Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [126]
PART THREE
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
On the morning of October 15, 1991, the news from Washington was that Clarence Thomas had enough votes to be confirmed as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. His seat on the Court was assured despite West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd’s impassioned plea on the Senate floor against the nomination and announcement of withdrawal of the support from four senators who had initially been counted as yes votes. The remaining yes pledges, including those of Democrats Alan Dixon of Illinois, Chuck Robb of Virginia, Richard Shelby of Alabama, and David Boren of Oklahoma, still outnumbered the nos.
Busy at school, I tried not to think too much of the count and assumed the nomination’s success. But the press members who returned with me to Norman after the hearing were a constant reminder. “Do you have a comment?” they asked, as if talking to a politician who was about to watch a vote on a piece of legislation she had sponsored, rather than the individual whose story was being judged. So skewed was their perspective that I had nothing I wished to share with them. I asked Ovetta Vermillion, who had the uneviable task of fielding their requests throughout the day, to tell them that no comment would be forthcoming.
The more persistent were not satisfied and followed me as I left the law school for home once again, camping across the street in a neighbor’s yard. Once inside my house, I would pull the shades and try to block out what was happening across the street. I would not allow the invasiveness of television cameras into my home. But no curtains could close out the clamor that the scene in my neighbor’s yard represented. For it was everywhere, inside my head and out. No matter how hard I tried “not to think about it,” my power of concentration met its match, and, like millions of others around the country, my mind focused on the vote. The major television networks carried the vote live and my colleagues in the law school watched the televised proceedings from the atrium on the second floor. My mother, Eric, and I sat in my den in front of the television, watching for the inevitable—at worst, my final humiliation; at best, no more than I had expected all along.
The tension and nervousness of the senators showed through the veneer of the count’s formality. The networks carried the vote almost as if it were a sporting event. For added drama, one broadcaster carried a live videotape of Clarence Thomas’ mother watching the proceeding from her home in Pin Point, Georgia. When it was completed, Clarence Thomas succeeded Thurgood Marshall as associate justice of the Supreme Court, by a 52–48 vote, the narrowest margin of any Supreme Court nominee in history. The four-vote margin was much slimmer than what had been projected early on, though to the three of us it seemed like a resounding victory.
Out of kindness or perhaps their own hurt, Eric and my mother sat speechless, staring at the proceedings. Not wanting to say anything that might intensify or invalidate my reaction, they awaited my response. “Well, that’s that,” I remarked, the first to break the silence. Though the words lacked profundity or insight into my feelings, they served the purpose of allowing us all to exhale simultaneously. Ironically, my usually circumspect mother was the first to voice her emotion. “The dirty rascals,” she declared of the Senate. A pained and angry Eric remained silent. I tried to maintain my dignity, resisting any sort of outburst that would only make matters more painful than the whole episode had already been. “It’s okay,” my mother said, trying to console me. “You did the right thing.” She was her usual self—short of words and to the point. I realized that both Eric and I were products of a guarded way of dealing with life’s