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My Letter to Clarence Thomas
The Man Who Desecrates the Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
by David A. Love
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/236/236_color_of_law_clarence_thomas.html>
"Today's Uncle Tom doesn't wear a handkerchief on
his head. This modern, twentieth-century Uncle
Thomas now often wears a top hat. He's usually well-
dressed and well-educated. He's often the
personification of culture and refinement. The
twentieth-century Uncle Thomas sometimes speaks with
a Yale or Harvard accent. Sometimes he is known as
Professor, Doctor, Judge, and Reverend, even Right
Reverend Doctor. This twentieth-century Uncle Thomas
is a professional Negro...by that I mean his
profession is being a Negro for the white man."
- Malcolm X, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," 1964
A Few Thoughts
Recently, in a watershed decision, Parents Involved In
Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1, the
conservative majority of the Supreme Court outlawed
voluntary racial integration plans in public schools. A
number of school districts around the country initiated
the policies to desegregate and achieve diversity in
public schools, in an effort to offset racially divided
housing patterns. The Court essentially said that
desegregation is discriminatory, and compared white
students who don't get the school of their choice to
black students who lived under Jim Crow segregation in
the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case.
The ruling is a resounding victory for the White
Citizens' Council, and the racist governors who once
blocked the schoolhouse door. The spirit of Jim Crow
lives on in the hearts and minds of this Supreme Court's
regressive, segregationist majority, over 50 years after
Brown. "Diversity is illegal" is the new standard, it
would seem, and we must do everything in our power to
resist this.
"This is a decision that the court and the nation will
come to regret," said Justice Stephen G. Breyer.
Meanwhile, siding with the majority, Justice Clarence
Thomas concluded that school districts have no interest
in remedying segregation: "But without a history of
state-enforced racial separation, a school district has
no affirmative legal obligation to take race-based
remedial measures to eliminate segregation and its
vestiges.... As these programs demonstrate, every time
the government uses racial criteria to 'bring the races
together,'... someone gets excluded, and the person
excluded suffers an injury solely because of his or her
race.... Simply putting students together under the same
roof does not necessarily mean that the students will
learn together or even interact. Furthermore, it is
unclear whether increased interracial contact improves
racial attitudes and relations.... Some studies have
even found that a deterioration in racial attitudes
seems to result from racial mixing in schools."
Did he say "racial mixing"?
In light of this decision, I decided to blow the dust
off a letter that I wrote to Justice Thomas back in
1995, and put it to the test. It reflected my concern
over a number of troubling court decisions regarding
affirmative action and voting rights, particularly the
striking down of a majority-Black congressional district
that was represented by then-Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney (D-GA).
Twelve years later, not much has changed, Clarence
Thomas has not changed, and the Supreme Court has
emerged once again as a disaster for those who care
about civil rights, and one of the greatest impediments
to democracy in America. This is the revival of the Dred
Scott court, the Plessy court, the kind of extremist
court that Bush promised he would give us. While Bush
tells us to fear an "Axis of Evil," the greatest threat
to America comes from within, from our government--the
executive branch and the Supreme Court. The problems we
are facing are not going away, they just get worse, and
Thomas has a decisive role in that process.
Yet his supporters once assured us that in time, Thomas
would evolve and make us proud. After all, they posited,
he is African American and has experienced racism, he
feels our pain. Well, his tenure on the Supreme Court
has been over a decade and a half of disappointment,
daunting mediocrity and misplaced priorities. Since
joining the Court, he has presided over the wedding of
radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who once told an
African-American caller to "take that bone out of your
nose," has called abortion rights activists "feminazis",
referred to the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu
Ghraib as "blow[ing] some steam off," and declared that
"what's good for Al Qaeda is good for the Democratic
Party."
Thomas says that he selects only "the cream of the crop"
when hiring law clerks: "I look for the math and the
sciences, real classes, none of that Afro-American study
stuff. If they'd taken that stuff as an undergraduate, I
don't want them." Perhaps it should not be a surprise
that all four of his law clerks are white males. A
justice on the nation's highest court, he fails to take
advantage of a golden opportunity to do some good, in
the time-honored tradition of leaving a place better
than you found it. Sadly, he continues to desecrate the
memory of Thurgood Marshall. The late Judge A. Leon
Higginbotham was right when he said "I have often
pondered how it is that Justice Thomas, an African
American, could be so insensitive to the plight of the
powerless. Why is he no different, or probably worse,
than many of the most conservative Supreme Court
justices of this century? I can only think of one
Supreme Court justice during this century who was worse
than Justice Clarence Thomas: James McReynolds, a white
supremacist who referred to blacks as 'niggers.'"
