The following consists of excerpts from my remarks made at the Judicial Nomination Process Press Conference held in the Mansfield Room of the U.S. Capitol, Nov. 13, 2003. My remarks dealt with the Senate Democrats obstructing and stalling a straight up or down vote on conservative Judicial Nominees. I share them now to remind everyone of the truth of “fairness.” Especially the silver-tongued potentate in the White House who uses the word “fair” as cover for depriving us of our rights and to foment class warfare. My remarks are as relevant today as they were at the time they were delivered nearly nine years ago.
A REMINDER WHAT FAIRNESS REALLY IS:
Piggy-backing that which my colleagues have just articulated – I would address the voice of fairness …
Fairness is marked by impartiality and honesty; it is free from self-interest, prejudice or favoritism; it conforms to the established rules … Fairness is not hateful, opprobrious partisanship.
It was out of a sense of fairness that America had not only the courage, but the good sense and decency to abolish slavery …
Further, it was the realization that opportunity – that great equalizer that has been the cornerstone of our American heritage – was being denied to an entire populace of people based solely upon the color of their skin, thus unfairly denying these same people equal participation under the law.
It is important to note, also, that there was an embarrassing period in American history, during which men of perceived gentry were condescending and antagonistic toward women – treating them as inferior and not worthy or equal to participate in the boundless opportunities this great country holds in its stores for all humankind.
Once again, principled men of conscience understood that this, too, was unfair. And just as Everett Dirksen answered the call for fairness by a president from across the aisle, so too these men took it upon themselves to address a paralyzing unfairness.
And so, it is that America – with the grace and dignity befitting so great a land – acknowledged her past blemishes ensuring that the fairness of opportunity would be available to all, regardless of their race or gender.
Nowhere today have we better examples of this than Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice; we see women today as the owners of world championship athletic franchises; today, women are the CEOs of the most powerful companies listed in the Fortune 500 …
This weekend, I observed two of the most successful world champions in all of motor sports were women.
And let me not omit Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas – who rose from the humblest of beginnings to ascend to one of the highest positions in America, indeed in the world.
Principled men of America understood then, and understand now, that “All men [and women] are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” – to which I add it is implicitly implied in the aforementioned the right to be treated fairly. Thanks to principled leaders of faith – fairness having been extended not only paid dividends, but it allowed for little girls today, from Stone Mountain, Ga., to California to dream with a “fair” hope of achieving their dream.
I stand in this chamber this morning fully cognizant that, not many years past, my father could have hoped only to clean the floors here. But today, because honorable and principled men reached across the aisle, refusing to engage in yellow visceral partisanism, and helped a president embarrassed by his own party, I stand here addressing the nation, aware that my son can one day stand here to address the world.
Yet, embarrassingly, today there are those who would return us to that shameful period of Jim Crow and that period when women were good enough to bear children, clean or act on ceremony, but could not hold positions of power for which they were (and are) eminently qualified …
Today, the message that goes forth from these chambers – to black boys and black girls, and to white girls and white boys, to boys and girls of Hispanic origin – is that they can only dream of fairness. For if they dare to venture off the ideological plantations, or if they dare to venture out of the ideological kitchens or if they dare to venture out of the ideological fields of sugar cane, they will be viciously set upon – often by those of their own ethnicity, who are encouraged to do so by those embodied with the spirits of those who shackled, maimed and controlled with rigid inflexibility. Old Tom Lynch would be proud of his modern-day descendants …
My friends across America – we stand assembled here this morning, to say that there are those ideologically committed to barring doors and setting the ideological dogs upon those who believe in the doctrine of fairness – there are those who would tell us that women only have the right to fairness if they are ideologically committed to obstruction and subversion.
But that is not America. Contrary to the lies and betrayals by some of these sworn to uphold the Constitution, in America the people are owed the principle of fairness.
Fairness is not a dirty word – it is a word that at once commands respect and acknowledgement.
That is what we are asking for here today. We are asking for an end to the ideological unprincipled and unfair behavior by those who would claim to love America and claim to serve her people.
We are here to ask for a straight up or down vote with a simple majority of 51 as our founding fathers – those who have been bastardized as old white men who owned slaves – intended.
