Clarence Thomas Whines His Way to the Bank [View All]

Clarence Thomas Whines His Way to the Bank
By Frank Rich, The New York Times
Posted on October 8, 2007, Printed on October 8, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64640/


What's the difference between a low-tech lynching and a high-tech lynching? A high-tech lynching brings a tenured job on the Supreme Court and a $1.5 million book deal. A low-tech lynching, not so much.

Pity Clarence Thomas. Done in by what he calls "left-wing zealots draped in flowing sanctimony" -- as he describes anyone who challenged his elevation to the court -- he still claims to have suffered as much as African-Americans once victimized by "bigots in white robes." Since kicking off his book tour on 60 Minutes last Sunday, he has been whining all the way to the bank, often abetted by a press claque as fawning as his No. 1 fan, Rush Limbaugh.

We are always at a crossroads with race in America, and so here we are again. The rollout of Justice Thomas's memoir, My Grandfather's Son, is not happening in a vacuum. It follows a Supreme Court decision (which he abetted) outlawing voluntary school desegregation plans in two American cities. It follows yet another vote by the Senate to deny true Congressional representation to the majority black District of Columbia. It follows the decision by the leading Republican presidential candidates to snub a debate at a historically black college as well as the re-emergence of a low-tech lynching noose in Jena, La.

Perhaps most significant of all, Mr. Thomas's woe-is-me tour unfolds against the backdrop of the presidential campaign of an African-American whose political lexicon does not include martyrdom or rage. My Grandfather's Son may consciously or not echo the title of Barack Obama's memoir of genealogy and race, Dreams from My Father, but it might as well be written in another tongue.

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