Meghan Markle Recalls Watching Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's Confirmation Hearings
Meghan Markle's podcast Archetypes continues to deconstruct the labels and tropes that hold women back. Today's episode focused on the trope of the angry Black women, featuring conversations with Issa Rae, Ziwe Fumudoh, and Dr. Emily Bernard.
During the episode, as the Duchess of Sussex speaks with Barnard, the two discuss Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
"When I think about the kinds of stereotypes that black women are up against today, my mind immediately goes to the image of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearings and how she sat with so much poise and grace and openness as a gallery of senators tried to discredit her, who tried to undermine her," Bernard tells Meghan.
The professor continued, "Some of the things they said to her would have infuriated me. And I know, I know they probably, you know, maybe they infuriated her. And I was angry for her that she couldn't be angry."
Then, the Duchess of Sussex's voiceover cuts in, after a clip from the hearings when Senator Marsha Blackburn is asking Judge Jackson to define "woman."
Meghan recounts, "I remember watching these hearings in the spring of 2022. They were gripping and painful. And in front of those senators on the Judiciary Committee, then-Judge Jackson, she remained poised and composed – no matter what was happening for her underneath the surface. Which I can only begin to imagine."
Her nomination was a historic—she was first Black woman nominated, and then confirmed, to serve on the nation's highest court. At the time, Meghan Markle celebrated Jackson's nomination, telling Anita Hill, "The civil rights history of tomorrow is being written today. Judge Jackson’s nomination has opened new ground for women’s representation at the highest level of a judicial system that for too long has tilted against the very community she hails from."
The Duchess continued, "For the millions of young women who will rightfully find inspiration from this moment, let’s remind ourselves that Black achievement is something that exists not just today or yesterday, and not just in moments of celebration, but as a fabric woven into the entire chronicle of the American story."
Listen to the full Archetypes episode here:
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