Speaking Truth to Power - Anita Hill [127]
Immediately after the vote, President Bush pronounced Thomas a “wonderful inspiration” and congratulated him for a job “well done.” Meanwhile, Thomas’ mother, Leola Williams, admonished me to pray about what I had done. She could never know how much I had prayed all along and would continue to pray. Oddly, I connected with her. Like my own parents, she, too, had become a part of the media spectacle.
A cadre of reporters, the persistent ones who followed me home, now gathered at my front door. I answered the doorbell knowing that ignoring them would only lead to baseless speculation or worse intrusions by the less responsible members of the group. “How do you feel about the vote?” a reporter asked. The question was inane, and I could not even begin to articulate an answer. How I “felt about the vote” got jumbled together with a myriad of feelings I had about the leak, the hearing, the process, and the people on my step. I could assign any one of many emotions to the vote—disappointment, hurt, outrage, hope, embarrassment, disillusionment. A clever sound bite would have been in order, but I had no handler or spinmeister to prepare me. The way of modern journalism, reducing persons to icons, appeared at that moment to have lost its skill for dealing with mere human beings. My mother and Eric were not public relations experts, and there was no one else there or behind the scenes who was. I managed a brief statement composed as I stood there in front of them. I was “disappointed but not surprised” at the vote. Having one week earlier shared a wholly humiliating experience on national television out of responsibility to the judiciary confirmation process, I now wanted to keep private any humiliation and resentment out of responsibility to myself and my family.
The group of reporters jotted down the few words that came from my mouth. The experience had made us more “aware of the problem of sexual harassment” and better “informed about the confirmation process.” Finally, I responded, “What I hope is that none of this will deter others from coming forward. This is an important issue and the dialogue will not stop here.” I had no inkling of the magnitude with which that prediction would be fulfilled.
Stepping back inside from the doorstep with two of the people I hold dearest in life beside me, I felt far removed from the hearing, the demonstrations which followed, and the Senate vote. That was all I wanted—to find the peace in my life that had vanished with the leak of my statement. And for a short while I believed that once I went inside and was alone with my family, it would all be over. The following morning, October 16, 1991, Erma Hill would be eighty years old. I wanted to believe that, come morning, that would be all that mattered.
Having achieved their goal, the persistent ones left, only to be followed within half an hour by another slightly less aggressive group who’d respected my desire to make no comment. Now they felt obligated to pursue a statement. It did not matter what I said; I was simply footage to be wired back to the studio. Had I not been tired and somewhat disgusted by it all, I might have seen the humor in the competitive frenzy of the press corps. But by that time, I saw little humor in any of it. “I already said everything that I have to say,” I told them. “Well, just repeat what you told the last group,” they instructed, trying to ensure that they had something to return to their employers. In the end, I gave the statement again. These, after all, had been the polite ones—the ones willing to respect my privacy at the risk of missing some scoop of news. Over the past week, I had learned that politeness only went so far in the “news” business, and in the coming months that lesson would be reinforced. I would also learn that just as I had been powerless in becoming a part of a news story, I would be equally powerless as I attempted to retreat from it.
The impact of the emotions that had erupted