Ilya Shapiro's Tweet About a "Lesser Black Woman" Wasn't Inartful, It Was Racist & Sexist

Ilya Shapiro, a longtime Vice-President for the libertarian Cato Institute and due to start a new position at Georgetown University on February 1st, created a firestorm when he complained on Twitter about President Biden naming a "lesser Black woman" to the Supreme Court. Shapiro subsequently deleted the tweet issuing an "apology" claiming his tweet was "inartful".

The reason I put quotes around the word "apology" is because of Shapiro's use of the word "inartful". The late William Safire defined inartful in part as "awkwardly expressed but not necessarily untrue". By this definition, it can be construed that Shapiro believes what he says about a black woman being name to the Highest Court in the Land, but that he could have said it another way.

But from where I sit, Shapiro's tweet was inartful, it was racist and sexist. Of course, conservatives like Dan McLaughlin of National Review Online are aghast at this suggestion and is quick to make excuses for the use of the phrase "lesser black woman":

Now, Ilya’s use of the words “lesser black woman” in this context was not the ideal way of phrasing this critique, but then, Twitter is fast-moving, space-constrained, and has no edit function, so it is hardly unusual to see things phrased there awkwardly (the tweets were written on his iPhone, and he has since deleted them).

What incredible nonsense!!!

McLaughlin makes reference to "tweets". It wasn't just one tweet, it was three and McLaughlin and makes a point of showing screenshots of the deleted tweets and in the process unwittingly hangs Shapiro by his own petard. Whether those tweets were composed on an iPhone or on a desktop is completely irrelevant. What the tweets demonstrate is Shapiro's bias and hostility towards African-American women.

Not only did Shapiro speak of a "lesser black woman" in his first tweet but in his second tweet he added, "Because Biden said he's (sic) only consider a black woman for SCOTUS, his nominee will always have an asterisk attached." Well, good to know that Shapiro judges people by the color of their skin and their genitalia. 

If that weren't enough, in his third tweet on the subject, Shapiro creates a poll asking if President Biden is racist and sexist for saying he will nominate a black woman to the SC. Talk about a classic case of projection. 

President Biden is no more sexist or racist in appointing an African-American woman to the Supreme Court than President Reagan was when he appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the High Court more than 40 years ago or appointing Antonin Scalia because of his Italian heritage. Ditto for the first President Bush in appointing Clarence Thomas to succeed Thurgood Marshall. 

Shapiro didn't compose these tweets in the heat of the moment. By describing black women justices as "lesser" and by claiming any black woman appointed to the top court would have an "asterisk" next to her name, Shapiro put his prejudice on full display and in so doing said a great deal more about himself than he did about any black woman jurist President Biden sees fit to succeed Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.