"Dear Justice Thomas, I'm Sorry You're a Shilling Asswipe, Love Anita Hill"

The BBQ Pit
41

[QUOTE=John Mace]
It strains mine. Were there no lefty lawyers eager to embrace a young African-American and get him going in the field of law? How about a lefty (or even left of center) Congresscritter? Not a one?
[/QUOTE]

Dunno, man. I’m picturing the typical lefty lawyer’s office back then and I see a cramped, wood-paneled cell of a room; overstuffed ashtrays spilling butts across a heavily-gouged pine desk ringed with circular coffee stains; maroon shag carpeting rank with mildew smell and hiding God-knows-what horrors; and a single small, cloudy pane, which must’ve once functioned as a window onto a picturesque brick-alley vista, allowing only the cruelest tease of somber grey cloudlight to filter in.

Compare then the chamber of the conservative attorney: its Persian rugs tastefully revealing just enough of the Italian marble tile beneath; a room so enormous that acoustical engineers were employed during its design, to prevent any canyonlike echo even during the frequent post-trial jubilation; its crystal decanters of single-malt scotch doubled in the mirror over the wet bar; its centerpiece a mahogany desk that would dwarf a snooker table, hand-carved so opulently it would move Bernini to tears.

Hell, what would you do?

42

[QUOTE=Malacandra]
A shilling is a lot of money to pay for an asswipe, IMO - or was pre-1971, at any rate: the point’s moot now.
[/QUOTE]

Perhaps a mod could change the title of this thread to “Dear Justice Thomas, I’m Sorry You’re a 5 p. Asswipe, Love Anita Hill”

43

I used to love CBS’s Sunday Morning show. Low key, with coverage of arts & sciences, as well as in-depth reports on issues. Sort of like Church for us agnostic heathens.

Until Virginia Thomas appeared for an interview just after the Supremes handed the Presidency to W. She & the smarmy interviewer discussed the ugly rudeness that had been so prevalent in DC–ignoring the time & money wasted on slamming Clinton. Now that we had a Republican President, things would be much “nicer.”

The interviewer neglected to ask about Mrs Thomas’s current job–working at the Heritage Foundation, vetting candidates for positions in the incoming administration. The administration that was incoming because of a Supreme Court decision.

Nowadays, I’d rather spend my Sunday Mornings watching Bargain Hunt on BBCAmerica.

44

[QUOTE=denquixote]
The fact that he is even more distant from the majority of black citizens and black thinkers and academics makes him even more unusual. There appears to me to be no harm in asking why? The fact that he seems to have no valid reason other than the perceived slight to his accomplishment due to the implementation of affirmative action makes it even more likely that his positions are not deeply felt convictions but convenient conclusions based on loyalty rather than reasoning.
[/quote]

Whenever we treat someone differently because of his race, I believe (as a default assumption) we’re doing something wrong.

For you to say, in essence, “Thomas is a conservative, and so few blacks are conservatives, so I’m entitled to suggest his convictions are conveniently-held shallow positions,” is wrong. If you believe that all conservatives’ positions are ersatz, that’s not a racial distinction, of course – merely an idiotic one. If you believe that a black conservative’s positions may be more readily dismissed as ersatz than a white one’s, then you are a racist.

And just for the record: I am Hispanic. My father arrived here in this country with nothing. My childhood was … not a wealthy one. Yet even while we had nothing, my family didn’t hold the ridiculous position that we should somehow be given extra opportunities or preferences to make up for our state of poverty. I didn’t feel then that affirmative action programs were of value to society.

I don’t feel that today, either.

Is my position on this point weaker or more suspect than an identical view held by my next-door neighbor, lily-white Jonathan Wasp III?

45

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
Compare then the chamber of the conservative attorney…
[/QUOTE]
And he’s just an associate. Imagine, if you can, the office of a senior partner.

46

[QUOTE=dropzone]
And he’s just an associate. Imagine, if you can, the office of a senior partner.
[/QUOTE]

?OVERFLOW ERROR

READY.
>_

47

[QUOTE=mischievous]
Just popping in to say that I, personally, would pay good money to see Ms. Hill respond to Mrs. Thomas with the thread title, verbatim.

mischievous
[/QUOTE]

Can we start a fund?

48

[QUOTE=Vinyl Turnip]
Dunno, man. I’m picturing the typical lefty lawyer’s office back then and I see a cramped, wood-paneled cell of a room; overstuffed ashtrays spilling butts across a heavily-gouged pine desk ringed with circular coffee stains; maroon shag carpeting rank with mildew smell and hiding God-knows-what horrors; and a single small, cloudy pane, which must’ve once functioned as a window onto a picturesque brick-alley vista, allowing only the cruelest tease of somber grey cloudlight to filter in.

Compare then the chamber of the conservative attorney: its Persian rugs tastefully revealing just enough of the Italian marble tile beneath; a room so enormous that acoustical engineers were employed during its design, to prevent any canyonlike echo even during the frequent post-trial jubilation; its crystal decanters of single-malt scotch doubled in the mirror over the wet bar; its centerpiece a mahogany desk that would dwarf a snooker table, hand-carved so opulently it would move Bernini to tears.

Hell, what would you do?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t know how accurate your depiction is. I’m sure some lefty law firms were like that, but it needn’t be a firm fighting for lefty causes, just a law firm with lefties in hiring positions. I have no idea how common or uncommon that was.

But what about lefty Congresscritters? Surely there were plenty of those around. He wasn’t top of his class, but a middle of the pack Black guy from Yale Law School must’ve stood out in a crowd in the 60s or early 70s.

