The UnUtopian Optimist
The Justice Who Never Found Justice
Clarence Thomas is back in the news, and I dug out of my files, this article I wrote after reading is biography. Never have I encountered an autobiography that attempts to justify a life that bleeds on every line with such pain that it contradicts his own attempts at justification. All of us do attempt to justify our actions, especially our perceived faults and failures, in retrospect. But Thomas depicts a life that refutes his own justification. Thomas did not become “conservative”, he became embittered. He came to believe there was never any hope for him, as a black man, and he decided to punish rather than pursue hope. He saw no place in life for him to have hope. He depicts how white conservatives embraced him and gave him an ideological home. In fact, he let them make him his “boy”, and destroyed all the remaining remnants of self-hope and self-respect. Clarence Thomas probably knows he was John Ashcroft’s pet, that he continued to be the “good nigger” for the white men who promoted him, but he allowed himself to be lynched in spirit and soul because he simply always had lacked the courage and spirit to stand strong as a man, he remained a boy and became the boy for his white masters.
When Clarence was in jeopardy of not getting appointed to the court, he writes in My Grandfather’s Son, how enraged he felt. Of course he was enraged. He had sold himself into slavery by being obedient to the white desire to master him. And he was an uppity black man only in the sense that he had no “uppityness” left in him. And now he felt that they were attempting to relynch him all over again after he had become totally submissive, crawled onto his knees, and said, “master, whatever is your will, I will do, just please give me no more struggles.”
And so he doesn’t have to struggle now and he is not Harlan Crow’s friend, he is nice little Sambo rewarded by Crow (and others) for his compliance.
Of course Thomas has no jurisprudence except underhanded revenge for his perceived inconsequence unless he obeys the overload, but at least he is a house servant now, and isn’t that wonderful?
Clarence & Ginni: A True Hate Story
excerpted from
There Never Was…
Clarence Thomas began life in PinPoint, a small hamlet in Georgia where the inhabitants spoke a mixed English with several West African dialects, and is the only Afro-Indigenous language in America. He seems to have been smallish, somewhat timid even as a toddler. We all know the story of his home burning in the marshy environment and his mother was forced to take him and his younger brother Myles to live with her father Myers Anderson.
I have great admiration for Myers Anderson. Anderson was a strong supporter of black rights. He took young Clarence to see Martin Luther King. Anderson was a man though, who rejected being placed into any form of slavery. He refused to work for white men and bought his own truck and delivered firewood and other necessities to black neighbors. He refused to curtail his own independence and just didn’t associate with any white person who might attempt to put him down. He would lift his head and walk away. But it took a great deal of work to make him independent enough and strong enough to walk his own path. But he did believe strongly in black rights and black independence and he understood he could only face down white people by never being beholden to them. He demanded a lot of himself and worked from sunup til sundown to retain his human dignity. Clarence portrays him as harsh and unemotional. And yet between the lines Clarence admits his grandfather made him by that strong independence that Clarence was always a little too shy to exhibit.
Myers Anderson taught Clarence these lessons. But Clarence never fit in. He thought Myers too stern.. He felt the black doctor’s sons in his Catholic school rejected him because he was “too dark”: didn’t speak good enough English; and was too impoverished. And then civil rights happened. Clarence had taken to heart his grandfather’s adherence to civil rights. He was an ardent supporter of King and John Lewis. He had read all of Richard Wright’s books. But he especially identified with Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man. (Kind of funny, I think it the greatest novel ever written.) And now his, and his grandfather’s dream came true. The Civil Rights Act was passed, schools were desegregated and Clarence became the beneficiary of those civil rights. He had worked hard in school, too always excel past his own inherent drawbacks in learning. As Clarence went north to Holy Cross he associated with Black Panthers, had a poster of Malcolm X on his wall in his dorm, and volunteered a few times a week to help the poor in Worcester. He had all the markings to be a great black civil rights crusader in the following decades.
Clarence claims in his autobiography that he turned against affirmative action because when he graduated from Yale he couldn’t get hired by top law firms because they saw him as just an affirmative action black and therefore unqualified even though he’d gone to Yale. But that’s disputed by other black members of his graduating class who were successful and did land good jobs in both the private and public legal sector. Edgar Taplan Jr. was a classmate who landed a job in one of the oldest and most prestigious law firms in New York after graduation. Daniel Johnson Jr. was hired by a large firm in San Francisco and worked his way into a partnership. Some of his classmates from ‘73 and ‘74 didn’t get their first pick, but many did. Law firms were also needing to hire black lawyers due to affirmative action and it seems they all were able to get jobs in their sector of their choice. And it is quite remarkable that the affirmative action student who benefitted the most is one Clarence Thomas, who sits at the pinnacle of the legal profession in the United States on its Supreme Court.
And affirmative action did benefit Clarence pretty well after graduation. He only got a lowly job at the Missouri Attorney General’s office within 3 months of graduation. And then he rose rapidly all the way to the Court, with every step of the way his appointments and rapid advancements all due to affirmative action. And surely he didn’t fail to get a job for very long , at least many people wouldn’t think 3 months was not that long after graduation, especially if no one had come calling during school because the student made no advance applications. Rather than Yale attendance closing opportunities as he claimed, it opened up every door in his life.
