Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is making headlines again about some of his comments on race. According to CNN, Justice Thomas said, “My sadness is that we are probably today more race and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school.” Reading that quote from Justice Thomas left me perplexed and utterly baffled.
I thought, how can 65-year old black man from Georgia really say and mean that? Is Justice Thomas truly suggesting that the explicit “Whites Only” and “Negroes Only” signs that marked most public accommodations during the Jim Crow era came from people less conscious about race? I simply cannot believe the justice holds those thoughts, or maybe he does. Who knows?
During the same speaking engagement, Justice Thomas added, “To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white (Catholic) school. Rarely did the issue of race come up. Now, name a day it doesn’t come up… Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person.”
To the justice’s credit, he does use the phase “to my knowledge” when describing his experience as the only black kid in his school in Savannah, but I simply refuse to believe the issue of race rarely came up as he indicated. You want me to believe that race rarely came up from his fellow classmates? Their parents? The community at large? (Insert the meme of the Auburn quarterback here.)
To address the second part of Justice Thomas’s comment, “Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person.” Yes, everyone has endured a slight. But you seriously cannot put these “slights” on a scale and basically insinuate they are all the same. I guess that’s why each race consumes drugs at a similar rate, yet black Americans make up a disproportionate amount of drug related arrest? I guess that’s why black Americans and other minorities in New York City faced the “Stop and Frisk” procedure far more than other subgroups of people? I am certainly not suggesting that non-blacks do not face obstacles in our society, I’m simply saying it is quite silly of the justice to make it seem as though everyone faces challenges equally. It is untrue. Plain and simple.
Supreme Court Justice Thomas has been undoubtedly one of the most successful black Americans in the last half-century, yet he seems to constantly make remarks that repel black Americans from him. To be fair, his relationship with his white wife irks some in the black community as well. However, in my opinion, I do not believe people should be considered about who he is married to. In fact, this is contrary to the heavily preached message of equality that blacks call for. I can understand anyone’s gripe with some of the thoughts of Thomas, but I cannot “get with” people criticizing him because of his wife of a different race. In conclusion, I must say that Justice Thomas truly is an enigma to me. I simply do not understand him. Guess it’s time for me to order a biography or two.
Tim Abram is a senior public policy leadership major from Horn Lake.
