Thomas survived, of course, and if his opponents had been able to read this book
they would have known he would. My Grandfather’s Son is a tale of pride, determination and independence — from the constraints of discrimination and the deadening influence of group-think.
As I stated in my last post, there are good reasons for empathy towards Thomas. Much as someone should ask "how would I do in battle" before condemning soldiers, we should ask "how would I have done during the heat of desegregation" before condemning Thomas.
But the story of Clarence Thomas is the farthest thing from "a tale of pride, determination, and independence." I see a lot more self-pity than "pride" or "determination" in Thomas' story
I also wonder about Thomas' purported "independence" from the "deadening influence of group-think."
What was the "group-think" that Thomas liberated himself from? In the final analysis, the idea that Thomas rejected was the hundred-year struggle for racial integration by generation on generation of African-Americans. Far from being deadening "group think," the struggle for racial equality had an overwhelming rightness and nobility to it. Thomas rejects "the grand theorists" of the Civil Rights Movement like MLK and Thurgood Marshall and also rejects the thousands of African-American activists whose courage and daring finally succeeded in opening all of American society to the talent and energy of black people. For Thomas, what the Civil Rights Movement largely meant was that he was impelled to become a pioneer of integration at places like Yale Law School. In fact, the success of civil rights activism created the imperative that young black men and women perform the very painful chore of taking up all the new opportunities within a larger American society that was still hostile to black people.
And Clarence Thomas hated the burden of desegregation, hated that he had been led to take up that burden, and has resented the Civil Rights Movement and the relentless black push for desegregation ever since.
Ultimately, Thomas turned his back on "the Great American Story" of his generation for the very "deadening" world of carping about integration and being a black poster boy for conservative opposition to the black community. He's been called an "Uncle Tom" but that's an overly-generous term for what Thomas became.
I haven't walked in Clarence Thomas' shoes. So I don't know how I would have responded to the same pressures. Who knows? Maybe I would have done the same thing.
One thing's for sure though. Clarence Thomas was on the wrong side of history, political morality, and common decency when he turned against the century-long struggle of African-Americans for civil rights.
And anybody else who would have made that turn would have been just as wrong-headed as Thomas.
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22 comments:
Given what we know of your thinking, it is entirely unlikely that had you walked in his shoes, you would have ever become a Supreme Court Justice.
What groupthink? How about the one that people like you use that says that Justice Thomas is self pitying, self loathing, inauthentic, not black enough, etc... How about that he does not think in the manner in which you try to pigeonhole blacks, and is then accused of being stupid, Uncle Tom, etc ... ?
JD, you're not being serious even for a right-winger. You're problem is that you're not grasping the monumental significance of the civil rights movement for blacks, and everybody in the United States. Thomas was just wrong to turn his back on it. And I think it's fairly generous to characterize Thomas as "self-pitying' based on his ABC interview. I'd hesitate to use the word "pathetic" because I'm not sure how I would have felt if I'd been in his situation. But I'd be just as hard put to say that someone is wrong to view Thomas as pathetic.
I see a lot more self-pity than "pride" or "determination" in Thomas' story
Self pity and pride need not be exclusive of each other, especially since pride can go far beyond self. As I said before, it appears to me to be bitterness, but not as far as self pity, though he may have had bouts with it at times.
On to the issue of Group Think:
I don't recall him saying that integration was wrong, only that forcing individuals (children primarily) into situations they were not prepared for was in many ways immoral. Thomas notes several ways that he feels it hurt him. It is unfair to suggest, based on a disagreement over method, that he has turned is back on an entire cause. The path Thomas now advocates would almost certainly be slower to bring about change, but in his estimation would come at less personal cost to many individuals not old enough to understand, let alone choose to take on, that role.
Ultimately, Thomas turned his back on "the Great American Story" of his generation for the very "deadening" world of carping about integration and being a black poster boy for conservative opposition to the black community. He's been called an "Uncle Tom" but that's an overly-generous term for what Thomas became.
Only if you buy into the group think, but that is a large part of what he rails against isn't it? Again, insisting that he "drink from a certain fountain of knowledge" (I love that line) based on is skin color is no less racist than telling him where to sit on the bus.
