Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Barbara Jordan

We on the Commission believe strongly that it is in the national interest for immigrants to become citizens for the right reasons, not the wrong ones. We want immigrants to be motivated to naturalize in order to vote, to be fully participating members of our polity-to become Americans. We don’t want to motivate lawabiding aliens to naturalize just so that they can get food stamps, health care, job training, or their homes tested for lead.

Fourth, deportation is crucial. Credibility in immigration policy can be summed up in one sentence: those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave. The top priorities for detention and removal, of course, are criminal aliens. But for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process. The Commission will have additional recommendations on this crucial matter later this year.

Her immigration policies mar her otherwise liberal public-service record, for which she received a lot of recognition, including sharing the honor of TIME’s Persons of the Year in 1975, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994, a consideration of being a US Supreme Court justice (ex-President Clinton wanted this but said her deteriorating condition due to MS prevented it), being the first Black woman buried in Texas State Cemetery, and a statue in her honor at the University of Texas in Austin in 2009. (Source Source)

Considering that VP Debate 2012 Day was also National Coming Out Day, the public conversations around Jordan’s sexual identity still speaks volumes about the politics of “coming out” for politicians: Jordan herself never self-identified as a lesbian or spoke about her same-gender attractions or relationships during her life, and her biographer Mary Beth Rogers kept mum about them. However, Jordan’s obituary in 1996 mentions that she was in a long-term relationship with Nancy Earl, a educational psychologist Jordan met back in the 60s. Some writers speculate that her being closeted may have prevented her from voting for extending rights to cisgay communities. And Earl herself has kept mum about her relationship with Jordan, simply saying that “I was her good friend…[p]eople can say whatever they want.” (Source)

You know what? Forget wanting to see Jordan debate Ryan: though it would have been way, way fun, that would have been way, way too easy for her. I can’t wait to see how Viola Davis handles Jordan’s biopic–her speeches and her silences.

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