Opinion
Why Clarence Thomas owes African-Americans an apology
| 9:30 AM on 10/22/2010 | |
Justice Clarence Thomas (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
Thomas voted with the majority in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which turns corporations into people with free speech rights that need protection, and paves the way for unlimited corporate funding of elections if not the outright purchase of democracy. That decision laid the groundwork for the corporate-sponsored Tea Party campaign of voter intimidation and voter suppression against blacks and Latinos in the current election season.
As Justice Stevens eloquently stated in his dissent, "The financial resources, legal structure, and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races."
Although a beneficiary of affirmative action, an arguably an unexceptional one at that, Clarence Thomas is dead set against such diversity programs. In Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña (1995), he stated that, "so-called 'benign' discrimination teaches many that because of chronic and apparently immutable handicaps, minorities cannot compete with them without their patronizing indulgence. Inevitably, such programs engender attitudes of superiority or, alternatively, provoke resentment among those who believe that they have been wronged by the government's use of race."
Meanwhile, Thomas' supporters insisted he was the most qualified person for the position, when he was arguably not even the best black conservative for the job.
Thomas was the only justice to vote against a key provision of the Voting Rights Act on the grounds that blacks no longer need protection against denial of ballot access through intimidation and violence.
Justice Thomas' wife Ginni worked in the transition team for George W. Bush while her husband was casting his vote in the infamous Bush v. Gore case, when the Supreme Court essentially selected Bush as president. Perhaps he should have recused himself.
And it gets better, or should I say worse. Outside of the courtroom and judge's chambers, Justice Thomas has dabbled in Tea Party politics, just as his wife fashions herself as a leader of that movement. Thomas and his cutting buddy Scalia have attended events sponsored by Koch Industries, masterminds and financiers of the racist Tea Party movement. This suggests deplorable politics at best, and a conflict of interests and a judicial ethics problem at worst. He says he doesn't read newspapers. And Thomas officiated Rush Limbaugh's third marriage ceremony in 1994 -- at Thomas' home no less. And he also attended the blowhard radio host's fourth wedding earlier this year.
During his nomination hearings, then-Supreme Court candidate Thomas told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the proceedings were "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. Senate rather than hung from a tree."
To that I say, whatever. After he took his seat on America's high court, Justice Thomas proceeded to lynch black America each day he went to work. And he has been Why Clarence Thomas owes African-Americans an apology
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