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xchrom

(108,903 posts) Sun Mar 30, 2014, 07:26 AM Mar 2014

'Anita: Speaking Truth to Power' Reignites Fury Over Sexual Harassment and Political Might

http://www.alternet.org/corporate-accountability-and-workplace/anita-speaking-truth-power-reignites-fury-over-sexual

There she was, polite and poised in her smart, turquoise dress suit, facing off against a murderers' row of aging, not entirely august, white men, an ebony Joan of Arc versus a court of incredulous grand inquisitors. To a bitterly divided 1991 America, University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill was either witch, scorned woman, martyr or feminist heroine. In any case, when the smoke cleared it was Hill who was burned at the Senate stake.

Twenty-plus years after the most incendiary and indecent Supreme Court confirmation hearings in U.S. history, filmmaker Freida Mock flips through the sensationally lurid pages of Anita Hill v. Clarence Thomas in Anita: Speaking Truth to Power, a documentary sure to re-fan the flames of righteous indignation among anyone, man or woman, sitting to the left of Strom Thurmond.

If, as legendary attorney Clarence Darrow argued, “almost every case has been won and lost when the jury is sworn,” Anita Hill was toast as soon as she sat down to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee that steamy October weekend in 1991. Chaired by now-Veep Joe Biden of Delaware, the all-white, all-male committee wasn’t quite a kangaroo court, but it resembled something from Down Under the Mason-Dixon Line, circa 1930. Rather than hostile witnesses, this was an open-and-shut case of hostile politicos, aghast and appalled that a Supreme Court nominee and “pornography,” “pubic hair” and “penis size” could be publicly uttered in the same sentence.

For investigative reporter Jane Mayer (then with the Wall Street Journal), the televised hearings—“Judge Judy” crossed with the Playboy Channel—were just a smokescreen for Democratic and Republican senators alike: “It wasn’t about the truth ... it was about winning.” Despite a majority of Democrats on the committee, Hill was largely led to the dogs alone. Ted Kennedy sat mostly sullen and stone-faced as a bit player.

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'Anita: Speaking Truth to Power' Reignites Fury Over Sexual Harassment and Political Might (Original Post) xchrom Mar 2014 OP

And on this "Democratic" forum, chervilant Mar 2014 #1

i watched it as well. xchrom Mar 2014 #2

When I think about those men chervilant Mar 2014 #9

+1. yes... "a misogynist thread misquoting 'radical' feminists survived a jury 2 - 4..." seabeyond Mar 2014 #7

Yeah, chervilant Mar 2014 #10

"Move over Anita. Make room at the burning stake. The Repubbies want to roast me, too." - Bridget K. Berlum Mar 2014 #3

Clarence Thomas vs Anita Hill: She's still telling the truth Octafish Mar 2014 #4

That was the most disgusting display I had ever seen. Autumn Mar 2014 #5

man, i remember way back when, i was so young, watching her, and thinking what an incredibly awesome seabeyond Mar 2014 #6

"For her legions of admirers, she’ll always be standing on the mountaintop." bemildred Mar 2014 #8

chervilant

(8,267 posts)

1. And on this "Democratic" forum,

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 07:54 AM

Mar 2014

a misogynist thread misquoting 'radical' feminists survived a jury 2 - 4...

Do you see a pattern? A "culture," perhaps?

I remember watching Anita Hill testify, and thinking -- with bitter resignation -- they're gonna confirm that disgusting man. And, they did.

xchrom

(108,903 posts)

2. i watched it as well.

Reply to chervilant (Reply #1)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 07:56 AM

Mar 2014

the relative silence of guys like kennedy really made me wonder.

i hated 'witnessing' what happened to anita hill.

chervilant

(8,267 posts)

9. When I think about those men

Reply to xchrom (Reply #2)

Mon Mar 31, 2014, 04:53 PM

Mar 2014

watching Ms. Hill answer their questions over and over... I feel sad for them. They cannot know how utterly vile they appeared to countless women (and men) watching those proceedings.

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)

7. +1. yes... "a misogynist thread misquoting 'radical' feminists survived a jury 2 - 4..."

Reply to chervilant (Reply #1)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 10:39 AM

Mar 2014

yes

chervilant

(8,267 posts)

10. Yeah,

Reply to seabeyond (Reply #7)

Mon Mar 31, 2014, 04:55 PM

Mar 2014

that guy went straight to my IL.

Berlum

(7,044 posts)

3. "Move over Anita. Make room at the burning stake. The Repubbies want to roast me, too." - Bridget K.

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 08:07 AM

Mar 2014

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

4. Clarence Thomas vs Anita Hill: She's still telling the truth

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 10:21 AM

Mar 2014

Robin Abcarian
The Los Angeles Times, March 12, 2014, 6:42 p.m.

The new documentary about Anita Hill opens with a closeup of a telephone and a bizarre voice message:
“Good morning, Anita Hill. It’s Ginni Thomas, and I just wanted to reach across the air waves, and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime, and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought, I certainly pray about this and hope one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. OK! Have a good day.”

Those words, left on Hill's office voice mail in October 2010, are the last we hear from Ginni Thomas in “Anita: Speaking Truth to Power” by Oscar-winning director Freida Mock, which opens in Los Angeles and New York on Friday. And it’s probably for the best.

SNIP...

Without a trace of rancor, Hill says that when she returned to Oklahoma after the hearings, “Republicans tried to get the school to fire me, even though I was tenured. My dean – they tried to get him fired. They tried to close the law school. I was threatened with just about everything— death, sexual violence.”

No question, what the Senate Judiciary hearings unleashed was dreadful for Hill (and certainly it was no picnic for Clarence Thomas, either). But it was also a watershed moment in American politics. American women looked at how the Senate treated Hill and said: This is not right.

The all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by then-Sen. Joseph Biden, grilled her, impugned her honesty and forced her to repeat the most graphic insults.

“They were humiliating her by making her go over these things again and again and again,” said New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer, who appears in the film along with Jill Abramson, now the New York Times executive editor, with whom she wrote the 1994 book “Strange Justice.” The book will leave you with no doubts about Thomas’ proclivities.

Hill was hung out to dry by the committee’s Democrats, who really did not want to have a conversation about a black Supreme Court nominee sexually harassing an employee while leading the EEOC. (Sen. Ted Kennedy, the documentary points out, was so compromised that he was played in a “Saturday Night Live” skit about the hearings by an actor with a bag over his head.)

CONTINUED...

http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-clarence-thomas-vs-anita-hill-a-new-film-opens-old-wounds-20140312,0,6988082.story#axzz2xSJArMhN

Strange how Congress behaved. Several of the players from then are still around on the Washington stage. They still act strange.

Autumn

(45,099 posts)

5. That was the most disgusting display I had ever seen.

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 10:33 AM

Mar 2014

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)

6. man, i remember way back when, i was so young, watching her, and thinking what an incredibly awesome

Reply to xchrom (Original post)

Sun Mar 30, 2014, 10:38 AM

Mar 2014

woman she was, in front of all the hate, disrespect and bigotry.

now, i will read the article. but, that picture so brought back my feelings of admiration.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)

8. "For her legions of admirers, she’ll always be standing on the mountaintop."