"Clarence Thomas is number one - the most backward, reactionary, bloodthirsty, Black people hater on the U.S. Supreme Court." So begins an article in an issue of The Black Commentator from February 27, 2003. (http://www.blackcommentator.com/31/31_issues.html)
Like you Ric, I agree that it is hard to know how I might have reacted to The Movement either having never been in Thomas's shoes. It is my sense, however, that he is ashamed of his heritage and an appeaser of the Right-Wing. The Nevel Chamberlain of the American Civil Rights movement.
Perhaps even the Nevel Chamberlain of The Bill of Rights, and two centuries of progress civil liberties.
From the time he hit the bench, Thomas has taken a hard line reflexive anti-prisoner rights standard that approves of such things as torturing of prisoners and corralling prisoners to hitching posts.
That aside, what can Clarence Thomas think about the rampant racism that exists to this day in the Republican Party? Thomas’s political stance serves to deny justice to other African-Americans. He's the equivalent of a Jewish person who joins the Nazi party and denies the holocaust.
And such hypocrisy!!Having benefited from policies designed to ensure that, as an African-American, he would have certain advantages in gaining an education and a career to compensate for years of discrimination against his race, he would now end that benefit for other African-Americans.
I don't pretend to know where Thomas's odd blend of narccicism coupled with self-loathing came from. I do not know what happened to him in his life that made him the living contradiction he is today. What I do know is that his blind obsequeious adherence to the right wing is only going to help the GOP in there quest to turn back the gains made in and since the 1960s.
Only a Mother could be proud!
Wow, todd. That is flat out loony.
Caric - Pathetic? All of us here could only dream of being as "pathetic" as Justice Thomas.
Again, failure to drink from your fountain of knowledge does in no way imply a lack of knowledge, as you would have us believe. He simply takes a different stance, based on his experience, an experience you can never have. In that regard, it takes an amazing level of audacity for you to criticize him in the manner in which you do. CHICKEN RACIST !
Jd, off-topic, first, the chicken racist was wrong, but clever.
Secondly, since you're defending Limbaugh downthread, could you defend Dan Collins calling Glen Greenwald a "faggot". Collin's own moralizations sounded weak, since he doesn't care who gay and all, but, since I cannot confront him directly, I wondered if the great big ol' Teddy Bear from Vermont would like to defend his crass and disgusting epithet.
I figured from his fingers to your screen and thence to Dr. Ric's site.
Ask Dan. I have not problem with it, given that it was struck through, and the fact that all of the Gleens are, in fact, quite out of the closet in their homosexuality. Or, is the use of faggot limited to members of a certain group of people? Some people take offense to that word, and I understand that. Amongst my gay neighbors, faggot is bandied about more than the n-bomb on a rap video.
The chickenhawk slur is one of the most ridiculous charges you folks trot out.
No, it's an accurate slur and it's one that the right wingers cannot dodge (let's remember all the sacrosanct rage thrown at Bill Clinton for "dodging the draft....). Remember those halcyon days? You guys were all upset 'cause he wouldn't fight in a war he didn't believe in. Yet, here it is war time and we are led by people who didn't find it necessary to fight in a war they believed in telling the rest of the Armed Forces to sacrifice 15 months at a time for their war? Seems a bit off to me. Seems like a bunch of physical cowards who couldn't handle the idea are more than willing to sacrifice my brother-in-law and my cousin.
I know y'all are sensitive about it, because the American accept that warmongers should be warriors.
_______________________________
This is your quote:
steve, Candice, slim, et al. -
Since you presume to be the holder of the keys to the language, please tell us what the rest of the unwritten rules are after
1. Tapping your foot in an airport restroom stall is a signal that you want to have a penis jammed in your rectum.
While you are at it, please tell us what other words are banned from our vocabulary. Faggot is apparently verboten, as are homosexual, gay, and any other signifying word. This apparently also immunes them from criticism. Please expound on that concept."
Doesn't sound like a disinterested party to me. Sounds like you have no problem with Collins's use of the word....while again alleging Collins is above homophobia.
I would ask him, but I'm not allowed to post, unless you have forgotten the multiple time I have been asked not to. My words hurt, JD, they just hurt Jeff's soul.
