It happens very rarely. But every so often there will be a simple graphic published that will help paint a perfect picture of our current state of affairs, either spiritually, politically, intellectually, or otherwise.
After the official confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson to the US Supreme Court, this graphic began making its rounds online:
The image is jarring at first glance. But obviously to a thinking person, it should come as no surprise that a country that developed from European colonization – that only permitted suffrage rights for adult white males for nearly half of its history and that shared a pervasive sense of gender roles that saw work outside the home as largely the domain of men until just the last few decades – would have a high court with such a demographic history, even if seeing it in print certainly makes that history more glaringly real.
Still, I think the majority of folks who view the graphic and come away with a sense of shame about our past are missing something. Don't misunderstand, I'm not interested in defending an era where women and minorities were largely excluded from leadership positions.
No, I mean that I think many of us are missing what the graphic says about us, our priorities, and our collective understanding of diversity today. I would suggest that reality is equally shameful.
This is a graphic to depict "diversity," and yet it shows only skin color and gender. How reductive of a definition of diversity does that represent?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor were both female justices. Were they ideologically compatible and interchangeable? What about Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas? They were both black after all, so that means they are the same person – just like all those white dudes are carbon-copies of each other, right?
I'm not suggesting that racial or gender representation is insignificant or unimportant. But if we truly believe we are striking a blow for diversity just by having varying sex chromosome patterns or levels of skin pigmentation on the high court, we are demonstrating how extremely shallow we've become.
Individuals are far more interesting, unique, and distinctive than just their involuntary, inborn attributes like sex and race. Perspectives, ideologies, and beliefs not only shape the judgement of a court, but the identity of a human being, far beyond skin color and sexuality.
It's not like we don't all implicitly recognize that. It's the very reason liberals would rather have an old white guy like Stephen Breyer on the court than a black Clarence Thomas or a female Amy Coney Barrett.
I don't expect any of this to change. We are a shallow people who meme instead of think. I recognize this is the discourse we have allowed our society to descend into, but I think we should be capable of better.
