Meet Clarence Thomas, Self-Loather

From a Washington Post article about the new autobiography from Clarence Thomas:

Thomas has been a sharp critic of affirmative action and the use of racial classifications in schools, but he acknowledges in the book that he was admitted to Yale Law School in 1971 partly because he was black. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools -- but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."

That's the most bizarre thing I've read in some time. In effect, he's saying this:

"I got into Yale because I'm black, but they shouldn't have accepted me based on that, and the fact that they did makes me feel diminished."

His achievement has been robbed of its true value, he claims? The man now has a lifetime appointment to the United States Supreme Court, for God's sake. The foundation for getting the job was surely his prestigious Yale parchment.

Let's be clear: racial preference helped get him in the door of a law school that historically lacked African-American representation, but it damn sure didn't sit through class for him, take exams for him, or pass the bar for him.

He had to do all of that on his own, even if his skin color were green (which it seems to be, with envy).

I'm no psychiatrist, but Justice Thomas strikes me as someone who doesn't like himself.

Comments

[Maddlizz]

Clarence Thomas is a mentally disturbed angry psychotic deviant. It is absolutely disgusting that such a person would be serving as a Judge on the US Supreme Cout.

[astockton]

Al Franken is a Harvard grad. Someone asked him if it bothered him that he might have been an affirmative-action admission because he's Jewish. He replied that he'd worry about how he got in when the Cabots and the Lowells worried about how THEY got in.

[JudgeMoonbox]

Good point. For all the talk about how Affirmative Action supposedly diminished the accomplishments of its beneficiaries, you never hear about how Jim Crow laws diminished the accomplishments of the Whites it helped. I can think of three explanations for this, all 3 let the racists off the hook.

[Aristophanes]

I too am a Harvard grad who had Jewish parents. Harvard has no affirmative action policy on admission, but they did have, until the 1950s, a Jewish quota, i.e. an UPPER limit on the number of Jews they would admit.
They have never had an upper limit on legacies.

[astockton]

If Uncle Clarence was afraid of bigots assuming that because he was an affirmative-action baby he didn't earn his Yale degree, then he should have taken that degree into the real world and worked his butt off to prove it was no fluke. He went into the workforce, all right -- and compiled an unbroken record of mediocrity. No wonder he groveled his way to a position with lifetime job security. Doing title searches was probably the best job he could have landed at a law firm.

[lisakaz]

I think you pegged him, Jackson. I can't make logical sense of it. If Yale didn't open up a place for him because of affirmative action, he would have been rejected. No? So, does he wish Yale had rejected him? Seems not. Then he says "robbed him of the achievement's true value." How can they do that if they wouldn't have let him in in the first place? Does he think they wouldn't have noticed his skin color? Does he think he's invisible? Or does he think somehow they would have let him in anyway, even though there is no basis for that belief?

I'm guessing Clarence wishes he could find Michael Jackson's medical staff so he could look white. Yet I highly doubt that would truly help that big chip on his shoulder.

And if anyone deserved scrutiny Mr. Pubic-Hair­-on-my-Die­t-Coke surely warranted it.

[JacktheBlogger]

What concerns me more than the self-loathing, is how bitter the man is after all these years? Judge Thomas has been on the SC for sixteen years, but cannot seem to get over his deep resentment of everything liberal. How can we then expect him to be, pardon the pun, "fair and balanced?" Is it possible that Judge Thomas will ever vote with the four liberal SC judges to provide a majority in some landmark ruling? I am not asking him to become a Souter, but at least pull a Souter on any one case to show judgment by merit and not by rote!

[springsm]

Thomas is very very conservative and from what the book Supreme Court, I get the idea that his arguments are bitter harangues. Too bad really..a waste of his talents be they what they are and a place on the bench. He seems to vote like Doc Hastings in the House...ju­st pull the lever for bush's policies..­.but don't tell him what it is.

[KarmaSartre]

Prefer Clarence Thomas....­.or Harriet Miers?

[bikerdude]

Similarly competent.­..

[jerryfromcalifornia]

Both are incompetent, equally. Neither should be sitting on the court. This guy has been almost invisible and silent, only voting as he's told instead of being another Thergood Marshall. A looser before and a looser now!

[LightningJoe]

This whole story is so damn sad: "Everybody always picks on me!" Thomas would benefit greatly from counseling. His dad rejected him at an early age, and so did his grandfather later on, and deep inside he suspects it had something to do with his own worth. He still wonders whether his grandfather took him in out of a sense of duty, rather than love.

Not even being appointed to the Supreme Court could raise his self esteem. I suspect that's because he knows he was simply a convenient black judicial face with an appropriately harsh, er, conservative, interpretation of the law. His appointment hearings were a mob attack, a lynching. Anita Hill, who my truth sense tells me did not exaggerate a single thing, is a shrill biddy who would turn a molehill into a mountain and a pubic hair into a bullwhip.

He especially hates anything that quacks like affirmative action, since that's what put such a "worthless" person as himself where he is now. If only there were no such thing, he must think, he would have been forced to surmount the insurmountable with his own grit and fingernails. Once he had done the "impossible," his achievments would have had merit and been recognized by the world.

He needs to receive his worth from outside himself, because he himself sabotages and squelches his internal self-approving voices. Those voices must be lying, he thinks, because if he were indeed worthy, his father and grandfather would not have rejected him.

Oedipal complex, with Napoleonic complications, and (as always) paranoia.

I'm afraid our time is up. That'll be a nickle, please...

America is inclusive, but Clarence Thomas is the best argument I could imagine for limits on Supreme Court terms. His warped perspectives will be helping guide the direction of justice in this country for another thirty years.

