized and focus on their political stances, while messages directed at women were much more likely to focus
on either appearance or general competence. And so yeah, I mean you, if you are a woman or a marginalized person who is putting yourself out there in this way, you deserve to be judged on your merits, your record, your words, your deeds, your values, not your identity, not racist sexist tropes, not you know, nonsense about women or women of color not being good leaders, are being unqualified. You deserve to really have your record speak for itself.
And I have to say it's not just sort of I talk a lot about you know, online bad actors. It's not just fringe extremists. We also see mainstream media out that's playing a huge role in legitimizing and mainstreaming racist sexist attacks on women of color in public office.
And so you know, you might see things like an article about some complete racist nonsense or a complete racist attack being quoted in the headline of an article, so that when people share it on social media, it provides the impression that this is a legitimate grievance that somebody might have instead of just a racist attack. Right, And so we are really calling on media to not create the conditions for these kind of racist sexist attacks to
fester and spread. Right. I think that this is a time that really requires everybody, whether you are a journalist or an editor or just a regular person on social media, to really be careful and thoughtful about how you are talking about this very visible black woman who is going up for this very visible position in the Supreme Court. Okay,
I feel like you just let us into this. So tell us the listeners and us voters and constituents who are here to not only look and see and view and be the audience, but participate in help stopping this harmful disinformation. What do we need to do to make sure that we are not only engaging in that, but not being a part of that, but not spreading that. I'm so glad you ask. So first, it's just you know, if you see like a harmful racist, sexist attack or
a conspiracy theory, first and foremost, don't spread it. Nine times out of Tenant you see this kind of thing, if you retweet it or like comment on it, you're actually just helping it grow and spread because of the algorithmic nature of most of our social media platforms, and so the platform is going to think like, oh, this person is engaging with this, it must be good content. I'm going to surface it for more people. So don't do that. Focus instead on sharing accurate, timely information about
the issues and the candidates. Right, So, talk to people about Judge Jackson's actual record, talk to people about her actual positions and where she actually stands. That that will kind of provide a little bit of taking the oxygen out of the kinds of racist, sexist, gendered attacks. We are shut to see. You can go to we are ultra violet dot org and check out our media kit.
Really asking for the media to create the conditions for this person to be you know, fairly judged and fairly talked about and and fairly assessed by the American public. And also the last one I would say is like, just really ask questions and be I think this is a time where we will really be rewarded if we
are interested in being critical thinkers. Right, So when someone says like, oh, she's too radical, but can't give you a single thing that backs up what they're saying, or when someone says like, oh, she's just gonna be really woke, you know, really being able to ask, you know, what do you mean by that? What is? What? What? What? When you say woke? Like, what does that mean? What
are you trying to say? I have found that to be really useful when I'm having conversations, particularly with people that may not be aligned with me politically, you know, really getting down to what is the substitutive thing that you are trying to say. And if the answer is well, I just don't like her because she's a black woman and I don't like black women, then say that so we can so we can you know, address that for
what it is. Be loud about it, because you know, you're already pretty much saying it right like say with your chest. If you're gonna say right like, just do it, you're already doing it. It feels hypocritical for me to ask this, so I apologize from the jump, But as non black women and for our male identifying listeners, what can we do to make sure because we know we already know black women are just the out. But the fact of the matter is with this is going to
come on to so many more attacks is visceral. We we know what's going to happen. We know it, and it's gonna be harmful and it's gonna be gross. And not only should we do all the things that you told us to do, but what can we do to ease load a but help fight for y'all? In general?
I love this question. I would say, first of all, it's probably a tall order, but I would love to see a shift where we understand that this fight is all of our fight, like we are the you know, the more marginalized you are, the more you are a target.
But this kind of thing really harms us all. And so I think seeing this work as all of our work to create a healthy democracy is really key and so these kinds of attacks, they don't just hurt the women that are subjected to them, they really have a meaningful impact on the health and well being of our democracy, because we can't have a fully functioning representative democracy if everybody is not able to use their voice, if everybody
is not able to participate. And so step one of that really comes with having a healthy media ecosystem and a healthy climate for everybody to be able to participate. And so I would say really working to see these attacks on marginalized people as all of our fight, because all of us are invested in having a healthy democracy, whether you are a man, a woman, black, white, like,
it is all of our fight. And so really being able to to see this as something that you're meaningfully invested in, not just because it's the right thing to do, which it is, but because we all deserve to have a functioning democracy. Yes, I love it, well said as always, bridget any other resources you want to shout out any final thoughts, Yeah, I would I I have to just
again shout out the work of Sister Scotis. They have been really doing a lot of the work of building this infrastructure to hold by it an accountable for this campaign promise that he made so their Their website is awesome, The women who run it are awesome, so definitely check them out. You can check out Ultra violets work. You know, we are doing a lot of the work of trying to inoculate folks against disinformation and like help people spot
it when they see it and identify it. So you can check us out at we are ultra violet dot org. And of course you can always check out my podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet. Check out our new season which is dropping March first, and yeah, we would love to have there. Yes, yes, award winning podcast. You haven't that subscribe button already? Why? Yes? Yes, I agree? Why what are you waiting for? What are you doing? Yes?
Which as this episode releases, that should just be airing so perfectly timely, very exciting and we can't wait to talk to you again. Bridget Thank you, thank you, thank you so much as always for being here. You are the best. We love you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been kind of fun talking about this like very timely issue that is like happening today as opposed to looking back on it. So thank you for giving me the space to do that. Yes, absolutely anytime,
and thank you listeners for listening. If you would like to contact us, you can our email U, stuff to your Mom, stuff that I hurted me you dot com, you find us on Twitter at mom to podcast or Instagram, and stuff I've never told you. Thanks as always to our super producer Christie, we love you. To Chris Data, Yes, you're the best. We love you, and thanks to you for listing stuffhever told the instruction of iHeartRadio for more podcast from my Heart Radio is a diet radio app.
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