The Utmost Respect

Just one generation

WINNER

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson [Photo: Lelanie Foster]

At White House event held on the South Lawn last Friday celebrating her elevation to the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said:

“It has taken 232 years and 115 prior appointments for a Black woman to be selected to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. But we’ve made it. We’ve made it. All of us.

The path was cleared for me so that I might rise to this occasion. And in the poetic words of Dr. Maya Angelou, I do so now, while ‘bringing the gifts...my ancestors gave.’ I—’I am the dream and the hope of the slave.’

In my family, it took just one generation to go from segregation to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

I prefer not to dwell on what then-Judge Jackson had to endure and focus instead on the accomplishments of this brilliant woman. She is among the most qualified of any justice even confirmed and she has more experience than four of her SCOTUS colleagues combined. She is also the only justice ever to have experience as a public defender.

Lelanie Foster, a Bronx-based photographer whose work is “a tribute to Black life and culture” and whose work has appeared in The New York Times and Vogue, among many others, took Justice Jackson official portrait. She said, “My vision was to portray regal-ness and composure and poise and dignity, all words that are completely representative of Jackson, and that’s what I wanted to be taken from this image. After everything she went through during the Senate confirmation hearings, I wanted the utmost respect for Jackson to be shown in the image.”

Many of you referred to Judge Jackson’s “grace under fire.” And she received your votes “for her display of temperament, dignity, and grace, to overcome her assaultive Senate hearings” and “for her grace, poise and tenacity that led her to become an associate justice on SCOTUS.”

RUNNER-UP

ALI VELSHI

For five weeks Ali Velshi has been reporting from Ukraine, hosting The Rachel Maddow Show, and seemingly getting no sleep. His last broadcast from Ukraine was yesterday. His work has been by turns searing, blunt, informal, and always deeply humane.

You wrote:

“His care and compassion for the Ukrainian people has shown through in each segment. He is a lovely and loving man as well as a consummate journalist.”

He’s been “doing absofuckinglutely amazing work covering both TRMS as well as his own weekend shows the last month.”

“He's been amazing, awesome, brave, impressive, and extremely caring while giving us clear and deep insights into the brutality perpetrated by these Russian barbarians.”

HONORABLE MENTION

SENATOR BRIAN SCHATZ

Sen. Brian Schatz took to the Senate floor and wiped it with Josh Hawley. It was incredibly well done and a template for other Democrats who need to stop pulling punches when it comes to taking down the Republican seditionists in the Senate.

You can watch the video here.

You voted for him “for standing up and ‘making noise’ about Sen. Hawley's (and others) disingenuousness and gaslighting” and “straight up calling out Hawley’s ongoing seditious behavior.

“I appreciate his pushback to these verbally abusive Senators. His unequivocal ‘this is NOT ok.’”

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Thank you to everybody who mentioned “the late, great Eric Boehlert for his inherent goodness and determination to expose the truth at every turn.”