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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5295
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 21, 2007 - 06:35 pm: | 
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Books
Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida
(left) and Michael Fletcher are the authors
of a new book about Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas. Washington Post
Powerful Yet Despised: Clarence Thomas' Story
npr: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9714925
April 20, 2007
For many people, Clarence Thomas will be forever linked to Anita Hill, accusations of workplace harassment, inappropriate jokes, and one of the most bruising confirmation hearings in modern history.
As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas is arguably the most powerful black man in public life.
And yet, most black Americans have not embraced the conservative Thomas — or worse, despise the man who was tapped in 1991 to replace retiring civil-rights icon Thurgood Marshall on the nation's highest court. That's according to a new biography of Thomas, Supreme Discomfort.
The book, written by Washington Post reporters Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher, follows Thomas from his childhood in Pin Point, Ga., to his rise within the Republican Party. He held key positions in the Reagan administration, yet the public knew little of Thomas until those explosive confirmation hearings.
The authors tell Michele Norris that experience pushed Thomas further to the right and helped to harden his conservative views.
Excerpt: 'Supreme Discomfort'
by Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher
Note: There is language in this excerpt some readers may find offensive.
Chapter 1
COURTING VENOM: Being
Clarence Thomas
Dallas attorney Eric Moye received his copy in the mail from a fellow Harvard Law School alum. He started reading it but stopped to make a copy of the copy for a friend. He continued reading, absorbed, enchanted, depressed, exhilarated. Couldn't put it down — except to make more copies.
It wasn't a John Grisham thriller, but it might as well have been. "An Open Letter to Justice Clarence Thomas from a Federal Judicial Colleague" created an enormous buzz when the University of Pennsylvania Law Review published it in January 1992. Written by A. Leon Higginbotham Jr., chief judge emeritus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, it was part history lesson and part admonition. Crafted with scholarly precision, it contained eighty-five footnotes and numerous citations of important court cases. But the essence of it read like a stern grandfather lecturing his bullheaded grandson: Don't forget the roots of your success, boy, and the responsibilities you have to those who paved your way.
"You…must try to remember that the fundamental problems of the disadvantaged, women, minorities, and the powerless have not all been solved simply because you have 'moved on up' from Pin Point, Georgia, to the Supreme Court," Higginbotham wrote in the conclusion of his twenty-four-page set of instructions to Thomas. Reciting a roster of notable names from the past, Higginbotham urged Thomas to see his life as connected to "the visions and struggles of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Charles Hamilton Houston, A. Philip Randolph, Mary McLeod Bethune, W. E. B. Du Bois, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Martin Luther King, Judge William Henry Hastie, Justices Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren, and William Brennan, as well as the thousands of others who dedicated much of their lives to create the America that made your opportunities possible."
The "open letter" read at times like a personal letter and was dated November 29, 1991, which was shortly after Thomas took his seat on the high court. Higginbotham felt ambivalent about making his letter public but did so, he said, to help this generation and future ones better evaluate Thomas. Because it was so well sourced and because it was penned by a black twenty-seven-year veteran of the federal bench, the letter as law review article carried an authority that most Thomas critiques did not.
As such, it received considerable attention. The University of Pennsylvania received more than seventeen thousand requests for reprints, and law offices around the country busily churned out photocopies.
"Sometimes chain letters circulate all over the place," recalled Moye, "and this was kind of like one of those." Nowhere was the interest greater than in black legal circles, where a robust debate was unfolding about what kind of justice Thomas would become. Moye, a former state district judge with a weakness for Cuban cigars and the finest steaks, acted as if he'd reached nirvana. After he made his first copy of the Higginbotham treatise and got his secretary to make five more copies, he bought the bound version to put on his office shelf. So many photocopies were in circulation that another one even came back to Moye — just like a chain letter.
"It was spreading like fire across the dry prairie," Moye recalled. "Folks were calling one another speculating on whether Thomas would ever respond to Judge Higginbotham's open letter."
The showdown marked the beginning of a transition in the way African Americans came to view Thomas, a shift that helped harden his image nationally. Gradually but inexorably, wariness supplanted wait-and-see as the predominant state of mind among blacks. Wariness became distrust, which blossomed into contempt.