Letter to Clarence Thomas
Dear Justice Thomas:
The purpose of this letter is to discuss with you the
changes that are taking place in this nation, and the
ways in which these changes will harm black people. More
specifically, I would like to respond to your recent
court decisions on affirmative action and electoral
redistricting. Please do not interpret my words as
antagonistic or of ill will, as I am speaking with a
sense of honesty and truth. I believe that you need to
hear what I have to say. You need to hear what many
African-Americans are saying as they see the ground
collapsing under their feet. Any good student of history
knows what is happening in this country, and what will
happen in the future if present trends continue.
As a young African-American, I am proud of my
achievements. I am a Harvard graduate, a former
Westinghouse semi-finalist, and a former exchange
student to Japan. Although I was diligent and capable, I
know that I do not owe my accomplishments to myself. I
was not granted access to opportunities because I am
special or superior. I went to Harvard because that road
had been paved with the blood of those courageous people
who died for my opportunity to attend Harvard.
Certainly, I was as qualified as my white classmates
(and more qualified than those who were admitted because
their grandfather is a wealthy Harvard alumnus).
Qualified people of African descent always existed in
this country, but were denied opportunity because of
race. (Even Alexander Hamilton was denied admission to
Princeton because his mother was a mulatto.) Significant
numbers of blacks and other groups began to attend
predominantly white institutions only after efforts were
made to recruit and admit them. These efforts were
affirmative action. Why should members of one group have
all of the admissions spots, all of the jobs, all of the
federal contracts and all of the congressional
districts?
In many ways, history is repeating itself. One hundred
years ago, blacks had made substantial gains following
the Civil War, including two dozen members of Congress,
governors and state legislators. Suddenly, all of that
disappeared, not because of black ineptitude, but
because of white racism, the tyranny of the majority. In
the eyes of many, blacks were becoming too equal. Blacks
did not deserve citizenship, including the right to
exercise political and economic power. The result of
this sentiment was states' rights, Jim Crow, the Klan,
and lynchings. The Constitution, so it seems, has never
applied to black people. Thus, the history of this
nation has been a struggle in which we have been forced
to demand that we not be treated as outcasts.
The rejection of Cynthia McKinney's district raises some
questions. Why are you against the right of black people
to elect their own representatives? Why are you
seemingly fighting the interests of your own people?
What makes a 60% black district unacceptable, but a 90%
white district acceptable? Why have some southern states
recently elected their first black representatives since
Reconstruction? Why are there only two black
representatives from majority white districts, and one
black senator? If you are unaware of the pervasiveness
of racism in this country, past and present, then you
choose not to concern yourself with it. As Cornel West
recently warned: "John Jay Chapman said it well when he
said, 'White supremacy is like a serpent wrapped around
the legs of the table upon which the Founding Fathers
wrote the Declaration of Independence.' To talk about
race in America is to take us to the very heart, the
very core, of what it means to be an American."
Of course, you are entitled to your opinion. African-
Americans are not monolithic. Further, as a member of
the Supreme Court with a lifetime job, you have the
freedom to vote as your conscience dictates. However,
you do not have the moral right to vote in the spirit of
Chief Justice Roger Taney in the Dred Scott decision, or
the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson. I do not
know what is in your heart, and can only speculate about
your motive. Nevertheless, I do know that many in the
black community are concerned that you have drifted
away, never to return. You were raised in this country
as a black man, and should know better.
When I observe the state of 1995 America, I am reminded
of another country in another time. The nation was
suffering from economic problems and social despair. The
Angry White Men of that nation had to blame someone for
their misfortunes and suffering, and selected the Jews
as the personification of their problems. The majority
society claimed that the Jews were taking all of the
jobs, and were responsible for poverty, moral
degradation and social decline. Laws were enacted to
isolate, oppress, and eventually dispose of the minority
group. Some Jews, the Judenraten, participated in the
oppression of their own people, perhaps in an attempt to
immunize themselves from personal harm. Of course, these
individuals soon learned that their attempt was in vain,
that they were being utilized by the majority society,
and they too would perish.
Justice Thomas, if I sound harsh it is because of the
harsh conditions that the Supreme Court is creating. If
you are still angry about the confirmation hearings,
move beyond your anger. Unlike Henry Foster, you were
afforded a floor vote in the Senate. If you are angry at
black people for what they call you, prove that they are
wrong. Concern yourself more with how historians will
judge your tenure on the Court. We are approaching the
twenty-first century, yet seem to be regressing back to
the nineteenth. During a time of increasing diversity in
the United States, we cannot afford to return to the
ignorant backwater days of Jim Crow. Moreover, we cannot
allow a black man to lead the way.
Sincerely,
David A. Love
BC Columnist David A. Love is an attorney based in
Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive Media
Project and McClatchy-Tribune News Service. He
contributed to the book, States of Confinement:
Policing, Detention and Prisons (St. Martin's Press,
2000). Love is a former spokesperson for the Amnesty
International UK National Speakers Tour, and organized
the first national police brutality conference as a
staff member with the New York-based Center for
Constitutional Rights. He served as a law clerk to two
Black federal judges.
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