Do I ask for too much? I say, I ask for no less then men of principle asked for in the past.
Rather than return ideologically to the days of lynchings and burnings and abuse of women – I challenge men with a sense of fairness to step forward. We know there exists – within some of the elected – malevolent spirits of America’s dark past. But we also know there exists in many within these halls today the principled spirit of fairness of the Everett Dirksens. May they be honorable and bold enough to step forward. Thank you.
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Mychal, your words inspire and bring about a humbleness that is so very needed in all man kind.
I’m so “happy” that women’s suffrage was carried out to the limit and I as an American Citizen woman can vote this November! But the ability for women to vote was a hard, long struggle for over 100 years. Finally, in 1920 the first vote was cast by women. The black women had a more difficult time to gain their right to vote. In the south, particularly, black women were beaten, thrown in jail if they tried to vote and this went on into the 1960′s. The black man was also denied voting privilages until long after the Civl War. So, addressing Fairness, there was not much in the earlier years for blacks or women. 1970′s; My neighbor and I discussed how progression of presidental elections would carry out. She said that white man protestant would be first; white man catholic second; black man third; white woman fourth; and, black women fifth.(We weren’t aware of a Mormon coming out of one of his houses) She was about right but I would vote for C. Rice today. I would vote C. Rice for president and S Palin for VP. Those two could clean house and carry out foreign affairs quite well!
marilyn: I would not vote for rice because she is pro abortion and pro race based affirmative action…Palin would get my vote…
All I can say is – BEAUTIFULLY SAID!!
sandy: thk you much…how are you and your family…say hello to all for me…miss seeing you…
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Mychal, you’re right on about the direction our country needs to take to achieve all the healing for “our” peoples and nation. To honor fairness. You help me remember the good things about America. Thank you.
wendy: thk you much…
I read this, and I can’t help but predicate every thought with the statement, “I am standing here speaking of this, knowing only a few years ago, my own father could only expect to clean the floors”, knowing this quote is no allusion to something etherial, but exactly real.
I read the words, “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”, and I know, at the time of our founding, witnesses put their left hand on the Bible, held up their right hand, and said “I do”, when asked if they would swear to tell the truth, because everyone fully understood it was only “the truth”, if the whole screed was fulfilled, yet we must have that screed, because we no longer “know in our hearts” anything the slightest bit short of that, is simply a lie, no matter than 98% of what was said was true.
We have to accept that no matter how hard we work to be true to principle, to fulfill the whole truth of our remarkable, and certainly divinely inspired Declaration, there will always be someone involved who will stand firm and hold up any achievement, until a bit of evil is inserted, and it will be tolerated because of the vast substance of good, and the sure and certain knowledge it must be this way, for the good to be implemented, with the equal knowledge someday the power to remove the evil will rise up, and we will do it.
I can’t help, in knowing Mr. Massie’s Blackness is hereditary, feeling with him, the angst of establishing this Nation even while abolitionists stood four-square against allowing it to come to be with slavery, feeling the embarrassment I know those of principle and good heart, true to their faith, but compromising, to see a greater evil done away, with the expectation it would not long be allowed, before this wrong known as it was, inserted, but not forgotten.
The very fact that we accepted the equality of slaves, who stepped forward to take up arms and fight for a Nation which did not abandon slavery, but only gave token respect for their acts, by freeing individuals, and accepted them as equals when the fighting came, and still, those now free men, fought with passion and belief, to see the whole of their People finally freed, that there remained restraint, and our war of independence didn’t become total anarchy, as it could have done, I know this was an act of God, providing for patience on the part of those who could see the silver lining, while knowing only their children would ever have a chance of experiencing it, this is the endowment we, as a Nation, received from our Creator, and the best possible cause to push all the harder to see the actual liberty and freedom, things which simply have been done away with, brought back, that those whose ancestors were deliberately deprived of what we knew was right, can have the first opportunity to experience a free market economy, and the chance to make themselves who and what they would choose to be.