Professor Caric, if you've read this far, then be advised JD has anticipated your sally from the ivory tower (oh, how Jeff wishes he had an ivory tower). Apparently predicting you will use an epithet as proof of their inherent hostility to gays takes away your power to criticize.
In case you don't get it, JD, I'm a touch surprised at you. You spend all day complaining how words hurt you and then you defend Collins using a hurtful word? It seems weird and disconnected.
tim - Having served, I think that the chickenhawk argument is ridiculous, and is nothing other than an attempt to discredit a class of people from holding a position that you disagree with.
Give me some evidence of Dan being homophobic. You cannot do so, likely because he is not. I never said I was disinterested, but feel free to attribute things to me that I have not said.
Is my gay neighbor homophobic for using the word faggot in the course of normal conversation?
I do not spend all day complaining that words hurt. I point out where you, Caric, and others paint people with too broad of a brush. You bandy about terms like racist, sexist, homophobe, etc. for policy differences, rather than actual actions. You use these words, which have a significant negative connotation in society, with no evidence other than your dislike for our policy positions, and have done so with impunity for some time.
As for Clinton, I think his writing about how he "loathed the military" was more of the basis of people having a problem with him being the Commander in Chief. But, I served under his command, faithfully, and would do it again.
You use these words, which have a significant negative connotation in society, with no evidence other than your dislike for our policy positions, and have done so with impunity for some time.
But, "Faggot" has no negative connotation.
Not nearly as bad as being a racist. No more than gay, or homo, or queer.
And, given the context, and its not so subtle reference to Ahmadinejad's statement about there being no gays in Iran, it is more of a referant than a perjorative term.
However, go on an attribute intent that was not there.
"You're problem is that you're not grasping the monumental significance of the civil rights movement for blacks, and everybody in the United States."
So why don't you explain to me how the civil rights movement was monumentally more significant than a Constitution than granted absolute sovereignity to the individual?
B Moe
Stick to engineering...the interpretation of the Constitution is apparently not your thing.
I mean, not even close. Go help Dan fend of the results of his bigotry and leave the parsing of Constitution to people who know something.
What part of the constitution are you referring to Michael--the part that defined slaves as 3/5ths of a man, the part on the slave trade, or the part about government providing for the general welfare.
So, Caric presumes to know what is better for a black Supreme Court Justice than Justice Thomas himself? Once you cross that liberal line, there is no going back. You lose your authenticity and place at the identity politics table.
I guess Caric does not get the irony of his preaching to a black man about the importance of the Civil Rights Movement.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Constitution defines the power granted to the government by the people.
B Moe
"The Constitution defines the power granted to the government by the people."
Yes, and it is their job to act in our behalf. The greatest gains are made when enlightened leaders work hand-in-hand with the people.
The New Deal, the labor movement, public education, medicare, medicaid, all the Great Society programs, the Peace Corps, VISTA, Americorps, job corps, Pell Grants, S-CHIP...I could continue but I need not. In each instance there was enlightened progressive leadership and a mobilized energetic grassroots movement.
That is how we continue the process of building the "More Perfect Union" spoken of so long ago, sometimes neglected, never forgotten.
The New Deal, the labor movement, public education, medicare, medicaid, all the Great Society programs, the Peace Corps, VISTA, Americorps, job corps, Pell Grants, S-CHIP...
The entire concept of powers not specifically granted to the Federal government, nor denied the States, remain the power of the State has been completely trampled.
yes, because the States did not use them properly, and I speak from the perspective of man who just watched a documentary on the Montgomery Civil Rights march and can remember the horrible things done by people after Reconstruction. The States rights movement includes you and Justice Scalia. Heaven save us from the rest of us.
By the way, the powers Todd mentioned are specifically Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.
Peep out the commerce clause and then google "the Lochner cases" to see how jurisprudence dealt with that reactionary question in the 1930's. That's right, JD, your comment was cutting edge politcal thought in 1934. Today, it sounds like the grumblings of Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
Or, if you too uninterested to do that, just google "Wickard" for an understanding of how vast federal power is, according to the Supreme Court.
When, exactly, did public education become a Federal job?
When the Feds offered money for it and the States accepted (around the time of Sputnik). If the States don't like Federal rules, they don't have to take Federal money. See how that works?
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