I've been wondering ever since I recently found out that an activist friend of mine had actually had a conversation with Clarence Thomas' grandfather, if any of Poppa Thomas' fire and race pride had rubbed off on junior and that junior was really not as embarrassing as I have come to believe.
Up to this point in time, the only thing I've seen radiating off the younger Thomas has been denial and obvious self loathing as well as constant anger that he sees a Black man in his mirror in place of the fair haired white one that he pictures himself to be in his personal fantasies.
According to my friend, Grandpa Thomas was a straight up Black man who spoke his mind and stood up for his beliefs in uplifting or attempting to uplift his people. They had met at a civil rights rally. Considering my friend, who is one of the people that I look up to and respect, Grandpa had to be cool.
My friend is a big time activist who's been through some serious shit where the man came down on him daily and yet he is still here 30 years later. He was impressed and said so, after meeting Clarence's grandfather. We both agreed during our conversation that there was nothing of the old man in the younger man, despite Clarence's written protestations that he revered his grandfather.
However, in reading Justice Thomas' written opinion on the recent gun ruling by the Supreme Court, some are now declaring that maybe Blacks were hasty in labeling Thomas an Uncle Tom. You can read here for more information.
In siding with the majority, Thomas invoked the evil specter of the KKK during post civil war reconstruction days, when white citizens councils went around taking guns away from newly freed slaves and freemen....jailing some...hanging others. Thomas displayed his grasp of Black history leading at least one writer to drown in hyperbole comparing Thomas' words to those of Malcolm X.
In casting his vote to strike down Chicago handgun ban, Thomas was voting to protect his people. Never again will Blacks be victimized by the likes of white vigilante posses bent on preserving the white status quo, so thank you, Justice Thomas....maybe.
Well, I'm happy that Thomas knows history. The only Black man on the highest court in the land should know Black history backwards and forwards. It is the mark of a learned man. I have never questioned Thomas' knowledge. However, the most academically brilliant people that I know are also some of the most cataclysmicly stupid individuals on the face of this earth.
The problem with Justice Thomas is that he may talk Black, but he sure as hell don't walk it.
What I question about Justice Thomas are his loyalties, his empathy for his people, his lack of acknowledgment of the on going internal workings of institutional racism in America.
His opinion rife with Black historical references is nothing more than Thomas playing the race card once again when it suits him to do...like during the Anita Hill hearings...or during his last book tour and interview sessions.
Thomas is Black when it is convenient to be Black. He uses “Black” without being Black.
The truth of the matter is that Thomas who never opens his mouth(four years and counting) from the bench was standing up for the gun lobby, the NRA. The white militias are still armed to the teeth and it is they who feed the coffers of the Republican Party and the people who routinely pat Justice Clarence on the top of his wooly pated head.
So please, spare me the histrionics....Thomas voted as expected...his vote while wrapped in Blackness was as white as the driven snow.
It ain't white people killing Black people these days...it's Black people killing Black people with illegal guns sold to them by the white people who can walk into a gun store anywhere in America and buy any kind of weapon they want.
Present day reality...present day Black history...something that Justice Thomas has yet to grasp..
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