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We Need Another Black Supreme Court Justice
On October 11, 1991, faced with impending implosion of his carefully constructed law career, an incensed Clarence Thomas, one of two black men nominated for a seat on the United States Supreme Court — Thurgood Marshall was the other — lashed out at the Senate Judiciary committee, comparing his current plight to those blacks who routinely faced lynching in the not too distant past.
“And from my standpoint,” said Thomas, “as a black American, as far as I am concerned, it is 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 hang from a tree.”
I remember sitting in front of the television as Thomas spoke, at age fourteen, still in the midst of learning how to navigate an abusive relationship with the United States of America. I felt for Clarence Thomas, who I ascertained to be an unfortunate victim of a well-coordinated smear campaign instigated by Anita Hill, a bitter and jealous woman who was anxious to see a nemesis fall. Upon hearing of his confirmation to the highest court, I pumped my fist into the air and said, “Good for him! Good for Clarence Thomas.”
