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A New Book on Clarence
‘The Lawn Jockey' Thomas
Review by George
E. Curry
Anyone who has
followed my career knows how I feel about Clarence
Thomas. In fact, Jack E. White, writing in Time
magazine, said, "No matter what George Curry
accomplishes during the remainder of his journalistic
career, he will be remembered for one thing: he was the
editor who slapped a portrait of Clarence Thomas wearing
an Aunt Jemima-style handkerchief on a 1993 cover of
Emerge magazine."
White continued,
"That shocking image outraged Thomas supporters, of
course, but it crystallized the disgust that many
African-Americans had begun to feel about the
ultra-conservative legal philosophy of the U.S. Supreme
Court's only black member."
Given my view of
Thomas, I never thought I'd want to read a book on the
supreme prick from Pinpoint, Georgia. However, I
resisted the urge and this week read
Supreme
Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas. The
only reason I read the book was because it was written
by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher, two friends who
work at the Washington Post. They have done a
superb job describing the many contradictions of
Clarence Thomas.
After reading the
book, I have one regret about that famous Emerge
cover. If I had an opportunity to do it over, I would
tie the Aunt Jemima knot tighter. While criticizing
African-Americans for embracing "victimhood," the book
portrays Thomas as the ultimate professional victim, at
every turn claiming that people didn't like him because
of his dark skin, his broad lips, or his conservative
ideology.
Recounting a 1998
speech before the National Bar Association, the authors
note, "In remarks that veered from self-pity to
combative, he maintained that the 'principal problem' he
faces could be summed up in one succinct sentence: 'I
have no right to think the way I do because I am
black.'"
As the late Appeals
Court Justice A. Leon Higginbotham pointed out at the
time, "He's got a right to think whatever he wants to,
but he does not have a right to be free of critique."
And a critique of
Thomas shows that while professing to oppose special
treatment because of his race, every job he has held,
including his appointment to the Supreme Court, was
obtained, in part, because of his race.
"Every Thomas
employer, from Danforth, who gave him his first job, to
President George H.W. Bush, who nominated him to the
Supreme Court, chose Thomas at least partly because he
is black. Race is a central fact of his meteoric rise,
and Thomas has alternately denied it and resented it—all
the way to the top," the book states.
To get to the top,
to the Supreme Court, Thomas allowed his Right-wing
handlers to misrepresent his past.
"'The Pin Point
strategy,' some advisers dubbed it: file down the sharp
ideological edges and keep emphasizing Thomas' personal
story of triumph over adversity," the authors wrote. ".
. . What the White House advisers didn't know—or,
perhaps, just ignored— was that Thomas' connection to
his birthplace was tenuous at best. His family's house
had burned down when he was six, and for most of his
young life he was raised comfortably in Savannah by his
grandfather, Myers Anderson, one of the black
community's leading businessmen."
Although Thomas'
affection for pornography was disclosed during his
confirmation hearings, the books details Thomas' long
and deep attraction to pornography. He told Dan Johnson,
a Yale classmate, "My favorite movie of all time is
Deep Throat. I've seen that [MF] six times."
In the public
arena, Thomas appears only before friendly audiences; he
rarely speaks to Black organizations. He saw nothing
wrong with officiating the wedding of conservative talk
show host Rush Limbaugh while sitting on the Supreme
Court. The most incredulous assertion made by Thomas was
that his actions benefit African-Americans. He told a
visitor to the Supreme Court, "It's unfair how black
America criticizes me. I'm trying to help black
America."
Help us to do what?
Return to slavery?
African-Americans
are not fooled. According to a study by the Joint Center
for Political and Economic Studies, cited in the book, a
1998 poll showed that Thomas had a favorable rating of
just 32 percent, the worst numbers of any prominent
African-American.
Judge Higginbotham
said, "I have often pondered how is it that Justice
Thomas, an African-American, could be so insensitive to
the plight of the powerless. Why is he no different, or
probably worse, than many of the most conservative
Supreme Court justices of the century? I can only think
of one Supreme Court justice during the century who was
worse than Justice Clarence Thomas: James McReynolds, a
white supremacist who referred to blacks as 'niggers.'"
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George E. Curry,
former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine and the
NNPA News Service, is a keynote speaker, moderator, and
media coach. He can be reached at
george@georgecurry.com This email address is being
protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to
view it or through his Web site,
www.georgecurry.com. This article originally
appeared in the author's newsletter, The Curry Report.
Source:
Black Agenda Report
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Clarence Thomas, the
most powerful black man in America, has
yet to get his due—Thomas
retained a special anger for the
aristocratic, generally lighter-skinned
blacks who had looked down on him. That
scorn, believe his biographers [Kevin
Merida and Michael Fletcher],
partially explains his jurisprudence,
particularly his opposition to
affirmative action, which
disproportionately helps bourgeois
blacks. Thomas's humiliating Senate
confirmation hearings only made him more
bitter. . . . He denounced blind
racial loyalty, even as he confessed
that he was pained "to be perceived by
so many members of my race as doing them
harm." But Thomas said that he had no
intention of changing his ways. He
defiantly asserted "my right to think
for myself, to refuse to have my ideas
assigned to me as though I was an
intellectual slave because I'm black." .
. . Yet if Merida and Fletcher are to
be believed, there is a tragic quality
to Thomas, who "wears his blackness like
a heavy robe that both ennobles and
burdens him." And they question whether,
despite his yearning to be free, he can
ever lay that burden down.
—Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of
Clarence Thomas Newsweek
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updated 5 February 2008
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