The inauguration was Monday. Today is Thursday. I have seen zero coverage in the mainstream media about Justice Jackson’s attire. Has any reporter asked Justice Jackson if she realized she wore a symbol that has been widely recognized as a talisman to ward off evil?
ABA Journal provides links to some of the coverage:
As a fashion statement, there was some disagreement. Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, initially called the cowrie shells a “fashion faux pas,” while fashion historian Shelby Ivey Christie said the piece had undeniable visual impact.
The shell collar “brilliantly reinterprets the traditional judicial jabot through an African American cultural lens,” Christie told HuffPost. The shell pattern suggests “ceremony and significance” along with “importance and intentionality,” she said.
But there may have been a deeper meaning, according to HuffPost, Vogue, Ebony, the Root, Parade, Above the Law and a Volokh Conspiracy post by Blackman.
But silence from the large newspapers and media outlets.
This silence would be unremarkable, but for the persistent scrutiny attacks on Justices Thomas and Alito. ProPublica spent a year scrubbing through social media accounts to trace where in the world is Clarence Thomas. But no one has asked KBJ what she was wearing to the Capitol. Reporters have accosted the Alitos in their driveway, and interviewed their neighbors about flags. But has anyone sent a note to the Public Information Office?
I will continue to wait.
Update: An article on Huffington Post about Justice Jackson’s talisman originally included this line:
After all, Jackson is the first Black Supreme Court justice to sit on the court. “Even folks unfamiliar with its cultural significance can recognize it as a meaningful choice.”
I know that liberals do not believe that Clarence Thomas is actually black. For once, they wrote it! And what about Justice Thurgood Marshall?
The page was later fixed to say:
After all, Jackson is the first Black female justice to sit on the court. “Even folks unfamiliar with its cultural significance can recognize it as a meaningful choice.”
I’m not sure what the addition of the word “female” does here. Clarence Thomas is also descended from African slaves.
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