Clarence Thomas Is the Black Person He Warned You About

"For four decades, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has extolled the importance of 'personal responsibility,'" Kali Holloway wrote in her piece, "Clarence Thomas Is What He Wrongly Accuses Black Folks of Being."

"He has chastised those who 'make excuses for black Americans' and argued there is a need to emphasize black self-help. He has denigrated affirmative action programs on the grounds that they 'create a narcotic of dependency' where there should be 'an ethic of responsibility and independence.' He bemoans the 'ideology of victimhood' that allows the marginalized to 'make demands on society for reparations and recompense.'"

Funny how a man who supposedly despises reparations had no problem accepting handouts from billionaire friends. Thomas didn't put in extra hours at work or find a nighttime job to help put his grandnephew through school. Nope, he took all the free money he could get his hands on. Thomas' admission into Yale was one of the university's first after they created an affirmative action program - the same program that Thomas effectively gutted as soon as he could.

To date, Thomas hasn't been reprimanded for laws he's broken - and make no mistake, he's broken laws. Thomas still has yet to speak in any substantial context about the gifts he's received will serving on the Supreme Court.

But what's most comical has to be Thomas' statement during his vetting for the Supreme Court - the same courtroom drama in which Anita Hill tried to warn America that Thomas had long been an embarrassment to those who came before him - when he claimed that the proceedings were a "high-tech lynching" against uppity Blacks who dare to think for themselves.

Good thing none of that has ever actually applied to Thomas. Thomas isn't uppity, he's raggedy. He always has been. And Hill tried to tell us this, but America doesn't care about Black women. She told us how Clarence Thomas is exactly who we thought he was.

Hypocrisy thy names are Clarence and Ginni Thomas.

The ~~left~~ right always ~~justifies~~ ignores their racism and bigotry.

FTFY.

Just asking, but where is the bigotry in indentifying the very "virtues" Clarence Thomas espouses for other Blacks but doesn't live by himself? Where is the bigotry in pointing out the FACT that Clarence Thomas was only admitted to Yale due to affirmative action, yet he wants to deny others the same considerations that made his ascension to the SCOTUS possible?

Where is the bigotry in pointing out that instead of actually WORKING and EARNING his own money to sustain his life style, he went begging and writing letters lamenting his financial state and accepts FREE MONEY and endless expensive gifts and trips from well-heeled benefactors - something poor Blacks don't have the ability to do to improve their own lives?

And exactly what is racist about pointing these things out? Clarence isn't loathed because he's Black, he's loathed because he's a hypocrite of the highest order, dependent upon a government check - the very thing he decries in others.

How dare he be black and NOT adhere to liberal ideology.

Not at all. The author criticizes Thomas for not adhering to his own prescriptions for other Blacks. It's not liberal in any sense of the word because Thomas isn't a liberal. As I rightly stated above, the main criticism of Thomas is his abject, naked, unapologetic hypocrisy in expecting others to do what he doesn't do himself.

Thomas himself used the "race card" to undermine what we now know as the truth given by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings. Even then he wasn't being challenged or criticized for his race, he was rightly being criticized for - to Anita Hill - his obvious lack of character and honesty - traits which should have denied him his SCOTUS seat.

Clarence has a chip on his shoulder and he's lived his adult life viewing himself as a victim - hence his reliance on the generosity of others to fund his own lifestyle and support members of his own family. He's remained mad that because he was an affirmative action placement somehow no one gives him due credit for his achievements in graduating. This is part of his negative feelings about AA altogether. He's better than everyone else in his same boat whom he believes don't deserve to be there unlike himself.

That is the foundational basis of this entire line of criticism imo.

What do we know now that we didn't when Anita Hill was testifying?

That she had no reason to lie or embellish her testimony about Clarence. And the fact that another women wanted to testify to corroborate her but was rebuffed by Joe Biden the committee chair.

