Dear Ms. Hill,
Having learned about your story and struggle as a black woman to be listened to and believed in, I want to ask about the many aspects of your identity and the ways Clarence Thomas’s Senate Hearing in 1991 questioned them. Do you think one of your identities played the greatest role in the Senate’s refusal to believe your story? Further, do you think the hearing would have ended differently if you had only one of two—namely your race and gender—key identities? As in, if you were a white woman, would you have been given greater respect? Perhaps if a white woman had come forward against Thomas in the ‘90s, the Senate committee would not have questioned her veracity; her identities would combine to create a more quickly believed person. I found it interesting that Senator Alan Simpson shared his fear of his sons growing up to be sexual predators or his daughters growing up to being harassed. Simpson ignored the fact that his children were white. He was disregarding their race from the idea of sexual harassment and simplified your harassment to a male-female issue.
In looking at the Committee Hearing from a 21st century standpoint, your race played a role in the hearing, yet Simpson ignored the ways in which your identity as a specifically black woman affected your ability to come forward and be accepted. And if we, in the 21st century, recognize the injustice done towards you, what do we do about it? Would you want to “re-try” Justice Thomas with a new Senate Committee? Or as part of the #MeToo movement, would you prefer to make sure people remember your stories in the years to come?