We, White folks, cannot take offense to foolish actions of those deprived of the chance to become wise, and have been deliberately manipulated with full intent of their being used to divide us, so we can be conquered, but we can only acknowledge the wrongs done which have brought us to this position as A People, and work to bring those who are ignorant, to understanding, so we can stand together, because we cannot keep our Nation, while we remain so strongly divided, and are manipulated so easily into fighting each other.
Blacks in our Nation have not revolted long ago, because most are bound to faith, to the same principles, and with the same desires, any other Americans are, and those of faith, outnumber those who have lost all faith, and were filled with hatred to replace it.
Our ancestors compromised on principle, and we must overcome what our failures have wrought, and we must do it by choosing to be Godly and honorable, and those are our only tools worthy and capable of fixing the gulf we must cross, and build such bridges as to forever chose the gap, and prevent it from being used against all of us, as it has been so effectively in the past decades.
I thank God there are so many strong men and women of God, Blacks who choose life, and abundance, and are able to discard out of hand, anger and hate which they have every right to hold, but realise holding such, never provides life and abundance, but only provides the feeling, fleeting, of vengence, but leaves a person empty when the momentary satisfaction is gone. I too would give almost anything to have been present to hear this spoken and enjoy the spirit of the moment which must have been powerful.
We are greatly Blessed, and we are fools when we fail to remember this, often as it may be.
John McClain
GySgt, USMC, ret.
Vanceboro, NC
The beauty of your mind boggles mine; methinks you are the closest person to ‘flawless in thought’ I will ever hear/read in my lifetime.
What a gift you are.
smogdew: hahaha…thk you…but some would accuse me of being a person of “flawed thought”…
Speaking of fairness, let us not be unmindful that when Mychal speaks his words are not of an astute journalist alone it is the voice of a moral Christian who arose from a humble but righteous family life and honed by the fires of the spirit of truth and justice which come forth from absolute faith and trust in the Word of the Lord of all creation. There are hundreds of talking heads out there screaming eloquent words of compassion, social justice, and civil rights to promote an agenda based on manufactured morals designed by the manipulating minority currently holding the reigns of government which would have us believe they are creating a new world order that will answer the needs of everyone if we will only allow them to enact new doctrines of democracy and formulate a faith in their leadership.
The fairness of which Mychal speaks comes from the heart of a member of the one body of Christ aware of the fact mankind must recognize we live at the mercy and goodness of God and His word or we doom ourselves to destruction. The political pretenders of piety have recently exposed themselves as opposed to the Church and its precepts and are openly denying its doctrines asking us to relinquish our grip on the moral truths which have guided free men to build western civilizations most dynamic and successful Republic of all time where even the poor, whom Christ said will always be among us, live free and more comfortably than a third of the rest of the world. This is not perfection but fallen mankind can not expect to establish a society on earth that would bring us to the utopia espoused by the pretenders. Besides, the question is not so much fairness as it is truthfulness. All is fair in love and war pretty much answers that. We need not search any further for truth than our nearest Bible to know who is the truth, the light, and the life for us and know that we have only to ask ourselves who do the voices speaking to us stand by and if it is not the Lord Jesus Christ they are simply blowing smoke in our eyes.
bill sr: thk you my friend…
Mychal;
Another wonderful article, an American first lady Eleanor Roosevelt made the statement that happiness was not a destination, it was a by-product. The way my small mind works that statement tells me if happiness is something I would like to have then I need to get up off my butt and create it! Way to many people in our country consider happiness an entitlement, and they are trying to vote happiness into their lives, our chest bumping home boy is pandering and any saying anything he can to get that vote.
My thoughts and prayers are with you Mychal as you set about enlightening those that will listen, please keep up the work that you do. GOD SPEED my friend.
spark: thk you much…”vote happiness into their lives” is keen observation…
…I have missed so many of your thoughts and opinions…thanks for this one.
sunny: you’re welcome…I repost here because it my words of many years ago are so applicable to certain events today…
Mychal, I only wish I could have been there to hear this. I have no doubt, I wouldn’t have been the only one with tears streaming down my face. It is truly beautiful, as I know, it came from your heart. God bless you…
minerva: thk you…c-span and other on-air news programming carried the event…