Monkeyleg
Member.
Gee, Mr. Kane. I guess nobody can really be "black" unless he/she does Al Sharpton's pomade in the morning, or offers his daughter as an overnight companion to Jesse.
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Authors find Clarence Thomas puzzling
Posted: May 5, 2007
Eugene Kane
*
For the last 16 years, much of black America has had conflicting emotions about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
On one hand, having a black judge on the nation's highest court should evoke feelings of pride and accomplishment for the entire race.
On the other, if it's a judge like Thomas - notoriously conservative on issues such as affirmative action, criminal justice and the 2000 presidential election - sometimes it's hard to appreciate having such a powerful black figure deciding important issues who doesn't think the way most black people do.
A new book by Washington Post writers Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher attempts to get to the heart of the African-American community's confusing relationship with a man who is arguably the country's most significant black person.
"Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas" (Doubleday) is a well-researched biography that examines Thomas' life and career arc from a backwater town in Georgia to the upper levels of two Republican presidential administrations to his current seat as an associate justice.
What makes "Supreme Discomfort" different from other biographies of Thomas is the intimate perspective of its authors, two African-American journalists who tackle the question of Thomas' racial identification head-on.
Essentially, the authors examine whether suspicions by many black Americans that Thomas has forgotten his roots in the black community during his rise to most favored black conservative status were legitimate concerns or unfounded assumptions.
As it turns out, "Supreme Discomfort" never provides a definitive answer. But it suggests there are layers to Thomas that have never been explored.
I spoke to Merida, a former reporter with the old Milwaukee Journal in the early 1980s, by phone last week while he was in Atlanta on a book tour.
He explained that the idea for "Supreme Discomfort" came out of research for a magazine article the pair did in 2001. When the article's publication was postponed after the events of Sept. 11, the authors gained additional time to flesh out a book proposal.
Merida said the book - the result of exclusive interviews with Thomas' colleagues, friends and family members - was their attempt to discuss Thomas in a way that had never been done.
"We're the first to filter his life through a racial prism," Merida said. "I think race plays a large part in most black people's lives. I think the myth was that race wasn't important to him, but we found it was."
Merida said because of judicial opinions and speeches by Thomas that went against traditional civil rights principles, many black Americans had a sense Thomas is "a self-hating black man." On the contrary, some former friends and colleagues paint a picture of Thomas as obsessed with racial issues.
"He's very conscious of his own black skin," Merida said. "He talks about it a lot."
Most of the most striking revelations in "Supreme Discomfort" came from visits to Thomas' childhood home of Pin Point, Ga.
The background portrayed in interviews with family and friends was a stark contrast to previously manufactured tales about his beginnings as told during his confirmation hearings, Merida said.
Thomas' public biography portrayed a poverty-stricken youth who pulled himself out of Pin Point through education and hard work. But he never had much connection with his childhood home after moving to Savannah as a young boy. The authors found that Thomas was raised in a middle-class home with a much more affluent lifestyle than most of his peers.
"Supreme Discomfort" also contains quotes from Thomas' childhood friends who question many of the frequently told stories about Thomas' background and point out his refusal to visit his hometown - including family members - since joining the court.
That Thomas embraced a black conservative demeanor during his college years and later as a Reagan appointee is depicted as a natural evolution that seemed at odds with his own mode of progression up the ranks. Over and over, "Supreme Discomfort" details how Thomas took advantage of affirmative action principles to gain admittance to Yale Law School and win cushy government jobs.
As "Supreme Discomfort" shows, affirmative action certainly worked for Thomas.
Merida and Fletcher tried to get Thomas to agree to an interview but were consistently denied. Merida joked about "stalking" Thomas at public appearances to get him to appreciate the seriousness of their project.
"I was honestly disappointed he wouldn't talk to us," Merida said.
"Supreme Discomfort" shouldn't be viewed as "a race book," Merida said, though he acknowledged the racial perspective the authors bring to their subject.
"I think we look at every aspect of his life, his childhood, his career in government, his record as a judge, the entire picture," he said.
For many blacks, Thomas has been viewed as an "Uncle Tom" or sellout since he landed on the Supreme Court. The most vivid memory for some during the 1991 confirmation hearings was his comment before the TV lights of being subjected to "a high-tech lynching."
That was a clear demonstration of Thomas playing the "race card" he had long decried whenever others did the same thing. For some, it was an ultimate act of hypocrisy used solely to persuade members of Congress to confirm his appointment. But despite those opinions, what's clear is Thomas remains one of the most high-achieving black professionals in the country, regardless of his popularity with most blacks. That certainly makes his career worthy of scrutiny.
After all his research, I asked Merida if he would be proud as an African-American parent to introduce his young son to Thomas.
"Sure. You want your kids to meet a supreme justice of the United States," he said. "It's just like meeting the president."
For many black Americans, the sentiment is mixed when it comes to Clarence Thomas. That makes for quite a divided soul, indeed.
