I would read Clarence Thomas' memoir if I had time but know I'm not going to have the time this semester.
But I think I'm going to do a couple of posts on it anyway.
One of my conservative students did a senior seminar paper last semester comparing Clarence Thomas to Thurgood Marshall. It was obvious from the student's materials that Marshall was an even greater man than I had been lead to believe while Thomas is a self-pitying, bitter kind of guy.
Certainly Thomas did not measure up to Marshall.
Having said that, I think it would be absurd to blame Thomas for not being a great man. How many great men or great women are there anyway? I have a considerable amount of self-esteem but I wouldn't measure up to Thurgood Marshall either.
And I don't particularly blame him for being a self-pitying, bitter kind of guy. From his long interview with ABC News, it seemed that Clarence Thomas' main problem was the integration era and the fact that he was one of the black people moving forward to integrate schools, colleges, offices, and political institutions.
Thomas was not the kind of guy who was suited to being a pioneer, to being the only black person or one of the only two black people in high school, college, and work settings. Being "stared at," being the target of racist insults, and being painfully self-conscious all the time about what people were thinking about him were enormous burdens.
And Thomas found no solace with other black people because he was just as painfully self-conscious about what wealthier or lighter-skinned black people thought of him.
As the black feminist bell hooks once wrote, "racism hurts." And for Clarence Thomas, every dimension of the American racial system hurt.
And the people that Thomas blamed for the pervasive pain he felt were the "grand theorists" of integration who took him and others like him out of the segregated communities--people like Thurgood Marshall, Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernethy, the liberal judges who pushed desegregation, and the white social elites who supported them.
They were all great men and Clarence Thomas believed that their schemes demanded much too much of bright but not extraordinary young men and women, men like Clarence Thomas.
Thomas would find the conservatives who were suspicious of integration for other reasons to be much more congenial than the people who had pushed him into the cannon's mouth of integration.
But my impression is that Clarence Thomas was pretty much a broken man for a several years before he was nominated for the Supreme Court.
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8 comments:
Clarence Thomas hates himself for being Clarence Thomas. In many respects, he reminds me of Condoleeza Rice.
They both deny their heritage. They both embrace and ideology that would have kept them in poverty had it been allowed to persist.
Clarence Thomas wants to ignore his background. Justice Thomas will go down in our history books as America's second African-American Supreme Court Justice, but he lost his black cred years ago.
It's Clarence's rejection of the very legal doctrines that underlie desegregation that trouble me. In Toobin's new book, Scalia calls Thomas "nuts." it's not the first time Justice Scalia and I agreed, but it's one of the VERY few times.
You can't read the ABC interview and come away thinking that he denies his heritage. In fact he appears consumed by it. He is, as the professor points out, bitter about it, but he certainly does not deny it.
His bitterness seems to be derived from his feelings that he became a pawn of desegregation, and that it personally hurt him. While the overall effect was in some ways positive, speeding up integration over the probable pace it may have taken without forcing it, Justice Thomas believes, based on his experience that it came at a steep price for him and others and that price continues to be paid (evidenced in minority drop out rates for higher learning for example).
That he has developed a different view based on those experiences does not make him a race traitor, uncle tom or any other label some would apply to him. In the interview he remarks a couple times about the importance of developing your own conclusions rather than accepting the wisdom of others. He even goes so far as likening the latter with ideological slavery. To suggest that he must believe, conclude or act a particular way is as racist as past claims of inferiority. As Thomas puts it, by insisting that he "drink from a certain fountain of knowledge" you are defining a man by the color of his skin.
ef - Don't get all logical on these folks. It is easier to call Clarence Thomas names than it is to actually think.
JD, confine your slander of other posters to the relevant pages of other blogs. Todd expressed a rather common assertion among African-Americans regarding Justice Thomas, so I think your comment should directed to the NAACP and Cornell West.
If, on the other hand, you are implying that my opinion on his legal positions is "calling names", then you forget where I spend my evenings (hint: reading Supreme Court opinions) and you are saying Justice Scalia, hero of the Right, is calling someone a name and not thinking. I'd phrase my diatribes a little more carefully.
You ignored the context of the "nut" quote, but then again, nobody has ever accused Scalia of not saying what he thinks.
I was not speaking towards you specifically, more to the Left in general, and todd mayo and Caric in particular.
"Clarence Thomas hates himself for being Clarence Thomas."
All uppity niggers are full of self loathing, they can't help it.
In many respects, he reminds me of Condoleeza Rice.
In many respects? Quit being coy, Todd, they are exactly the same. House niggers is house niggers.
They both deny their heritage. They both embrace and ideology that would have kept them in poverty had it been allowed to persist.
Uh, that is so fucking stupid I don't even have any snark for it.
"Todd expressed a rather common assertion among African-Americans regarding Justice Thomas, so I think your comment should directed to the NAACP and Cornell West."
You know the difference between a bigot and a progressive, timmy? Bigots expect stereotypical behavior, progressives demand it.
B Moe
Define and discuss.
B Moe: Define and discuss.
"a bigot"
Piece of cake. You have been defined
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