'Not only is she a brilliant legal mind, but she possesses so many identities and perspectives that have long been excluded from the halls of power.'
I remember sitting in the family room of my childhood home watching a movie about a six-year-old Black girl with a white bow in her hair walking through the doors of a segregated elementary school.looked straight ahead as she walked and she held her head high. I was fascinated, but also a bit perplexed. How did someone who looked like me have so much poise? Why didn't she appear rattled in the face of such hatred? Once I had seen the image, I couldn't shake it.
But Jackson’s representation goes beyond characteristics like race and gender. Having been a public defender for nearly nine years, I never thought we really mattered to others.
I've told countless stories about man's inhumanity to man, with some court staff referring to people solely as "defendant," “the body,” or, more egregiously, as a number. I've also told stories about the judges who gave clients a second chance, changing their lives forever. In speaking about representation, the intersection of Jackson’s identities offers a fresh perspective and understanding to a court so lacking in all kinds of diversity. Even if you're not a Black woman public defender like I have been, there are so many of us that can still relate to a person whose teachers were parents, or whose parent was studying for graduate school while raising their family.
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