Monday, October 01, 2007

I think I'll read Clarence Thomas

ABC News offers a review of memoirs by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas--and it looks like a great read. I've wondered about where he came from, where he developed his opinions and how he has handled the abuses he's seen since becoming one of the most conservative voices on the Supreme Court. A couple interesting bits from the review:
Thomas's most deeply felt opinions are about race, and he pulls no punches. For Thomas, the menacing racists who donned white sheets in the segregated South of his childhood [aren't] as bad or worse than the northern liberal zealots in suits and ties.

"These people who claim to be progressive … have been far more vicious to me than any southerner," Thomas says, "and it is purely ideological."

"People get bent out of shape about the fact that when I was a kid, you could not drink out of certain water fountains. Well, the water was the same. My grandfather always said that, 'The water's exactly the same.' But those same people are extremely comfortable saying I can't drink from this fountain of knowledge," Thomas says. "They certainly don't see themselves as being like the bigots in the South. Well, I've lived both experiences. And I really don't see that they're any different from them."

He says his critics — the people who question whether he is smart or qualified to be on the Court or who suggest he merely does what a white Supreme Court colleague dictates — are as also as bigoted as the whites of his childhood in the deep South.
I think I'll pick it up.

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