"I'll put it like this," said basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar. "If he let people know that he was going to be at some public destination, let's say in Harlem, at a certain hour on a certain day, let's see how many supporters would show up and how many detractors would show up." The National Basketball Association's all-time leading scorer was another who had discovered Higginbotham's law article and wondered: How can someone who benefited so richly from affirmative action not support the same remedy for those in similar circumstances?
Though his confirmation hearings left Thomas wounded and enraged, the good news should have been that initially, at least, more than twice as many African Americans, according to polls, believed him as believed Anita Hill. But Thomas couldn't find the resolve to embrace that reassuring fact. He was shell-shocked by his ordeal and retreated into his work, which was difficult enough, and he was already behind. The court's term began in October 1991. Because of his drawn-out confirmation process and the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist's wife, Nan, Thomas wasn't sworn in until the first day of November. He arrived with no staff, his law clerks weren't up to speed, and he was hamstrung by his inexperience as a judge — he'd spent just nineteen months on the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Plus he was bone tired.
Higginbotham was certainly no help. He became a more formidable nemesis, shedding the reproving grandpa role for the part of public castigator. In an attention-getting 1994 lecture at the Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, Higginbotham used his hour-long remarks to issue a stiff condemnation of Thomas's jurisprudence. In one pointed comparison, he said he had studied every opinion written by Thomas and every one composed by his predecessor Marshall, and the difference between the two jurists was "the difference between zero and infinity."
Then he dug the knife in even deeper.
"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.' "
Those in the packed auditorium couldn't help but notice how emotional Higginbotham had become, his voice trembling, tears flowing. Removing his glasses, he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. During Democratic presidencies, Higginbotham's name often surfaced on short lists of potential Supreme Court nominees. But it never rose to the top. (In 1995, he would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the closest thing a president can muster to a consolation prize.) The hard part was that Higginbotham was sixty-five and now retired, and not only had he been passed over for a position he had long coveted, he saw it snatched by a junior he felt had not earned it. Detractors attributed Higginbotham's behavior to some combination of bitterness, jealousy, and a broken heart. But whatever his reasons, the blasts were effective. And the judgment that Thomas was the kind of black man no black person should admire mushroomed.
The catalog of Thomas-targeted insults is fat and brutal, and today the estrangement between the justice and broad swaths of his own people seems almost irreconcilable. Emerge, a since-departed African American-oriented news magazine owned by the country's first black billionaire, Bob Johnson, twice parodied Thomas on its cover — once wearing an Aunt Jemima-style headscarf and another time as a lawn jockey. The editions were among the magazine's best sellers. Ebony magazine, which annually publishes a list of the nation's hundred most influential African Americans, routinely leaves Thomas off its tally. A former Kansas City mayor can make it, but not the nation's only black Supreme Court justice?
Invitations for Thomas to speak are now carefully vetted. He has discovered that saying yes to an offer also could mean signing up for public humiliation: name-calling, pickets, boycotts. The mere announcement of a Thomas visit is apt to trigger a controversy. In the most famous such episode, the superintendent of the Prince George's County, Maryland, school system disinvited Thomas from speaking at a middle school in 1996 after several black school board members complained and threatened protests. The school board overruled its schools' chief, and the show went on — demonstrations and all. (Later, a law clerk gave Thomas a placard that he proudly displayed in his chambers as a kind of combat medal. It read: "Banned in P.G. County.")
Thomas has become more intimate with his opposition than he ever thought would be possible in the relatively isolated life of a Supreme Court justice. No venue is sacred. The Reverend Al Sharpton took his beef straight to Thomas's home. He led four hundred demonstrators, who stepped off chartered buses, to a public road outside the justice's secluded suburban Virginia subdivision. There they denounced Thomas as a traitor. Nearly a decade later, Sharpton would campaign for president and continue his bashing of Thomas in a nationally televised debate, claiming, "He is my color, but he's not my kind." Even in academia, where philosophical debate is encouraged, five black University of North Carolina law professors boycotted a visit by Thomas in the spring of 2002.
Racial disillusionment is the common theme in all these demonstrations — not ideology, not politics, but the seething sense that one of the potential bright lights of the race has rejected his chance to shine. Otherwise, the black North Carolina professors would have howled about the appearances of Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in preceding years. But they didn't. As the professors wrote, explaining their position, in a nation "in which African Americans are disproportionately poor, undereducated, imprisoned and politically compromised, identity — racial identity — very clearly matters. Were that not the case, Justice Thomas, for all his claims to the contrary, could not have declared himself the victim of a 'high-tech lynching' during the heated opposition to his appointment to the Supreme Court."
