Supreme Court upholds North Carolina ruling that congressional districts violated state law The justices rejected the broadest view of a legal theory that could have transformed elections for Congress and president.
Thomas dissents today in anticipation of his big moment later this week when I bet he'll author the majority opinion that strikes down affirmative action.
I will say this - Clarence Thomas' actual opinions and views on race in the USA are widely misunderstood - he is not exactly suckling at the white man's tit like so many on both sides of the political perspective believe.
my wife (as leftie as they come) has for some reason gotten more and more interested in Thomas lately. We just watched the Created Equal documentary a couple of nights ago. Very well done and fair. I think it supports the point you make here pretty effectively.
Totally. I just listened to the Slow Burn podcast series on him and I think anyone characterizing him as an "Uncle Tom" is wrong. Thomas seems like a deeply frustrated and bitter person. From what I can tell, he feels like he should be recognized as one of the smartest people in the room, but never trusts why he's been let into the room in the first place. He's distrustful of others' intentions and I think that is reflected in his view toward the bureaucratic state.
that's what prompted my wife's interest in the documentary. She says the podcast is great not sure I quite agree with this take. I think the confirmation hearings made a huge impact on him and that is the likely source of the bitterness. My wife's take on the Anita Hill thing is that she believes something happened between the two of them, but that it was likely blown out of proportion when it got to the hearings. And my wife has dealt with hundreds of these kinds of sexual harassment, OCR, etc cases. maybe. I think he has a genuine philosophical position rooted in classical liberal ideals of maximum freedom for citizens and restrictions on government's power.
Yes, I have spoken to a lot of bright people all over the political spectrum and there seems to be this belief that Clarence Thomas doesn't think that racism in the USA exists, and that we live in a color-blind society. I have listened as liberals have called him an Uncle Tom and I have seen many a conservative hold him up as proof that there IS no more racism. They both are incredibly ignorant - Thomas is well aware of race and racism in the USA. He does not believe that it doesn't exist and he does not believe in the idea of the "lucky negro" trope that the left assigns to him. Thomas does not trust white America, he believes that racism and bias is so pervasive from all white people that black people either form their own black country or they accept as a fact that their accomplishments will always be called into question.
He is distrustful of the pervasiveness of white people in the USA and their relationship with black people. He believes it is impossible for a white person to not have a tainted view of black people, based on history. He feels that those that support affirmative action actually are biased and racist - because it calls into question all of the accomplishments and self-worth of the black person that receives the benefits of affirmative action. He was against inner-racial relationships before he married his wife. It isn't because he was disgusted by white women, it is because he believed the experience of white people and black people are so different, that they would struggle to have a healthy relationship. To him - he marched, he was very politically connected to black power movements - he did all these things and concluded that no one in America would help black people - that law would not be able to solve the issues of inequality for black people and the sooner we realize this - the better we will be. To this day he does not believe that segregation is a sin - it is that there is an unequal division in segregation based on historical precedence. He once said something along the lines of the problem with Jim Crow wasn't that their were not white students in his school but that the heater did not work and the books were old. It isn't that Clarence Thomas thinks that white men or the white establishment is great - he doesn't at all - but he feels that the government getting involved and claiming it is protecting black people has only made it worse for black people - that in his view the happiest point of his life was when he was surrounded by only black people growing up - that the only real impact of what whites and racism played was a lack of equal facilities etc. Simply stated - black people in America are despised by white people on the right - but at least they are not an experiment like the progressive left has treated black people for 60 years. At least there is a sense of self respect. So = white people get over yourself. My issue with Thomas is that he does not really offer any other solutions to the racial issues in the US other than to leave it alone...
That's a good point. I agree that the Hill saga probably crystallized his bitterness at the time (his wife's voicemail to Hill, left decades after the fact, is evidence that it still sits poorly with them). But, Thomas' educational history is littered with an aborted attempt at seminary, involvement with campus black power organizations and, most importantly, time in the northeast (Holy Cross and Yale) that made him believe Northern racism was just as prevalent as Southern racism albeit less visceral. I think @Nook is right that he has been deeply affected by racism throughout his life, but he thinks that rectifying it is an individual task. His grandfather instilled a distrustful individualism in him at a young age.
An experiment? How exactly have progressives treated black folks as an experiment? Giving them health care and fighting for their right to vote is experimental?
a lot of good stuff there but just a comment on this last point. Not sure I completely agree (at least not in the sense that he proposes government programs to combat systemic racism), but . . . the documentary did a great job of portraying his relationship with his grandfather and documenting how that relationship was probably the single most influential event in his life. His grandfather was a self-made man in the Deep South, at a time when there of overt racism. His grandfather preached the ultimate you-don't-work-you-don't-eat work ethic. I think Thomas worked hard, got into seminary with his own brain; then got into Holy Cross with his own brain; and then into Yale Law School with his own efforts and his own brain. If anything I think he holds out the hope that that model--call it "the American dream" if you will--is still available to ALL Americans today, regardless of race, ethnicity, class, etc. So I don't think his solution is necessarily "to leave it alone"; I think his solution is to work hard and take advantage of the gift of being born in this country. That may be a conservative viewpoint, but that's still a solution, at least potentially so.
Clarence Thomas had bitterness long before he was on the Supreme Court. A lot of it can be traced to his experiences in law school - where he was made aware that the education he received was not on par with what other wealthy liberal white people received - and where he was treated as a novelty and the assumption of left liberals was that he was not as capable but only a benefit of affirmative action. He has long ago said that went a long way in cementing for him the helplessness of racism in America. As for Anita Hill - prior to being married, Thomas had the reputation of being fast and loose with women and not always appropriate. I do not doubt that he crossed the line - it was 40+ years ago and standards were different and I am sure he saw other white men cross the line with little consequence. Thomas is not a stupid man - in some sense he is a broken man - he has given up on repairing racial issues in America. He would love to go back to segregation in some ways. His position on this is horrifying to younger people - but 60-70 years ago there were black people that felt this way - the neighborhoods were black, the doctor's and dentist's and property owners were black - racism within the community was not an issue when everyone was black - that the push for desegregation was not because black people wanted to be around white people - but because the distribution of resources was so biased that it was not sustainable. Who was responsible for the lack of equal resources? White people...... who was responsible for ending segregation? White people... who was responsible for affirmative action and government policies that took away self worth and self respect in the black community? White people..... it's a common refrain
The only reason Thomas is on the court is because of affirmative action. Look at his background. He was wholly unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice.
