New on Netflix: Anita

I was in high-school when Anita Hill was forced into the national spotlight during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice nominee Clarence Thomas.  I don’t remember much about her other than the strange juxtaposition of a beautiful woman with perfectly curled hair and language about pubic hair in a Coke can. 

Anita: Speaking Truth to Power begins with a surreal voicemail recording of Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, asking Anita Hill for an apology. It then backtracks to shed light on Anita Hill's personal history and the confirmation hearings.

Born the youngest of thirteen children in rural Oklahoma, Anita Hill worked her way through Yale Law School and later became the first tenured law professor at The University of Oklahoma College of Law.  When George H. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, part of the vetting process involved contacting people who had previously worked with him.  Anita Hill was one such person.  She reported that she was sexually harassed by Thomas when they worked together at the Department of Education and the EEOC.  Because Thomas had only been a judge for a year, his character was a particularly important part of the evaluation.

Anita Hill was brought before the Senate Judiciary Committee led by Joe Biden.  Some of the details of the harassment seem tame by today’s standards (this was B.C.- Before Clinton).  However, what is shocking is that there were some members of the committee who seemed to get a thrill out of asking Ms. Hill to describe what happened to her in the most salacious terms possible.  With her elderly mother sitting behind her, she was forced to talk about pornography and what Thomas said about the size of his private parts.   

Dirty Old Men

One of the most striking moments of the documentary was when Ms. Hill was asked if she was a “scorned woman” as if participating in the confirmation hearings was her idea.  Throughout it all, she demonstrated fortitude and dignity.   In one scene, at the end of the hearing she thanks the committee for their time and the look on her eyes is a haunting mix of defiance and defeat.

What is equally interesting was watching Clarence Thomas’s masterful refutation of the charges against him by referring to the hearings as a “a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas."  According to Thomas, the confirmation hearings were "a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree.”  It's always interesting when blacks who deny the power of racism use it when they feel victimized.  The whole mantra of 'personal responsibility' goes out the window when they are in the hot seat.

Thomas was savvy enough to know that the Senate committee would be unwilling to look like racists. His lynching comment ended the hearings and Thomas was confirmed for Thurgood Marshall's spot on The Supreme Court.  The documentary goes on to describe how Anita Hill struggled to maintain a sense of normalcy in the aftermath of Thomas's appointment and later became an advocate for gender equality in the workplace.

Kerry Washington recently signed on to play Anita Hill in an upcoming HBO movie.  Watch this documentary first.