A special strain of animus seems reserved for Thomas. When the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii proposed inviting Thomas to a debate on affirmative action in 2003, black board member Eric Ferrer was furious. That would be tantamount to "inviting Hitler to come speak on the rights of Jews," he fumed. Thomas didn't accept the invitation, but Ferrer ended up resigning from the board over the mere fact that an invitation had been extended. "The appropriate word is venom," said conservative media critic Brent Bozell, assessing what has happened to Thomas. "I would challenge you to find anyone on the left who has been the target of such a vitriolic character assassination campaign as has Clarence Thomas. I even challenge you to find anyone on the right who has. This man is in his own league."
A league of his own, but one he has helped create, as far as Eric Moye is concerned. Moye, active in Democratic politics, was up for a federal appeals court judgeship during the Clinton administration. He still remembers some of Thomas's harsh critiques of civil rights groups during his years as Ronald Reagan's chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas once told an interviewer that there was not a single area in which the NAACP was doing good work — "I can't think of any" — and another time complained that all civil rights leaders do is "•••••, •••••, •••••, moan and moan, whine and whine." Moye wonders if Thomas ever stops to think when he dons his robe: Where would I be if these civil rights figures had not carried the fight to statehouses and courthouses, had not taken the beatings, gone to jail, refused to wilt under exhausting oppression, and even been willing to die for equality? (Actually, Thomas has answered that question. He doesn't credit civil rights leaders for his opportunities. "My grandfather — that's the guy that got me out," he once told an interviewer. "It wasn't all these people who are claiming all this leadership stuff.")
As Moye sees it, Thomas has tilted so far away from his heritage that there is no longer any real debate about him. "I think there is a profound sense of despair," Moye says. "In order to have disappointment you have to have high expectations. I think there were those who hoped he was going to blossom and develop. But I don't think you know many African Americans, other than those who know him personally, who think he turned out all right."
Excerpted from Supreme Discomfort by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher. Copyright (c) 2007 by Kevin Merida. Excerpted by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9714925 |
Serenasailor
Veteran Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1494
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 01:39 pm: |
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Clarence Thomas, Juan Williams, and Ward Connerly remind me of those Black overseers during the antebellum south who would beat, maim, and murder the slaves worse than the slave master himself. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2135
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 02:26 pm: |
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"Clarence Thomas, Juan Williams, and Ward Connerly remind me of those Black overseers during the antebellum south who would beat, maim, and murder the slaves worse than the slave master himself."
I don't agree with Juan Williams being considered park of that particular ilk but it certainly accurately characterizes Clarence Thomas and Ward Connerly. Justice A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., like Thurgood Marshall, was a legal warrior and fierce fighter for black human and civil rights. He was more than qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice candidate. His unrepentant and well documented history as an advocate and proponent for black Americans rights made him a worthy replacement for Justice Marshall. But that was not to be. There was no way Bush Sr. would attempt to replace one “out of control” Negro (Justice Marshall) with another. So instead, he found Clarence Thomas. An ultra white conservative in black face. And for the record, if Clarence Thomas was a white man -HE NEVER, UNDER ANY CONDITIONS, WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED AS SERIOUS CANDIDATE FOR THE SUPREME COURT. THERE WAS NOTHING THAT EVEN REMOTELY QUALIFIDED HIM FOR BEING SO.
The ultimate paradox of Clarence Thomas should be duly noted. Much to the glee and euphoria of white conservatives, Thomas is a hard line opponent of affirmative action even though he is the ultimate affirmative action poster child. There was an unlimited number of worthy white candidates for the Supreme Court whose legal academic histories and accomplishments greatly exceeded anything Thomas has ever done. But Thomas was black and he was very conservative. A perfect fix for the Justice Marshall conundrum. If many of you recall, there was a loud contention of Negroes who openly supported the Thomas nomination just because he was black. That was a mistake –a big mistake. They know that now. But it’s too late.
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Serenasailor
Veteran Poster
Username: Serenasailor
Post Number: 1499
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 02:54 pm: |
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A perfect fix for the Justice Marshall conundrum. If many of you recall, there was a loud contention of Negroes who openly supported the Thomas nomination just because he was black. That was a mistake –a big mistake. They know that now. But it’s too late.
