ABSTRACT
Shakespeare’s clowns were not on the Judiciary Committee. Would the first clown, at least, were. He would have added the missing grave note. By se offendendo, self-offense, the first clown means to say se defendendo, self-defense, a then common legal phrase reversed by the clown for our darkest illuminations of our temporary self-releases from the constraints of being in sacred order. Professor Anita Hill would have been guilty of se offendendo if she had not told the truth, however the context of the telling distorted that truth. A grave offense can only be, as the first gravedigger announced, se offendendo in an order that remains implicitly yet profoundly sacred. The black primal power figure represents a vernacular version of se offendendo, successfully brought off, as it is found in the earlier art and myth of Don Juan. Professor Hill’s accusation associated Judge Thomas with black primal power mythology, even as it is now profitable titillation of white youth consumers.