Contact Eugene Kane at (414) 223-5521 or at [email protected]
*********
Authors find Clarence Thomas puzzling
Posted: May 5, 2007
Eugene Kane
*
For the last 16 years, much of black America has had conflicting emotions about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
On one hand, having a black judge on the nation's highest court should evoke feelings of pride and accomplishment for the entire race.
On the other, if it's a judge like Thomas - notoriously conservative on issues such as affirmative action, criminal justice and the 2000 presidential election - sometimes it's hard to appreciate having such a powerful black figure deciding important issues who doesn't think the way most black people do.
A new book by Washington Post writers Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher attempts to get to the heart of the African-American community's confusing relationship with a man who is arguably the country's most significant black person.
"Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas" (Doubleday) is a well-researched biography that examines Thomas' life and career arc from a backwater town in Georgia to the upper levels of two Republican presidential administrations to his current seat as an associate justice.
What makes "Supreme Discomfort" different from other biographies of Thomas is the intimate perspective of its authors, two African-American journalists who tackle the question of Thomas' racial identification head-on.
Essentially, the authors examine whether suspicions by many black Americans that Thomas has forgotten his roots in the black community during his rise to most favored black conservative status were legitimate concerns or unfounded assumptions.
As it turns out, "Supreme Discomfort" never provides a definitive answer. But it suggests there are layers to Thomas that have never been explored.
I spoke to Merida, a former reporter with the old Milwaukee Journal in the early 1980s, by phone last week while he was in Atlanta on a book tour.
He explained that the idea for "Supreme Discomfort" came out of research for a magazine article the pair did in 2001. When the article's publication was postponed after the events of Sept. 11, the authors gained additional time to flesh out a book proposal.
Merida said the book - the result of exclusive interviews with Thomas' colleagues, friends and family members - was their attempt to discuss Thomas in a way that had never been done.
"We're the first to filter his life through a racial prism," Merida said. "I think race plays a large part in most black people's lives. I think the myth was that race wasn't important to him, but we found it was."
Merida said because of judicial opinions and speeches by Thomas that went against traditional civil rights principles, many black Americans had a sense Thomas is "a self-hating black man." On the contrary, some former friends and colleagues paint a picture of Thomas as obsessed with racial issues.
"He's very conscious of his own black skin," Merida said. "He talks about it a lot."
Most of the most striking revelations in "Supreme Discomfort" came from visits to Thomas' childhood home of Pin Point, Ga.
The background portrayed in interviews with family and friends was a stark contrast to previously manufactured tales about his beginnings as told during his confirmation hearings, Merida said.
Thomas' public biography portrayed a poverty-stricken youth who pulled himself out of Pin Point through education and hard work. But he never had much connection with his childhood home after moving to Savannah as a young boy. The authors found that Thomas was raised in a middle-class home with a much more affluent lifestyle than most of his peers.
"Supreme Discomfort" also contains quotes from Thomas' childhood friends who question many of the frequently told stories about Thomas' background and point out his refusal to visit his hometown - including family members - since joining the court.
That Thomas embraced a black conservative demeanor during his college years and later as a Reagan appointee is depicted as a natural evolution that seemed at odds with his own mode of progression up the ranks. Over and over, "Supreme Discomfort" details how Thomas took advantage of affirmative action principles to gain admittance to Yale Law School and win cushy government jobs.
As "Supreme Discomfort" shows, affirmative action certainly worked for Thomas.
Merida and Fletcher tried to get Thomas to agree to an interview but were consistently denied. Merida joked about "stalking" Thomas at public appearances to get him to appreciate the seriousness of their project.
"I was honestly disappointed he wouldn't talk to us," Merida said.
"Supreme Discomfort" shouldn't be viewed as "a race book," Merida said, though he acknowledged the racial perspective the authors bring to their subject.
"I think we look at every aspect of his life, his childhood, his career in government, his record as a judge, the entire picture," he said.
For many blacks, Thomas has been viewed as an "Uncle Tom" or sellout since he landed on the Supreme Court. The most vivid memory for some during the 1991 confirmation hearings was his comment before the TV lights of being subjected to "a high-tech lynching."
That was a clear demonstration of Thomas playing the "race card" he had long decried whenever others did the same thing. For some, it was an ultimate act of hypocrisy used solely to persuade members of Congress to confirm his appointment. But despite those opinions, what's clear is Thomas remains one of the most high-achieving black professionals in the country, regardless of his popularity with most blacks. That certainly makes his career worthy of scrutiny.
After all his research, I asked Merida if he would be proud as an African-American parent to introduce his young son to Thomas.
"Sure. You want your kids to meet a supreme justice of the United States," he said. "It's just like meeting the president."
For many black Americans, the sentiment is mixed when it comes to Clarence Thomas. That makes for quite a divided soul, indeed.
Contact Eugene Kane at (414) 223-5521 or at [email protected]