Yeah I remember that as well!! |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5313
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 22, 2007 - 09:55 pm: |
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Root Cause: Thomas's struggles were against snubs, not privation, the authors say
MSNBC.com
Why Clarence Thomas Can’t Let Go
Clarence Thomas remains bitter about his confirmation hearings. A new book explains why he won't let it go.
Root Cause: Thomas's struggles were against snubs, not privation, the authors say
By Ellis Cose
Newsweek
April 30, 2007 issue - Clarence Thomas is arguably the most powerful black man in America, one whose position as a Supreme Court justice merits more than a modicum of respect. Yet as authors Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher make clear in "Supreme Discomfort," a new biography, Thomas has yet to get his due.
Though most Italian-Americans are liberals, "they're all proud of me," conservative Justice Antonin Scalia tells the authors. Scalia's implicit question is: why do blacks not feel the same way about Thomas? Why can't Americans accept and celebrate him? For a country desperately trying to rid itself of a legacy of prejudice and discrimination, such questions are anything but trivial.
That Thomas is even on the court says much about how America has changed. He is only the second black Supreme Court justice. But instead of following in the footsteps of his predecessor and standing up for the civil-rights establishment, he has become a reliable vote for the conservative right—as he demonstrated last week in siding with the majority to uphold the ban on "partial birth" abortions. That has led many to accuse him of betraying his roots.
Thomas burst onto the national scene as an almost mythic figure: a poor black man from Pin Point, Ga., whom many expected to show special sensitivity to the dispossessed. That impression was soon laid to rest. It was also, argue Merida and Fletcher, rooted in a misunderstanding of his origins. By the standards of the segregated South, Thomas's was a relatively privileged path. His struggles were not against privation, they claim, but against snubs meted out by whites and snooty blacks.
When George H.W. Bush nominated Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991, those slights still rankled. Thomas retained a special anger for the aristocratic, generally lighter-skinned blacks who had looked down on him. That scorn, believe his biographers, partially explains his jurisprudence, particularly his opposition to affirmative action, which disproportionately helps bourgeois blacks. Thomas's humiliating Senate confirmation hearings only made him more bitter.
Thomas had served less than a year and a half on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit when Bush nominated him to replace Thurgood Marshall. He seemed headed toward a relatively easy confirmation until Anita Hill, a former colleague, accused him of talking dirty to her. Thomas responded by charging the Senate with conducting "a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks." The Senate, mortified, went on to confirm him. The authors suggest that Thomas still seethes at those he believes set out to humiliate him.
The controversies that swirl around Thomas, particularly those having to do with his take on race, will probably always define him more than his legal scholarship (which has been marked by a willingness to throw out precedent in pursuit of what he believes to be the Founders' intent). Thomas all but acknowledged as much in a 1998 speech before the National Bar Association in Memphis. He denounced blind racial loyalty, even as he confessed that he was pained "to be perceived by so many members of my race as doing them harm." But Thomas said that he had no intention of changing his ways. He defiantly asserted "my right to think for myself, to refuse to have my ideas assigned to me as though I was an intellectual slave because I'm black."
It was a performance remarkable for its candor and its passion, and it provides a sense of the fascinating book Merida and Fletcher could have written had they persuaded Thomas to open up. But he refused to participate. Nonetheless, the portrait that emerges is nuanced and compelling. It will surprise some to learn that Thomas likes to relax by driving around the country (anonymously) in an RV, and that he can be refreshingly open-minded, lobbying legislators on behalf of black Democratic judicial nominees. Yet if Merida and Fletcher are to be believed, there is a tragic quality to Thomas, who "wears his blackness like a heavy robe that both ennobles and burdens him." And they question whether, despite his yearning to be free, he can ever lay that burden down.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18248548/site/newsweek/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18248548/site/newsweek/page/2/ |
Renata
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Renata
Post Number: 2062
Registered: 08-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 12:01 am: |
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Of all the bullshit that is CT, they sure used an interesting example to prove how he's against his roots......LOL. Because if there's anything that the pro-black crowd want it's easier access to partial birth abortions. Well, that's it...I'm SURE he is against black people now. Let's thank the writer for giving us an example of it.
