Uppity...

I fixed that for you.

No you didn't. Evidently you can't comprehend what's being plainly stated.

Thomas isn't uppity, he's pitiful for debasing himself in an obvious double standard when by accepting the largess of billionaires he tacitly admits that his life choices haven't allowed him to achieve equal financial status with those who subsidize his lifestyle. If he were true to his word, he'd have left the bench and proven his mettle as a business scion, but the truth of the matter is that he wasn't blessed with such talent so he and his wife choose to enrich their lifestyles through accepting charity from others who have been extremely financially successful unlike Clarence himself.

For a person who decries others receiving "handouts" - none anywhere near equal in value to those he accepts for himself - he shows himself to be an open hypocrite of the highest order.

However.....would you even care if he wasn't republican and black?

Did you see me mention either word in my previous reply? YOUR allusion to him being "uppity" - which is a term with distinct racial connotations - inspired my response. So would YOU care enough to comment about his critics if he wasn't black and Republican?

My critique wasn't based on race, it was based on principle, the weakness of envy, and the projection of hypocrisy, demanding independence from others while raking in unearned benefits for oneself - race neutral characteristics.

Your comments? Not so much.

"his narrow experience seemed so completely distant (even almost completely at variance with) that of so many of his compatriots."

Token black...

Then you need to take it up with the President who chose him, George HW Bush while recalling he was chosen to replace Thurgood Marshall, the very first black SCOTUS justice and far from any token. He was a lion in law and jurisprudence.

At the time of Thomas' nomination he did not have any particular background that would make him the one of the most qualified candidates for the SCOTUS. He was a former bureaucrat turned judge who never made a name for himself within the practice of law - unlike Marshall who argued landmark cases before the SCOTUS before his nomination.

While Thomas was obviously chosen in part due to his skin color, that was on the part of Republicans, not liberals. Liberals have consistently been opposed to Thomas for a myriad of reasons, most having to do with his hypocritical view of affirmative action and the law. AA has never completely leveled the playing field even while it was deemed constitutional. Thomas would never had risen to where he has if not for preferential treatment that benefited him on top of his own accomplishments.

That's the point that those like Thomas like to downplay and ignore. Millions have tried to rise in American society only to have others stop that rise due to systemic barriers intentionally placed in their way for just that purpose.