Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [125]
Almost immediately upon my return home, the Daily Oklahoman, Oklahoma City’s only daily newspaper, began running editorials on the hearing. They generally proclaimed that Clarence Thomas should be confirmed and that his opposition had invented the testimony. Editorializing was not limited to the editorial pages, as the news reports portrayed me as a party to a conspiracy against Thomas. The newspaper has made clear its position on the issue. But what the Oklahoman has never made clear to its readers is that the editorial page is controlled by an individual who helped to launch Clarence Thomas’ career as a judge.
Patrick McGuigan, before taking the position at the Oklahoman, was a Washington, D.C., operative during the Reagan and Bush administrations. McGuigan liked Thomas because of their shared anti-affirmative action sentiments. Influential with the Bush administration, McGuigan reportedly called in a favor in getting Thomas appointed to the District of Columbia Circuit Court, putting Thomas in a position to move on to the Supreme Court upon the retirement of Justice Marshall. This clear apparent conflict of interest has not caused the newspaper to relieve McGuigan of his responsibilities on this issue. Yet McGuigan has made it clear that he will not be persuaded against his promotion of Clarence Thomas by the truth of my testimony or anyone else’s. His recurring diatribes are repulsive, but are a reality with which I have learned to live—like the obscene letters and telephone calls I continue to receive.
Little of what happened to me during the week after my testimony made sense. Now there was no time to ponder my new circumstance as people stopped on the street to stare at me or pointed and whispered “Look, it’s her,” no more than four feet away from me. Some thoughtless cad posted my telephone number on an electronic bulletin board, effectively multiplying the prank calls. Total strangers who wrote or called or accosted me to condemn me to hell for real or imagined views which they attributed to me were now an integral part of what had once been a very private existence.
But accepting the hard fact that I had become a symbol of an issue and had thus lost something of my right to privacy was not enough. I had to accept being treated by people as less than human. I had become the female counterpart of Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man.” I was obvious, but my humanity was not—like a figure in a wax museum to be admired, poked, glazed at, and photographed. Or insulted. Once a young couple in front of me at a counter began to speak about me in intentionally audible whispered tones. “Yes, that is her,” he said. “Well, I just know she lied,” she responded. “Look at her. I can’t believe she has the nerve to be seen in public,” she said. Finally, exasperated, I remarked that it was rude of them to “whisper” right in front of me. In a bizarre response, he referred to his friend: “We were just talking about the time she was raped.” I retreated, realizing that anyone with so little sensitivity as to personalize rape and speak of it so glibly would have no qualms about offending me or anyone else.
Another time while I was shopping for paper towels, a woman came up to me and said, “You’re Anita Hill, aren’t you?” When I answered yes, she said, “I want to give you a big hug.” In the next motion, without any further warning, she embraced me. I was so taken aback by the idea of a stranger hugging me in the middle of Target that I left the cart there and headed for the parking lot. What I had not yet grasped was the way that my testimony had touched so many women emotionally that they wanted to respond by touching me physically.
I was not used to such displays from strangers. I was hardly used to it from friends. Perhaps, if all of the reactions had been the same, I might have adjusted to it, but they varied jarringly from experience to experience. Some frightened me. Some shocked me. Some angered me. Some even amused me. Many made me want to withdraw; others made me want to strike back. But I was determined that none