What a jackass (the writer, that is). |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4207
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 10:55 am: |
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I wonder if they tell all the dirty stuff this skunk did so he would be promoted by the Conservatives:
How he used to lie on his sister who quit work to care for a relative so CLARENCE COULD GO TO SCHOOL--he used to lie and say that she quit so she could go on welfare.
How he let all those AGE DISCRIMINATION SUITS (yes, he burned some white folks) lapse while he was head of the EEOC.
He was a dirty bird and he lied under oath
Yale Law school has messed up more black folks minds than crack cocaine! |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2150
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 02:39 pm: |
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"How he used to lie on his sister who quit work to care for a relative so CLARENCE COULD GO TO SCHOOL--he used to lie and say that she quit so she could go on welfare.
How he let all those AGE DISCRIMINATION SUITS (yes, he burned some white folks) lapse while he was head of the EEOC."
True. One of the biggest cynical lies that white conservatives told was about Clarence Thomas being the most qualified candidate, regardless of race, to sit on the Supreme Court. But the reality was Thomas was simply unqualified for the Court. Any one who has more brain cells that can be counted on more that one hand, knows had Thomas been a "white male" -he never would have seen the inside of the Supreme Court (unless he was on a tour). But as I stated before, the ticket to his cynical nomination was being an white ultra conservative in black face. The man had an undistinguished record as a law student (mere graduation from Yale Law School does not qualify one for the Supreme Court!), his lackluster years at the EEOC where he left thirteen thousand age-discrimination cases hanging in the wind and brushed aside any cases that even suggested racial discrimination. Then throw in his mediocre performance during a very short fifteen months as an appellate court judge and you now have Supreme Court Justice material??? Duhhhhhh...??!!
The lies he told about his only sisters experience with the welfare system are unforgivable. This shameless Negro told self serving lies about this black woman in front of a white conservative audience in San Francisco. Justice Coon Thomas made her out to be a welfare scrounger whose laziness made her dependent on state support. In fact, this self loathing Coon ratched up the doggie treats for his white conservative audiences by stating, " "'She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check'". This was one of the stock lines he used to describe his only sister when traveling the public speakers circuit. Remember, this is a man talking about his own sister to white conservative audiences who lust for more sordid stories as proof of the sociopathological relationship between blacks and welfare. But in reality, his sister Emma Mae, was a hardworking woman who had taken on the responsibility of caring for her sick aunt, and she was unable to work for a short period of time. After she got off welfare, she worked two jobs - until three in the morning! Thomas never acknowledged nor highlighted this fact. Instead, he was bent on appeasement for his fellow white conservatives about the evils of lazy Negroes and their addiction to welfare.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9311
Registered: 04-2004
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, April 23, 2007 - 02:57 pm: |
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Ntfs,
What are the qualifications of being a Supreme Court judge? I mean, what I've been shocked by is how little judicial experience MANY of our jurists have had over the years. I think the recently departed Chief Justice William Reinquist had almost zero experience as judge. And I think the current Chief Justice Roberts had scant time as a judge as well.
I'm not trying to defend Thomas. But perhaps he's par for the course. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4242
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 04:43 pm: |
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What are the qualifications of being a Supreme Court judge? I mean, what I've been shocked by is how little judicial experience MANY of our jurists have had over the years. I think the recently departed Chief Justice William Reinquist had almost zero experience as judge. And I think the current Chief Justice Roberts had scant time as a judge as well.
(The American Bar Association rates the candidates based on skills, experience, distinction, etc. Uncle Clarence had one of the lowest if not the lowest ever.
The Constitution only has some age requirments. I don't think you even need be a lawyer but there has sprung up an effort in the last few years to make sure that jurists have a certain level of skill.
Clarence sits there and doesn't even ask questions during oral argument. It has been an open secret that his clerks write all his opinions.
