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babylonsister

(170,963 posts)
Sat Sep 19, 2020, 07:45 AM Sep 2020

Dahlia Lithwick: What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Would Want America to Do Now

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/ruth-bader-ginsburg-remembrance-what-now.html?via=features

Jurisprudence
What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Would Want America to Do Now
Throughout all of the late-breaking notorious fame, the justice knew that she was just one link in the chain.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Sept 19, 202012:49 AM

snip//

Whenever she spoke, Justice Ginsburg was at pains to say that she stood on the shoulders of giants. At her confirmation hearings, in her prepared statement to the Senate, she was meticulous about who truly deserved the credit for her landmark career, and it wasn’t RBG: “We could not have come to this point—and I surely would not be in this room today—without the determined efforts of men and women who kept dreams of equal citizenship alive in days when few would listen. People like Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Harriet Tubman come to mind. I stand on the shoulders of those brave people.” I never heard her give a public speech in which she didn’t thank, by name, the allies, champions, fighters, of whom she inevitably saw herself as a beneficiary; she cast herself as someone lucky enough to be in a long line of champions and fighters, and also as someone set and determined to pay it forward to the people who would someday stand on her shoulders. She was a link in a chain, albeit a link lucky enough to score a crown when she was old enough to collect social security.

Justice Ginsburg was reserved and cautious and careful with her words, but I also think she never truly wanted her career and the progress for which she toiled, day in and day out, sleeplessly and through illness, to be just her own. Maybe it was because she was almost always a part of some bigger entity; an ACLU project, a law school class, a court, another court. She talked about soloists a lot, but she didn’t do a lot of solos. Instead, she saw herself as part of something bigger, some that started with her mother’s passions, and the help of her professors, and boosters, and friends. And of course, she knew that she lived as the repository of her beloved husband Marty’s hopes for a better future, and his endless efforts to do what he could to make it so. The world they envisioned was one that might be created thanks to the work we have all done, the marches we have marched, the fights we have fought, the protests we have protested. It was always a collective effort. And every time a door closed, or a clerkship was declined, or an all-male court found her to be weirdly female—whatever team she was on, she hunkered down and regrouped and pushed forward again.

Justice Ginsburg’s personal fame—the bedazzling fandom that suddenly sprung up around her—was improbable because to her, it was always about the people who paved the way, and the people who would follow after. I think perhaps she got a kick out of the idea that the young ones who came after might be moved and inspired and lit up by her stardom and her integrity and her grit; that they might go to law school or sign a petition or go on a march thanks to her. And while the loss of Justice Ginsburg is gutting, and lacerating, and brutally sad, her entire life and work has been in service to the idea that the rest of us are in fact capable of being allies and helpers and boosters and supporters, and also that the generations that are disconsolate tonight, for the lack of a hero, are themselves capable of stepping into her teeny tiny mighty three-inch-heeled terrifyingly fabulous shoes and taking up the work she didn’t begin but merely inherited from those who came before.

America has lost a warrior and it’s OK to be crushed. I am flattened. And I will mourn, because she deserves to be mourned. But we are also facing an almighty battle that will rage in the coming weeks, with attempts to fill her seat in an unseemly and grotesque manner. It will be hard, and painful, but if you find yourself feeling hopeless and powerless, then you are empathically doing it wrong. Because if anyone had a right to say “nah,” it was the woman who couldn’t get a job or a clerkship after graduating at the top of her class. But she pushed on, and then she pushed forward. She stepped into the fight of the phenomenal women who paved the path before, and now, well, it’s time to step into her fight and get it finished. I think the Notorious RBG would have peered owlishly out at all of us tonight and asked what the heck we are waiting for. And I think we can probably honor her best by getting to it.

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Dahlia Lithwick: What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Would Want America to Do Now (Original Post) babylonsister Sep 2020 OP
I admit I need to hear this duhneece Sep 2020 #1
I so hope you win the NM State senate seat, duhneece. BComplex Sep 2020 #3
This is beautiful and so right! Everybody needs to read it and take it to heart. n/t Raven Sep 2020 #2
Thank you for posting this Biophilic Sep 2020 #4
K&R Docreed2003 Sep 2020 #5
Thank you, Dahlia.! niyad Sep 2020 #6
RBG should be our rally cry! Dustlawyer Sep 2020 #7
Thank you Dahlia! 2naSalit Sep 2020 #8
Thank you for this-- Kitchari Sep 2020 #9
Thank you for posting this, babylonsister. brer cat Sep 2020 #10
What wonderful words of strength and hope. crickets Sep 2020 #11

BComplex

(7,984 posts)
3. I so hope you win the NM State senate seat, duhneece.
Sat Sep 19, 2020, 08:27 AM
Sep 2020

This is such a desperately sad day with the loss of RBG. But you've always fought right along side of her, and all that she stood for, and I know you'll keep on fighting.

Biophilic

(3,487 posts)
4. Thank you for posting this
Sat Sep 19, 2020, 08:58 AM
Sep 2020

I would have never seen it otherwise and it really resonates with me. It's exactly what I needed this morning.

2naSalit

(86,061 posts)
8. Thank you Dahlia!
Sat Sep 19, 2020, 10:44 AM
Sep 2020

I saw here on a news show last night and discovered that she and The Notorious RBG liked her a lot and called her "spicy". I've liked Dahlia for some time and what she has to say now is absolutely correct.

We must press forward or lose it all. And increasing our efforts in this fight is the best way to honor her and all that she has done for all of us.

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