49

[QUOTE=Mosier]
Did he seriously say that white liberals are worse than the KKK, or was that just a whoosh?
[/QUOTE]

I’d like to see the quote from the book that supports that he said that. I saw the 60 Minutes piece. He said that in his own personal experience, he got worse from White liberals (during his confirmation process) than he ever got from the Klan. But he was not generalizing. At any rate, I think we should ask those who are making that claim to cite the passage from the book, in context, so we can judge for ourselves.

50

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I don’t know how accurate your depiction is. I’m sure some lefty law firms were like that, but it needn’t be a firm fighting for lefty causes, just a law firm with lefties in hiring positions.
[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I know. I confess that like most of my other suppositions and beliefs, I based that mainly on stereotypes and clichés I vaguely recall from movies and TV.

51

[QUOTE=Bricker]
Is my position on this point weaker or more suspect than an identical view held by my next-door neighbor, lily-white Jonathan Wasp III?
[/QUOTE]

I don’t live all that far from you, and I’m half-Wasp on my father’s side.

That being said, I still grew up in the sort of household where my brothers and I, when we were teenagers, would help our parents clean insurance and dental offices and work in restaurants to help our family get through a steel strike.

I do not deny for one second that many people in this country were denied certain opportunities on the basis of race. However, there are tons more denied opportunities for countless other reasons, and I have never seen an affirmative action plan that could address that.

The education, family stability and poverty problems that affect black families in the inner city also affect millions of white people in places like Appalachia and the Rust Belt. Yet little affirmative action reaches them, and increasingly the primary beneficiary of affirmative action programs is the black middle class.

Now, this kind of thing isn’t helpful to race relations, especially among people who frankly carry some residual cultural racism. And this kind of thing can be exploited, frankly. Remember, that famous Jesse Helms ad didn’t show a man in a white shirt. It showed a man in a red plaid workshirt.

Now, personally, I’m not particularly resentful. And I’m grateful for the opportunities I did get, which I think I took advantage of well. But I know an awful lot of people back in Pittsburgh who feel that affirmative action is screwing them over.

If one of its goals is to advance racial harmony and understanding, it has to do a better job. If it can’t (and I think it can) then it ought to be abolished.

Making it class-based rather than race-based would be a huge first step.

52

VT

Yeah. Did you see the one where the relentless FBI brought the Klan to its knees? That was a good one!

53

[QUOTE=denquixote]
Shouldn’t it be possible to question Thomas’ motivation and his philosophical development in light of his background and early political, social and religious history without disparaging him or anyone else?
[/quote]

Of course it should. So why do you insist on disparaging him, saying he has “no valid reason” to hold his views?

And you base your assumption on what? Have you read anything by Thomas? Have you heard him speak? Do you even know anything about him?

As Thomas says in a Reason magazine interview on how Thomas Sowell influenced him (Freedom Now II: Interview with Clarence Thomas):

It certainly seems that Thomas did some thinking before he changed his views.

Please spell out the difference between “traditional conservative values” and “those adopted” by Thomas. Also, remember that Thomas has often described himself as more libertarian than conservative.

If you are “well known” then you are probably of at least moderate means. Most well known thinkers of both the conservative and liberal camps are doing pretty well economically.

54

Well, that certainly explains it all, doesn’t it? He had been “indoctrinated” by those treacherous lefties who, as everyone knows, rule academia with an iron fist, and are utterly in the thrall of such radicals as…who, exactly? Hubert “Trotsky” Humphrey? Martin “Ruthless” King?

No doubt he would have sooner seen the True Path, had it not been for the relentless “indoctrination”.

55

[QUOTE=elucidator]
Well, that certainly explains it all, doesn’t it? He had been “indoctrinated” by those treacherous lefties who, as everyone knows, rule academia with an iron fist, and are utterly in the thrall of such radicals as…who, exactly? Hubert “Trotsky” Humphrey? Martin “Ruthless” King?

No doubt he would have sooner seen the True Path, had it not been for the relentless “indoctrination”.
[/QUOTE]

Funny, but I wasn’t thinking about academia, but radical student organizations. He was, for instance, one of the founding members of the Black Student Union at Holy Cross. But he could have been thinking about some lefty profs as well. I was in college in New England about that time (maybe a few years later), and I sure had my share. And many were quite supportive of lefty causes on campus-- things like Affirmative Action, higher wages for workers on campus… things like that. I don’t recall any being supportive of Weather Underground type activities, but one needn’t be that far out to be a radical lefty.

56

[QUOTE=Bricker]
And just for the record: I am Hispanic. My father arrived here in this country with nothing. My childhood was … not a wealthy one.
[/QUOTE]

Note to self: THAT’S why a straight conservative knows Mimi’s songs from RENT- now it falls into place.

,

57

Here is the relevant quote from the book:

[QUOTE=Clarence Thomas]
I’d grown up fearing the lynch mobs of the Ku Klux Klan; as an adult, I was starting to wonder if I’d been afraid of the wrong white people all along. My worst fears had come to pass not in Georgia, but in Washington, D.C., where I was being pursued not by bigots in white robes, but by left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony.
[/QUOTE]

The cite also has excepts from his interview with Hannity.

58

Considering the kind of Swift Boating he underwent during his confirmation hearings, his position seems fairly reasonable.

Regards,
Shodan

59

Thomas has a point. There were few things that terrified black people, Jews, Catholics, and others more in the Jim Crow era than people chasing them with sanctimony. I understand that in some areas black mothers still use Ted Kennedy and Eleanor Roosevelt as quasi-mythological figures to scare their children into behaving.

60

[QUOTE=Shodan]
Considering the kind of Swift Boating he underwent during his confirmation hearings, his position seems fairly reasonable.
[/QUOTE]

Not so fast! Swiftboating wasn’t even invented until around 2004… I just verified it on Wikipedia!