Ketanji Brown Jackson Is Already Proving To Be A More Legitimate Judge Than Clarence Thomas And Amy Coney Barrett : politics
So, I’m reading this article by Corey Robin:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/essay/clarence-thomass-radical-vision-of-race
At Yale, Thomas developed an understanding of racism that he would never shake. Whites—Southern and Northern, liberal and conservative, rural and urban—are racists. Racism, Thomas would tell students at Mercer University, in 1993, “has complex and, to a certain degree, undiscoverable roots.” Not knowing its beginnings, we can’t know its end. The most that can be hoped for is that whites be honest about it. Honesty is demonstrated through crude statements of personal animus or intellectual suggestions of racial inequality. Dishonesty is demonstrated through denial of one’s racism and sympathetic extensions of help. Dishonesty lulls black people into a false sense of security, assuring them that they are safe when they are not. One of Thomas’s favorite songs is the 1971 hit “Smiling Faces Sometimes,” by the Undisputed Truth. Its classic lyric—“Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies”—resonates with his experience of Northern white liberals. Among the virtues of the Reagan Administration, he has said, was the fact that no one there was “smiling in your face.”
And watching this:
13:15 I THINK MORE INTERESTING OR IRONIC OR COMPLEX ASPECT OF THAT STORY IS THE QUOTE THAT YOU CITE WHEN HE SAID IT WAS A HIGH-TECH LYNCHING — IT ALSO REFLECTED SOMETHING THAT HE VERY MUCH BELIEVES. AS I ALLUDED TO EARLIER, THAT THE FATE OF THE BLACK COMMUNITY DEPENDS UPON BLACK MEN LIKE HIMSELF AND HIS GRANDFATHER AND ANY EFFORT TO TEAR DOWN BLACK MEN WILL DESTROY THE BLACK COMMUNITY. HE VIEWS THE LIBERAL ESTABLISHMENT AND THEIR ALLIES AS REAL THREATS TO BLACK MEN.
…
14:49 HIS VOTING RIGHTS OPINIONS ARE CHILLING BECAUSE AT THE HEART OF THOSE OPINIONS IS THAT THE BELIEF THAT BLACK PEOPLE ESSENTIALLY SHOULD NOT VOTE.
REALLY! AT ALL?
AT ALL. THERE IS A CRITIQUE OF BLACK VOTING, BECAUSE HE THINKS IT IS A MISBEGOTTEN ENTERPRISE. I THINK THAT’S PART OF THE HOSTILITY THAT YOU SEE TOWARDS THE VOTING RIGHTS WHICH IS VERY TRANSPARENT. IT IS NOT HIDDEN AT ALL. THERE IS THIS REAL CRITIQUE OF THE GOVERNMENT, AND THEN THERE IS THIS REAL BELIEF IN THE MARKETPLACE AND EMANCIPATING THE MARKET FROM THE GOVERNMENT.
And I’m realizing, one, that I didn’t know shit about Clarence Thomas; and, two:
He expected liberals to hurt his feelings, because he believes that white liberals are all irredeemable, lying racists.
Worse than in-your-face overt racists. He’s like Malcom X, or, Rev Dr. King Jr’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail.
He allies with white conservatives simply because he believes that it furthers the interests of Black Nationalism: He believes that capitalism is good for Black Men; segregation would be good for Black Men; that patriarchy is good for Black men, and conversely, that feminism is bad for Black Men; that voting is pointless for Black Men…
I should buy this book.
Edit: Jesus.
HE CERTAINLY HAS REFUSED TO AGREE THAT THE BRUTALIZATION OF BLACK INMATES BY CORRECTION OFFICERS, ANYTHING SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT THAT.
ABSOLUTELY. WHAT IS SHOCKING IS THAT HE DOES NOT DENY THAT BRUTALITY. HE EMBRACES IT. AT THE HEART OF HIS WILLINGNESS TO SAY THAT THESE ARE HORRIBLE CONDITIONS, AND YOU HAVE TO READ THE OPINIONS TO SEE HOW HORRIBLE SOME OF THESE CONDITIONS ARE, THAT THE WILLINGNESS TO EMBRACE IT IS THIS VERY DYSTOPIAN VIEW THAT PUNISHMENT CREATES THE CONDITIONS FOR HEROIC BLACK MORAL MEN TO RISE AND HELP TO LIFT UP THE COMMUNITY.
Edit: And the hits just keep on coming:
THIS IS SOMETHING THAT CAME UP AFTER I HAD FINISHED THE BOOK. HE HAS WRITTEN ABOUT THIS IN THE PAST, BUT THERE WAS AN OPINION THIS LAST SPRING WHERE HE SEES ABORTION AND BIRTH CONTROL AS A FORM OF WHITE EUGENICS.
Edit (fuck, last one, I swear) Aaaaand:
THE WHITE CONSTITUTION IS SOMETHING WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT — WHICH IS A MUCH BLEAKER VERSION, THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION. THAT IS WHERE THOMAS SEEMS TO ARGUE, IF YOU EMPOWER THE STATES, NOT LIMIT THEM, PARTICULARLY THE POWER TO PUNISH, TO IMPRISON, TO POLICE AND SO FORTH, BLACK MEN WILL ESSENTIALLY GET THEIR ACT TOGETHER.
So, he’s also, essentially, an accelerationist. I wonder what his Reddit handle is.