Rock star of rights of women and minorities

THE EDITOR: Ruth Bader Ginsburg: how sweet the name, how sweet the sound, almost with a musical resonance. And that to the millions in the US, ordinary people crowding the steps of the Supreme Court to pay homage to their icon on her passing, politicians et al in one accolade after another, and even Donald Trump whom she once called a “faker” but later retracted, both being on opposite sides, she being the quintessential liberal Democrat and he the Republican President, describing her as an “amazing woman.”

And this she has been, according to the Associated Press, as quoted in a Sunday newspaper in a screaming headline, “Towering women’s rights champion,” following on with another accolade from another Supreme Court judge, John Roberts, who would acknowledge that “our nation has lost a jurist of historic stature,” “a cherished colleague” and a “tireless and resolute champion of justice.”

To young admirers, according to AP, she was a “rock star,” young women especially calling her affectionately the notorious RBG for her defence of the “rights of women and minorities” and in the face of “personal loss and health crises.” Her fierce independence in the face of a majority Republican court has been amply demonstrated in her now famous “I dissent” in the face of majority rulings to which she did not concur.

What a towering legacy for such a frail looking woman! And this is critical, for your legacy is your virtual soul, for whatever is your estimate of what you have achieved or what you may have led others to believe is your level of achievement, such is nothing except the response that is forthcoming when, on your passing, the question is asked: “What will the people say, or what will history say?”

Which begs the following telling question: Is it possible for anyone in this country, especially with power and influence, like politicians, to reach the moral, ethical and professional benchmark that Ginsburg achieved as to merit the universal accolades accorded to her on her passing?

Perhaps, for there are a few good men and women in this country who aspire to the same. But with our race-based politics as it is, goading our leaders to exploit such division to win power and the body politic at all levels, participating in their own subordination in succumbing to such exploitation for the “mess of pottage” that will come their way, wouldn’t the patronage and privilege, the nepotism, which are the inevitable fallout from such a dependency syndrome, be the natural antithesis to that sense of rightness, that sense of duty, that moral and ethical fibre which have underpinned Ginsburg’s stewardship in the highest court in the US?

As usual, I leave that answer to your better judgment.

DR ERROL BENJAMIN

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