[JerryJef]

So you would limit the tenure of a Thurgood Marshall just to get rid of a Clarence Thomas?

I am not convinced that is wise.

I would suggest instead raising the confirmation requirement from a simple majority to 2/3 vote in the Senate.

Alternatively, I would suggest taking the appointment of justices out of the hands of the President and place it in a nonpartisan judicial selection commission with Senate confirmation.

[davedave]

you guys miss the point.

the gentleman that thomas succeeded was thurgood marshall.

clarence thomas will always be a poor cynical substitute for greatness and humanity. his fate is to be a sorry footnote in the battle for equality and dignity.

he can write book a week explaining his inadequacies and professing wisdom, all he does is underline our loss, a judiciary that has lost its nobility and purpose!

d

[brwnizofmine]

Yes, he is a disgrace! What a slap in the face of the black race for him to be put on the court. I will never forgive George Bush for that one!

[Raven]

Of course, Jackson, you're right on target when you say that

"he strikes me as virtually a clinical definition of the weirdest kind of self-loath­ing."

But you don't need to read even the first word of his book to know that.

You don't have to look any further than his decisions on the bench.

They speak the truth, even as he can't see it himself.

There's self-loathing written on virtually every decision he's ever made as a judge.

Which all just makes his book one big yawn.

He hates us. He hates himself. He hates us. He hates himself. The end.

[clevelandchick]

If Clarence is so non-plussed by his appointment to SCOTUS the nation would not miss his presence, I suggest he retire after 2008.

[LarryDavid]

the post gives us no EVIDENCE that thomas acknowledges he got in bc he was black - i think he insists he doesn't.

this

>> Thomas has been a sharp critic of affirmative action and the use of racial classifications in schools, but he acknowledges in the book that he was admitted to Yale Law School in 1971 partly because he was black. "I'd graduated from one of America's top law schools -- but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value."


clearly doesn't say he got into Yale bc he was black. Just that AA later tarnished him. The post writer gives no evidence of the interpretation they foist on thomas.

[Dagg]

Commenter "LarryDavid" is just flat incorrect that Justice Thomas doesn't acknowledge in his new autobiography that skin color played a role in his acceptance at Yale Law in '71. And in the book "Judging Thomas," Ken Foskett's warm, intimate portrait of the man, Foskett (an investigative reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Co­nstitution­) takes readers through the 1960's as Thomas benefits from the efforts of first a Catholic high school, then Holy Cross College and finally Yale Law School to accept more students of color. The mixed blessing of affirmative action becomes set in stone in his soul; he gets an education he would have been denied otherwise but also feels great resentment that his accomplishments may be denigrated as the product of social engineering.

This is all history, LD. Nobody is attempting to "foist" an interpretation upon Justice Thomas. Indeed, the blog entry takes pains to note that Thomas, once he got to Yale, walked the walk like every other student.

Sandra O'Connor couldn't get a decent job after law school because she's a woman, but used her position on the Court (once she got there, yes, as a Reagan affirmative action hire) to enhance her influence in a positive way, always looking forward. Thomas, on the other hand, oddly remains embittered and focused on his past. He sits on the Court almost seething in his silence during oral argument.

It is a human tragedy in many ways.

[ghostsofamerica]

Try Opus Dei, proving once again, what you don't know about CAN hurt you.

[CriminallySane]

Clarence Thomas may well loathe himself. I'm quite sure he's not the only one who does.

[BrighterStar]

There is only one case in the last 20 years that I can think of where the opinion of one justice swayed the entire court and that was Thomas' opinion in Virginia v. Black. Can you think of another? (I think the court got that opinion wrong)

[Lance734]

Hi, I just googled that SCOTUS opinion (Virginia v. Black) and read briefly in its Wikipedia entry that Thomas wasn't in the 5-person majority that held it consitutional to outlaw cross-burning as long as the state proves intent to intimidate. So perhaps you were mistaken on Thomas' role in that case or maybe I'm misunderstanding your point? Could you explain please? Thanks

P.S. That being said, I took the easy way out & read the summary instead of researching & reading the actual Court opinion, so that may be a source of my confusion.

[KarmaSartre]

In Kurt Vonnegut's final book, "A Man Without a Country", in describing the state of government, he wrote something like "my worst nightmare: C students from Yale."

[Junofilly]

I would venture a guess that Thomas would think and feel the same toward Democrats even if they had approved his appointment without the contentious hearings. It is just plain weird and disturbing that he wrote a book of this nature before he left the court. And it is unnerving to think that such a bitter person is on the land's highest court. Can such a person be objective? I wonder what the rest of the Supremes will think of this book.

[NoContest]

In spite of all this mental illness Thomas displays,.­..... blacks in America still adore him, just like they still adore OJ. Who is really keeping racism alive and well in America?

[westwind]

"...blacks in America"?? Would that be ALL 'blacks', or just the 'racist' blacks? Seems you have a fantasy where everyone is really a secret racist, which allows you to deny your own racism. Blanket, evidence-less statements mean nothing, but reveal a lot about those who make them.

[clevelandchick]

What you wrote is just so wrong I can't even begin to start. I'll just say this. Dollars to donuts you watch The Factor.

[Lance734]

Sorry, but you're so wrong on this it's not even funny. The VAST majority of Blacks in America most certainly do NOT adore Justice Clarence Thomas, nor do they adore OJ Simpson. Please don't talk about groups of people that you obviously know nothing about.

[mae692]

NoContest, I'm sure you're an expert on black people, but...

Black people in American generally do not like Uncle Thomas and black people don't adore OJ so much as they admire him for playing the game that white people have been playing for years.