If you have to be somewhere you don’t want to be — like, say, the inauguration of Donald Trump — you may as well make it known you’re not down with the program. At least, that’s what it seems Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson did.
Yesterday, during the inauguration, while Mark Zuckerberg was yucking it up with Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez and Elon Musk simply could not hold himself back from throwing a thumbs-up to the camera, Justice Jackson sat quietly. With her judicial robes, she wore a collar and a pair of earrings made up of cowrie shells. While Jackson hasn’t elaborated on why she wore the statement piece, according to Vogue, the move appears to be a symbol of quiet resistance. The shells served as prized possessions in ancient African cultures, but more notably, for African Americans, cowries were talismans of protection. The National Museum of African American History and Culture notes that historians “speculate the cowries may have been brought to America as talismans to resist enslavement.” (Jackson’s ancestors were enslaved.)
The shells also symbolize womanhood, which seems particularly pertinent given the incoming president’s horrific track record with women — you know, Trump’s history of being liable for sexual abuse and his administration’s disdain for reproductive rights.
Whatever Jackson’s reason for wearing the collar, we at the very least have to offer her thanks for giving us one beautiful thing to look at yesterday.