Yes I have.
The Clarence Thomas myth that refuses to die
It’s the horror movie villain that won’t die, the pop song you can’t get out of your head, the out-of-town guest that just won’t leave.
It’s a belief that’s stuck like a tick in the collective memory of some white conservatives.
It’s the notion that black people despise Clarence Thomas because he’s a conservative.
It’s not only a myth but a con.
Thomas isn’t despised in the black community because he’s a conservative. Many dislike him because they see him as a hypocrite and a traitor.
Yet many white conservatives keep recycling the same selective stories about Thomas. These stories don’t just distort black culture – they carry an undercurrent of racism.
He’s not the only black leader who talks about self-reliance
But the way some white conservatives tell the story of Thomas’ rise from poverty also perpetuates racist stereotypes. They imply that Thomas and his hard working, no excuses grandfather are unusual characters in the black community. They depict Thomas as this lonely apostle of self-reliance, as if most black people prefer sitting on the couch drinking Kool-Aid while waiting for the government to send them a check.
Here’s some news: Black people have been practicing self-reliance for centuries. We’ve had to, for survival. We know through bitter experience that white America’s investment in racial equality is sporadic. Racial progress has always been followed by a “whitelash.”
Thomas’ stern grandfather is a familiar figure in the black community. Plenty of black people can tell you stories of grandparents, pastors, teachers, and coaches who all preached the same message: Rely on yourself, because you can’t rely on white people.
It’s almost impossible to find a revered black leader who didn’t preach some form of this message.
He cast an ‘atrocious’ vote against black America
There’s something else many white conservatives miss: The contradiction between Thomas’ words and actions.
Thomas has lectured blacks about not defining themselves as racial victims. He once criticized civil rights leaders who he said, “B*tch, b*tch, b*tch, moan and moan and whine” about the Reagan administration.
But when his nomination to the Supreme Court was threatened by Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment, he played the race card by saying he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching.”
Thomas has lectured blacks about the evils of affirmative action. Yet he made it into Yale Law School because of an affirmative action program.
“His entire career is a result of thrusts for diversity that he would deny in others,”
-Lawrence Goldstone, author of
“On Account of Race: The Supreme Court, White Supremacy, and the Ravaging of African American Voting Rights
But it’s Thomas’ voting record that has cemented the cynicism many blacks feel toward him.
Critics say he has consistently voted against black people as well as other marginalized groups:
women,
LGBTQ people,
religious minorities and
death row inmates.
He is the
first Supreme Court justice to
openly criticize the high court’s landmark civil rights ruling, Brown v. Board of Education.
And he joined a 2013 high court decision – Shelby County v. Holder – that eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, the crown jewel of the civil rights movement.
Here is Thomas providing a crucial vote to cripple legislation for which the proponents of racial justice marched, bled, and in some instances died.
-Randall Kennedy, author and law professor
His vote on Shelby contributed to “the most unjustifiable and hurtful decision imposed on black America in the past half century,” Randall Kennedy, an author and professor at Harvard Law School, wrote in a recent article on Thomas.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/07/us/clarence-thomas-white-conservatives-blake/index.html
