Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and Jackie Robinson have commonality: Calmness in face of racism | Opinion

When watching Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson endure racial insult after insult during her confirmation hearings over the past few days, with some of that racism coming even before the process began, one person kept coming to mind: Jackie Robinson.

The reason goes beyond the obvious one. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 and he remains one of the most pivotal Americans in the modern history of the country. Jackson will likely become the first Black woman  on the Supreme Court and create her own form of immortality.

Jackson is like Robinson in another way, and that's temperament. Her even, calm demeanor, in addition to her maybe unparalleled qualifications, is one of her strongest assets. In this way, both Jackson and Robinson are linked beyond their status as firsts.

One common misconception people unfamiliar with Robinson's story have is that Robinson was picked by the Brooklyn Dodgers because he was the most talented Negro League player. There were actually others who had more ability.

Robinson was selected by Dodgers executive Branch Rickey because he had the needed hyper-calmness to face the extreme racial ugliness to come. The conversation between the two went something like this:

"I know you're a good ballplayer," Rickey said. "What I don't know is whether you have the guts."

"Mr. Rickey, are you looking for a Negro who is afraid to fight back?" Robinson asked.

"I'm looking for a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back," Rickey said.

“Mr. Rickey, if you want to take this gamble, I will promise you there will be no incident,” Robinson said.

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Jackson knows, the way Robinson did, the way many Black people do, that she must always remain controlled before, during and after this process. Even when bigots like Tucker Carlson pull a jurist stop-and-frisk by demanding her LSAT scores. She doesn't have the luxury of shouting "I liked beer!" She must always be calm or she'll be portrayed as The Angry Black Woman.

Even when those questioning her, or attacking her, don't have a fraction of her skills or intellect. The same way people screaming racial slurs at Robinson didn't have a tenth of the character or talent he did.

Robinson kept his composure even when opposing players purposefully spiked him in the leg or when he got racist hate mail or numerous death threats. 

What made Robinson's restraint even more remarkable was he was a natural fighter. He fought racism with words and fists from the time he was a child and would be a fighter again several years after that conversation with Rickey when Rickey told Robinson he no longer needed to hold back.

But between those moments Robinson faced extreme hate with calm. One week after his debut the Philadelphia Phillies attacked him with vile racial taunts. He didn't strike back even though he wanted to. In his autobiography “Never Had It Made” he wrote of "a glorious, cleansing thing it would be to let go. To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create. I could throw down my bat, stride over to the Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of bitches and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist.”

He wanted to do it, he had every right to, but he didn't.

Jackson has faced the 21st-century version of what Robinson did. No, some of those questioners aren't calling her the N-word, but they are hurling racist tropes nonetheless. She was asked about critical race theory and the 1619 Project, neither of which has anything to do with Jackson. The idea is to brand her as some sort of Black radical which is the opposite of what her record shows.

On the second day of the hearings, the GOP’s official Twitter account composed a GIF with Jackson's face next to the letters CRT (critical race theory), which were then scratched out and replaced by her initials KBJ. The racism wasn't even subtle.

Neither was what extremist right-wing activist and radio host Charlie Kirk said. "Well, KBJ - Ketanji Brown Jackson - is what your country looks like on critical race theory," he said. "KBJ is your country on CRT. KBJ - Ketanji Brown Jackson - is an embodiment of the tyranny that we currently live under. She's an ideological, unintelligent, yet confident fanatic who is so dismissive that you might even ask the question of what a woman is."

Kirk, who has 1.7 million Twitter followers, added: "Your children and your grandchildren are going to have to take orders from people like her."

Many Black people, particularly Black women, see what is happening to Jackson and feel it deeply because we've experienced it.

But through it all, like Robinson, she stayed calm. Even once taking a deep breath before answering a particularly absurd, racist question.

There was one moment when Brown got emotional and it happened after some powerful words from Sen. Cory Booker. Then again, anyone who is human and watched that would have gotten emotional.

Overall, no one was going to rattle her. It's something I'd like to think would make Robinson proud.