He is a disgrace. |
Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 951
Registered: 01-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 05:17 pm: |
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i can understand when some high ranking black individuals look down on the brothers who constantly do dumb stuff or talk down on sisters who keep shooting out kids they can't take care of instead of closing their legs ... but clarence and ward are on a different mission. i think they don't want any other black people to take a piece of their white pie and will use every ounce of white power they have to stop any black person. anything that can help improve or at the least put another black person on a half even playing field these two guys are always showing their heads to be the spokes people to fight it. i was really young when clarence thomas got his position to the supreme court and i wondered why my mom was so upset about it, i didn't understand... i figured he was black so he would be someone that would keep that in mind how things really where in america ... but just like half of the stuff back then, i didn't know what was of quality and what was bullshit. it's a shame, but i guess there's one in every race and in every family. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9330
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 05:30 pm: |
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At this point, Thomas is mostly just feeding on all the hate and anger. So I wish Black foks would just ignore his insecure-because-I'm-Black a$$. Accept and deal with what he is and hope he dies at the beginning of the very next Democratic presidential administation. |
Doberman23
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Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 955
Registered: 01-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 05:39 pm: |
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abm: i won't lie and say that i am not disappointed in him and people like him. but when it all comes down to it, i'm personally gonna' be alright ... it's the other brothers and sisters who are close to the edge that i'm concerned about. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9331
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 05:49 pm: |
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Dobes,
Well. I think Black foks sorta helped make Thomas into something worse than what he might have been. I mean, I'm sure he still would have been more conservative than most of us prefer he'd be. But I think the Anita Hill fiasco and all that has occurred since has instilled within him some kinda revenge or payback factor that hasn't done us much good.
So I pretty much view him like I do Scalia or any of those other reactionary Republicans. Just some sh*t I don't like but live with. Because, like you said, in spite of what he and his kind do, most of us are personally gonna' be alright. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5331
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 06:05 pm: |
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Clarence Thomas ain't no more coon than some of the house niggers that frequent this board. I don't get it. If he can't affect most of us personally, why is he more despised (so much more) than other house niggers?
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Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 963
Registered: 01-2006
Rating:
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 - 10:48 pm: |
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your right tonya you don't get it. the difference between someone who you consider a house ninja on here and a supreme court justice is huge ... they have power and some who post on here in comparisson has none. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2165
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 03:52 am: |
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"the difference between someone who you consider a house ninja on here and a supreme court justice is huge ... they have power and some who post on here in comparisson has none."
This is very true. By virtue of his position, Thomas's thinking and decisions can have a devastating impact (depending on what side of the cultural-political divide you are on) in the lives of American citizens. The impact of the decisions this man makes as a Supreme Court Justice are far reaching and cannot be overstated. But unfortunately, since there are Negroes who have more fingers than brain cells, they delude themselves into believing this man has no impact on the lives of average Americans. After hearing such a sad confession, it makes the difference between being ignorant or being stupid even more glaring: "You can throw a rock but you can't teach it to fly". Tsk....tsk...tsk. Poor thing......
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5337
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 04:53 am: |
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...drop dead old dusty.
Dobes, but you said he can't touch you and then Abm claimed he has no affect on us, that "most of us are personally gonna' be alright". So assuming this is all true....I'm asking....why hate him any more than all of the other house niggers. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9335
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 07:40 am: |
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Tonya,
THIS is what I said:
"...I pretty much view [Thomas] like I do Scalia or any of those other reactionary Republicans. Just some sh*t I don't like but live with. Because, like you said, in spite of what he and his kind do, most of us are 'personally gonna' be alright.'"
I did NOT say Thomas has no affect on us. OBVIOUSLY he does.
But after nearly 20 years of Thomas being on the Supreme Court, I think we've reached a point where we should simply accept that Thomas is what he is and is going to do what he do.
He's gone.
Time to get over how different he is from Thorgood Marshall. And STOP allowing our resentment of him to fuel his ire because it seems clear that only empowers him and those who agree with and support him. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5340
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 12:33 pm: |
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Abm, I don't think anybody was thinking about Thomas until this book came out, honestly.
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2167
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 12:54 pm: |
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"But after nearly 20 years of Thomas being on the Supreme Court, I think we've reached a point where we should simply accept that Thomas is what he is and is going to do what he do."
Unfortunately, this is true. If you want a snap shot of Thomas's voting record as a Supreme Court Justice, all you just need is a copy of the voting record of Anton Scalia and William Rehnquist -two of the courts most virulent conservatives. Thomas has openly aligned himself with the far right of the Court. For him, there is no in between or moderation. When Thomas began his tenure on the Court, many observers accurately perceived him as a black face version of Scalia.
My major concern with Thomas is his hypocritical stance against affirmative action. I am not a rabid affirmative action lobbyist but I do believe and support minority recruitment programs. I need not explain why. But as I previously stated, Thomas entered the College of the Holy Cross, after the school began a black recruitment program. He was picked to attend the school because of this program. He was also the beneficiary of a similar minority program a few years later at Yale Law School. This is a matter of public record. He was able to attend these prestigious schools not because he was at the head of class or because he was an outstanding academic student who merited entry -he was not! He was black and he got a pass. End of subject.
