An Inclusive Litany

1/24/94

Homi K. Bhaba, from the anthology Raceing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Essays on Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and the Construction of Social Reality, edited with an introduction by Toni Morrison:
In providing a knowledge of sexual harassment as a structural endemic condition that finds its social form as affective, even psychic reality, Hill has subtly complicated the question of "truth." Thomas can no longer just confirm or deny the allegations, because the widening circle of guilt makes that option futile, or purely formalistic. The very system of truth and falsity within which he operates, as part of the common culture, is founded on the evasion of the endemic reality of women's exploitation. And likewise Anita Hill must be believed not because she was personally speaking the truth, but because her affective language is symptomatic of the collective sexual condition of working women.