But let’s look at the man’s life and what made him such a sociopathic justice. Why did he give up on his heritage so easily and become the most bitter anti-rights Judge he became? And that is what he became. First he lost his childhood home, then he felt overburdened by his grandfather and ridiculed by his contemporaries as socially awkward. He felt isolated in seminary and his grandfather abandoned him when he quit seminary. MLK’s death was crushing, and he almost dropped out of Holy Cross. Throughout his life he felt isolated and only his first wife Kathy Ambush seemed to be a person whom he ever trusted. By his own admission he began drinking heavily and maybe that caused the split. She has never said, nor has Clarence. But he did separate from Kathy in 1981 when he began at EOCC, and at that time he says his drinking became uncontrollable. I don’t buy the idea that he became a devoted follower of Thomas Sowell. Glen Loury, , John McWhorter, Kmele Foster perhaps. Thomas’s ideas are not at all similar. Yes, Sowell did not believe in systematic racism. Sowell however argued only that black problems of being held back were not unique to blacks and that many other groups have experienced the same problems. Where I part company with Sowell is that there are those in leadership who use blacks to create an artificial enemy between black and white citizens of similar class to keep them divided do create an oppression, irregardless of whether other groups have ever faced systematic oppression or not. Yes,many programs to help black Americans don’t always do as much benefit as they claim to do. I agree, but part company with Sowell because those very programs can be used to maintain the artificial divide that keeps black and white citizens who should be natural allies in competition. And yet many might see that Thomas does have more in common with Sowell than others I mentioned above. But Loury and company follow Sowell’s ideology in saying blacks can earn respect, while admitting social ills. But that was exactly Sowell’s position and their solutions seem to echo Sowell’s by not recognizing the actual cause of the racial divide, even if they appear slightly less politically to the right of Sowell. But then I’m not even so sure when Glen Loury supports Amy Wax and says she has a relevant voice. But Thomas doesn’t believe Sowell’s concepts that American (blacks) have enough inherent rights in the constitution. Thomas’ goal does not really attempt to oppress fellow blacks, as some have accused him of doing. Thomas believes no one should have any rights. Thomas wants everyone to suffer and hurt as much as he did.
Thomas is also no originalist constitutional proponent. Of course neither are Gorsuch and Alito. The latter are great fans of the British dictator Oliver Cromwell and his chief judge Matthew Hale. But note Thomas didn’t agree with their originalism in overturning Roe. No, Thomas wrote his own occurrence and cited himself over and over til I lost count. I’ve never read Thomas' opinion where he cites the constitution at all. Scalia, who claimed to have been an originalist, even said Thomas didn’t care about precedents or laws. Thomas wants to totally take all rights from everyone. Black, white, male, female, gay, straight. Is the environment bad? Make it worse. Is there a way to solve poverty and make life fairer? Don’t do that. Does Miranda and Gideon give people accused of crimes a constitutional guarantee of a fair trial—take it away. Thomas’ opinions never border on anything constructive, anything original and he seeks out losing or overturned and lower court opinions that take away rights for all, in his citations. Or his own minority opinions as he did in Dobbs. Citing right after right that he has attempted in minority opinions to overturn, going back to his first year on the court, and stating due process doesn’t grant any rights. He seems almost gleefully hopeful that every right the court ever granted including overturning Gitlow, with the possible exception of Loving.
Meet Ginni Thomas. I wanted to find out how Ginni Lamp came to hate America herself. I can only find out about her career and her associations. Does Ginni Thomas believe Trump is still president, has she lost touch with reality? No, she has united with her best friend to help bring down a country they both hate. Donald Trump was the answer to their prayers. Donald Trump was the answer to finally overturning America, its constitution, and all of the institutions that Thomas believes failed him. And apparently Ginni does too. Only if the nation itself falls will they feel vindicated. Joe Biden believes in those institutions so he
cannot be a legitimate president can he?. So Ginni has willingly helped her best friend in accomplishing that. This is the great American hate story of Clarence & Ginni.
And unfortunately, of those we have come to call Magas. Those who have suffered the same feelings of insecurity from the failed promises of democracy. This is the great hate story that occurs when promises of hope turn to perceived indignities. There are three options open to those who feel oppressed. You can hide by saying that’s the way it is and nothing can be done.
You can challenge, as unions and civil movements did, and believe in systematic change.
Or you can join with Clarence & Ginni, as many have done throughout American history, and in the histories of all democracies that don’t really deliver what a vote cannot do—the respect that comes from individual importance to the community. You can hate the system that you feel stole your freedom and your hate can then lead to the great story of hate.
How can you reach the hater? I don’t know, if the system fails to give voice to the individual it deprives him of his freedom, and then justifies its oppression by encouraging hate, then the challenge is not to get more people to vote for a system that people feels has stolen their hope, the challenge becomes installing that hope by removing the oppressive voices who encourage it and a system of justice that abolishes all forms of human ownerships and all forms of employers who believe your slavery to them is beneficial to you. It does not matter if they call themselves kings and lords, master and servant, or corporate benefactor who provides jobs, they are still arguing that their power over others is beneficial. The relevance to today is my question to you: why do we need to be employed, why can’t we employ ourselves in a community where no one owns anyone’s livelihood and the community discusses communally on ways to grant each individual autonomy and relevance. And why should our owners live apart in gilded mansions, why don’t we return to our evolutionary inheritance and ostracize, extradite and refuse into our midst, any “owners.” Then Clarence would have never felt hated and never become hateful.