I'm not judging nor criticizing him for this because whites have their own form of invisible affirmative action that no one talks about or discusses. But he openly and passionately rails against a program that he freely used and benefited from. But as you have stated ABM, he is who he is and he is not going to change and that's that. But it is almost comical to hear clueless Negroes scratch their heads in confusion as to whether a Supreme Court Justice has any impact on the lives of black people or any American for that matter. One more time: A rock cannot fly..!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5343
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 01:24 pm: |
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Speaking of rocks, throw a rock in a crowd and examine the one that screams the loudest....House Nig-ger. 
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9337
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 02:01 pm: |
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Ntfs,
Of course Thomas is a hypocrite with respect to Affirmative Action. But then, how is he different from George Bush who exalts the glory of meritocrisy and decries Affirmative Action while he himself being the world's greatest living product of the Lucky Sperm Club this side of Queen Elizabeth II.
Hypocrisy reigns supreme amongst his kind. |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 9338
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 02:04 pm: |
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Tonya,
From what I've read and heard, prior to the release of this book, Thomas remains the target of vicious scorn, emotional tirades, threats, etc. If that's true, again, I believe that does Thomas more good than harm and does the reverse to/for his opponents. Because as when sh*t get's heated and foks start saying/doing crazy stuff, whatever real merit there was in their position is lost. |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5345
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 25, 2007 - 02:59 pm: |
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I'm sure all the justices have their lunatics...lol! Indeed, neither Clarence nor any well known figure is alone in this sense. If he actually takes these people seriously, it says a lot about his mental stability making HIS position seem like the one without merit.
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2168
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2007 - 02:00 pm: |
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"I wonder if anyone who wrote the above articles and comments even bothered to watch the 60 Minutes episode that's being referenced, because Cam'ron's comments are taken completely out of context."
I watched the entire show and I heard every single thing he said. It was appalling and scary. Nothing was taken out of context. He was very empathic and very clear about the "no snitchin' street code" of not getting involved nor cooperating with the police when dealing with matters of crime.
"When I first read the article about his 60 Minutes interview on Drudge, I thought that Cam'ron was brainless....."
Good. Your original assessment was accurate and factual.
"....and that he was setting a bad example, but when I actually saw what was said it's completely different. "
Uhhhhhh.....I don't think so. He said what he said and he was very clear about people not cooperating with the police. In his world: No matter how horrific or violent the crime is, if you see anything, shut the fuchk up and don't say anything to anyone -especially the police". End of subject.
"This question was raised by Anderson Cooper. If he had interviewed anyone else and asked that silly ass question, they would have said the same exact thing."
No they wouldn't. I don't believe that. I'd tell the police if I suspected a serial killer lived next door to me. Why would I ignore the presence of a serial murder? Would you? The man said, "If I knew the serial killer was living next door to me?" Cam'ron asks. "No, I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him. But I'd probably move… But I'm not gonna call and be like, you know, 'The serial killer's in 4E.'"
Duhhhhhh,,,??? What do you not understand? Let me repeat what he said: "No, I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him. But I'd probably move…" What part about that response does not mean I wouldn't tell or get involved????
"Meanwhile, the issue of not snitching is nothing new and it's not exclusive to the Black community. There are many other cultures who won't divulge information to the police. Like the Italians for instance."
True....true. But the issue here is much more far reaching. We are talking about a movement that openly and loudly advocates not helping the police solve violent crimes. It goes as far as making videos, T-shirts, openly appealing to young people to not cooperate with the police if they witness a violent crime and in some extreme cases, retaliation against those who do. This is unprecedented. The impact of such pervasive nonsense is having nothing short of a devastating impact in black communities.
"If you call the police, it's highly unlikely that anything will be done since they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground anyway. "
That's not true. I see the police doing things all the time. I was a correction officer before so the police must being doing something. The murderers, rapists, drug dealers, car jackers and violent thugs didn't volunteer to be where they were at. Don't forget, the police enjoy arresting people and hauling them away. It makes their careers look good. Unsolved crimes look bad for a particular law enforcement agency.
"And further, they're not likely to protect your identity."