Anita Hill Testimony: The Witness Not Called

One of the people who wanted to testify but was not called was Sukari Hardnett. Like Anita Hill, she'd worked for Clarence Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She wound up submitting a sworn affidavit.

HARDNETT: Well, I worked in the same position that Anita Hill worked in as a special assistant to the chairman in the chairman's office. And oftentimes, I saw people come in and out of the chairman's office. So when I looked at what was happening to Anita Hill, it was unconscionable to see the way that she was being treated by the committee. And I knew that what she was saying was true because I'd observed some of those very same situations myself.

HARDNETT: What I wanted to do was corroborate the fact that Anita Hill, like so many other young females at the commission, would be an audition by Clarence for whatever purpose. He would call them into his office. In particular with me, Clarence expected me to be available to him every morning and for lunch, and I would run down to a friend of mine's office and hide just to avoid being in the situation with Clarence where I would have uncomfortable conversations.

www.npr.org

Exactly. He's a hypocrite. Because he's black.

NO! You keep conflating him being Black as being the cause of his hypocrisy. It isn't. He's a hypocrite because he tells others to do things that he doesn't do himself. Do those things have to do with being Black? Of course they do, but "Black" is not the cause of his hypocrisy, his lack of personal character is.

You keep talking about ideology. I'm not. Both the author and I are talking about character, full stop.

and I obligated to forever support that program if I believe in something else today?

Why would you stop believing in the vehicle that allowed you to reach success in your own life? Shouldn't others have the same opportunities that you received?

There is no "evolving" when it involves a positive outcome. You don't take something positive, eliminate it, and then claim somehow things have improved.

One can evolve into believing that other ways of supporting the same ends are better than the one available to you, but to deny others the vehicle provided by government that allowed you to succeed isn't evolution, it's devolution: Devolving into a selfish ingrate willing to deny others the very thing that was key in letting you achieve what you have.

so it's testimony at the time you either believe or not.

It's also playing the race card by insinuating that true testimony is an anti-Black conspiracy against you to a room full of white men. Hill could have played the same victim card, implying that she wasn't taken seriously because of patronage and racism, but Hill didn't, and Thomas did by playing the victim.

They should have subpoenaed every woman in Thomas' office and placed them under oath and found out the truth. It's not that difficult. Either he or Hill weren't being truthful, and now 30 years later we sit in a dungheap of improprieties and questionable actions by both him and his wife, undermining many Americans' faith in the impartiality of the SCOTUS.

I didn't make this about Thomas's race. The author did.

No, THOMAS made it about race, not the author. Thomas created the conditions for which he's being criticized, not the author. It's right in the origin story's title: "Clarence Thomas Is What He Wrongly Accuses Black Folks of Being."

"He has chastised those who 'make excuses for black Americans' and argued there is a need to emphasize black self-help. He has denigrated affirmative action programs on the grounds that they 'create a narcotic of dependency' where there should be 'an ethic of responsibility and independence.' He bemoans the 'ideology of victimhood' that allows the marginalized to 'make demands on society for reparations and recompense.'"

These are all things that Thomas has done throughout his professional life. He's the one espousing about what Blacks "should do" and the author gives copious examples of Thomas not living by those same espousals in his own life. And he gives concrete examples, none of which are remotely exclusive to his color other than obviously AA. And the breadth of AA encompasses more than just Black people too.

"Funny how a man who supposedly despises reparations had no problem accepting handouts from billionaire friends. Thomas didn't put in extra hours at work or find a nighttime job to help put his grandnephew through school. Nope, he took all the free money he could get his hands on. Thomas' admission into Yale was one of the university's first after they created an affirmative action program - the same program that Thomas effectively gutted as soon as he could.

To date, Thomas hasn't been reprimanded for laws he's broken - and make no mistake, he's broken laws. Thomas still has yet to speak in any substantial context about the gifts he's received will serving on the Supreme Court.

Where in the above excerpts is Thomas being criticized simply for his blackness and ideology? Being a hypocrite isn't an ideological issue, it's a character and integrity issue regardless of one's color.