People often tell me it must be hard for the Sojourners Community to live in the midst of the inner-city poverty and violence of the nation's capital. It is, though it has many rewards. What's often harder is being so close to what happens in the rest of the city, the dominions of power where a morally impoverished politics is practiced every day. From a Washington, DC point of view, the "Thomas/Hill hearings" became a grotesque parable of our so-called political process.
The key word here is parable rather than aberration. The triumph of image over truth -- which defines Washington politics was never more apparent. During one of those made-for-TV journalist ego clashes and shouting matches, a Washington reporter coined the phrase "political lying" and nonchalantly stated that it occurred throughout the Thomas confirmation hearings. Another participant tried to ask if this was to be distinguished from personal lying but was drowned out by other voices.
From George Bush's proclamation that Clarence Thomas was the most qualified man in the country for this job and his race had nothing to do with his appointment; to the White House political handlers' preparation of the nominee to evade Senate questions, deny his record, and testify under oath that he had never even discussed the controversial abortion case of Roe vs. Wade; to the Democratic senators and liberal groups opposing Thomas claiming that no one had been looking for dirt on Thomas, or recruited Anita Hill, or manipulated her and the whole process by leaking the hot story to the awaiting media -- it was clear that we were not going to get a straight answer from any of the politicians. Not only did the whole truth not come out in the process; it never even had a chance.
Instead, the proceedings spun out of control and into a media circus that violated everybody, both scintillated and disgusted the American people, and ultimately left the matter to be decided by the bitter wrangling of partisan politics on both sides, followed by the taking of public opinion polls. That is now the way almost everything is settled in American politics. The clash of images and symbols substitutes for substantial political discussion, quick polls taken by a lucrative industry set up for that purpose replace genuine public participation in political decision making, the winners are declared as in a football game, and the media (which have provided the forum and the fuel for this whole sordid process) lament that the political low road seems to work.
NOT ONLY DID IMAGE win over truth again, the same people lost who always lose in Washington. For black people in the United States, the Thomas confirmation process was yet another political and cultural setback.
A president opposed to affirmative action used it to put one more right-wing justice on the Supreme Court. A black conservative who has spent his entire career diminishing the significance of racism successfully played the race card to deflect serious charges and honest questions about his personal behavior. The White House strategy to divide the black community with the Thomas nomination was a great success, and, in the end, a black man now sits on the Supreme Court where (if his past record is any indication) he will unlikely do very much for racial and economic justice or for civil rights.
Black Americans wonder if the Thomas/Hill proceedings might have been handled quite differently if the combatants were white -- if the fascination of the white media and a predominantly white audience for this whole spectacle had something to do with the fact that Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill are both black. Trusting neither the White House nor the white Left, and with many feeling that their own established leadership is out of touch with their real needs and concerns, many black Americans feel their community attacked, fragmented, and vulnerable on many sides.
Blacks who were not at first supporting Thomas came to his defense with the feeling that a black man was under assault from white liberals. Tensions between black men and women were exacerbated, and a distorted loyalty test between race and gender reared its ugly head, with race winning out. Unfortunately, the painful conflict between black men and white feminists (who were perceived to be Anita Hill's biggest support group) was again brought to the surface. Perhaps the saddest reality for black Americans and the rest of the country is that the retired Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall has no genuine successor at a time when the future of large numbers of people in the black community are at great risk.
Women, too, were losers in the process. After being reluctantly drawn into the process by others whose motives were less clear than hers, Anita Hill offered credible testimony only to have her own credibility (rather than her story) attacked. The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose staffers apparently contacted and convinced Professor Hill to tell her painful 10-year-old experience of sexual harassment, left her undefended from a Republican hatchet job. She confronted the depth of patriarchal attitudes in the Senate, the culture, and in the black community and yet remained dignified and determined.
The winners were also clear -- the same white, male, conservative Republicans who have been running the country for some time. On the day after the victorious Thomas vote, The Washington Post reported the absolute "glee" of the White House and the discussions of Bush's aides who hoped to use the hearings "to portray Congress as inept, unfair and in the grip of radical feminists."
Incredible. As Roger Wilkins commented, these whole proceedings would have gone so differently if blacks and women were fairly represented in the Senate, which is now made up of 100 white people, 98 men.
Through the Thomas hearings, the political process has plunged even further into diatribe instead of dialogue. The rules of civility, decency, and fairness seemed to be forgotten on all sides. What everyone appeared to agree on is the old sports adage that "winning is the only thing."
The problem is that most of us are losing in the meantime.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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