Ummmmm.....Unfortunately, this is true They can't because in order to get a prosecution, they need your testimony (which is public record) and the defense has a right to cross examine you. Only in extreme cases involving federal crimes can they protect you for extended periods of time.
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"They will go straight to whomever you called them about and tell them so-and-so (your neighbor) called to tell us that you are running a meth lab, or whatever. And then................. People who would be witnesses are murdered everyday in America. Why doesn't Anderson Cooper cover that??? "
Understood. Although your point is well made, people do come forth everyday and testify against criminals. Coopers story was not about the failure to protect witnesses for testifying against criminals or the success of witness protection programs. It was about a tragically growing cultural mindset of not cooperating with the police when violent crime is involved. Let me ask you a question. I believe you said you had granddaughters (correct me if I am wrong). What if one of your grand daughters (God forbid!) was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and dumped nude in a wooded area. The police believed they had a possible person of interest. But they needed enough evidence to arrest him or at least successfully argue for a search warrant. Two of his neighbors saw him with your granddaughter on two separate occasions the day she disappeared. Would you want them to come forth with this information to assist the police in their investigation? Or would you shrug your shoulders and accept their "I don't snitch mentality"? Yes or no??
"All the Black Chicken Littles running around talking about the sky is falling."
I don't think so! This is a very serious problem. I have seen the affects of such thinking in my home city. There are an untold number of homicides involving young blacks but no one will come forth. I went to high school and grew up with the Chief of Police and one the editors of the city's newspaper. I asked both of them why there were so many unsolved murders involving these young black people (some were teenage black females) and both told me the number one problem is the failure for witnesses to come forward with information. When they arrive at the murder and crime scenes, people are milling around, buzzing, shaking their heads or crying. But when asked what happened or did anyone see anything, they are met with shoulder shrugs and scripted responses lie; "I didn't see nutin"." They're all lying and the police know they are lying. But of course this is all fallout from the Chicken Little syndrome.
"Take something that's been going on in the Black community for fifty years and blame it on the rappers."
Wrong! This type of brazen advocacy (via so-called entertainers) and open door policy for unpunishable crime did not exist twenty five years ago.
"Watch the fukcing interview and stop blaming Cam'ron for the deap-seated societal problems that he has nothing to do with!!!"
No, you need to watch the fukcing video again! The destructive sloganeering by these trash culture coons has a direct link to the ever increasing number of unsolved murders in black underclass communities. I never saw nor heard of such mindlessness and moral cowardice in the community I was raised in. Where did it come from? Does this tragic social phenomena exist in other ethnic and racial communities? I'm sure it does to some degree. But no other group of people except American Negroes will gleefully and openly display their ignorance and willingness to openly support a mindset that allows murderers and violent criminals to go un-punished because not snitchin' and not cooperating with law enforcement takes precedence over civil and moral responsibility. You seem to support a deviant subculture mindset that is very comfortable with a society where violent criminality is unpunished. So, what can I say....??
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Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2171
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2007 - 03:01 pm: |
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Sorry about this. I posted it in the wrong thread. Ok, ok.....I was bad...Dang!! |
Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1998
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 27, 2007 - 10:16 am: |
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Ntfs: Whew! I thought for a minute I had missed something. But can you imagine Justice Thomas and Cam'ron together? What do you suppose they'd talk about? LOL |
Yvettep
Veteran Poster
Username: Yvettep
Post Number: 1999
Registered: 01-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 27, 2007 - 10:17 am: |
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P.S. Is it me or does he favor Uncle Ben? (Clarence Thomas, not Cam'ron LOL) |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2177
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 01:27 am: |
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"But can you imagine Justice Thomas and Cam'ron together? What do you suppose they'd talk about?"
Hard to say. Although they are polar opposites, both are cyanide for black people!
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Doberman23
Veteran Poster
Username: Doberman23
Post Number: 978
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, April 28, 2007 - 08:48 am: |
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tonya i think abm took the words from out of my mouth. we do have to deal with it and move on. most issues that the supreme court have to decide on this day in age really don't directly affect me. however i am more than aware that things such as affirmative action is still needed, civil rights still need to be protected, and so on and so forth. a lot of people concern themselves with if a black dude is dating a white girl or if oprah is a ••••• and silly things like that, but none of that stuff matters in comparison to demise of your rights. |
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