Opinion
Clarence Thomas’s Deep-Seated Jealousy
F
or someone who seems to
revel in being silent during
the Supreme Court’s tradi-
tionally lively oral arguments –
when a public display of his pro-
fessional competence would be
appropriate – Clarence Thomas’s
out-of-court
comments
are
extraordinarily reveal ing. They
show a man whose exalted posi-
tion has brought him no inner
peace, a man who continues to see
himself as being victimized by
this or that person or cabal.
Last week, it came to light that
during an early-April interview
with C-SPAN, Thomas tried to
diminish President Obama’s
achievements. Asked about
Obama’s being the nation’s first
Black president, Thomas said, “I
always knew that it would have to
be a Black president who was
approved by the elites and the
media because anybody that they
didn’t agree with, they would take
apart.”
He went on to say “that will hap-
pen with virtually, you pick your
person, any Black person who
says something that is not the pre-
scribed things that they expect
from a Black person will be
picked apart. You can pick any-
body, don’t pick me, pick anyone
who has decided not to go along
with it. There’s a price to pay. So I
always assumed it would be some-
body the media had to agree
with.”
Thomas didn’t identify which
NNPA C OLUMNIST
Lee A. Daniels
“elites” and which “media” he was
referring to.
But presumably the latter does-
n’t include Fox News or the Wall
Street Journal and other conserva-
tive-leaning newspapers and
publications nor the innumerable
conservative pundits and talk-
show jockeys that have been
hammering Obama since he won
the Democratic nomination in
2008.
And presumably the elites don’t
include the long-list of wealthy
conservative elites who’ve spent
millions upon millions opposing
the president’s initiatives and his
re-election. But then, Clarence
Thomas has never been one to let
facts undermine his raging self-
pity.
We’ve seen this facet of
Thomas’s character ever since he
used that ugly phrase, “high tech
lynching,” during his 1991 Senate
confirmation hearings. That
phrase came from a man who had
become a conservative favorite by
asserting that Black liberals
always unjustifiably blamed
racism for Black Americans’ trou-
bles.
We later learned by his own
words that that self-pity had long
been a part of his character, when
he revealed that all through col-
lege and law school he never vol-
untarily spoke up in class because
he felt classmates would make fun
of his deep Southern accent.
One need not have gone to an
elite college and law school, as
Thomas did, nor be a psychiatrist,
to have immediately considered
that Thomas neither got over his
embarrassment about his accent
nor sought out a language special-
ist to help him get rid of it
precisely because he wanted to
hold onto it – the better to feed his
ident.
Clarence Thomas drew no job
offers from law firms when he
graduated in 1974. He’s claimed
this was the result of the “taint” of
affirmative action. But numerous
articles over the years have shown
that Thomas’s Black Yale Law
peers have a decidedly different
view of their experience.
One such article, in The Ameri-
can Lawyer, of June 2, 2008, “Did
Affirmative Action Really Hinder
Clarence Thomas?,” available on
Personal and professional jealousy is
always unseemly – the more so in a
Justice of the United States Supreme
Court.
seeing himself as a victim.
In fact, Thomas’s attempt to
diminish the president just under-
scores what they have – and don’t
have – in common.
Both men are products of elite
colleges and law schools. But
while Thomas hid behind a self-
perceived
“defect,”
Barack
Obama took an active role in the
life of the institutions he attended.
At Harvard, he sought and won
membership on the law review,
and then, the approval of the
review’s members to be their pres-
the web site Law.com, should be
required reading. It found “in
interviews with a dozen African-
American lawyers who attended
Yale in the same years” that they
described their Yale experience
“in largely positive – even glow-
ing – terms.”
The most striking contrast
between Clarence Thomas and
Barack Obama, of course, is what
they’ve done after law school.
Thomas, taken up by then-Sena-
tor John Danforth, a Missouri
Republican, shortly after gradua-
tion, has been a government
appointee his entire adult career –
while declaring that Blacks as a
group are too dependent on the
government. With, at best, mini-
mal qualifications he was
appointed to the two most presti-
gious positions in the federal
judiciary, the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the District of Colum-
bia, and less than two years later,
the Supreme Court.
Barack Obama, on the other
hand, spurned lucrative offers
from law firms and potential fed-
eral court clerkships, to become a
community organizer in Chicago.
There, he began his career of
standing for elective office at the
local, statewide, and national
level. His galvanic speech at the
2004 Democratic National Con-
vention instantly made him a
future presidential contender. He
won the presidency twice in the
toughest kind of combat outside of
actual warfare by out-thinking and
out-organizing his Republican
opposition to garner the approval
of millions of voters.
Personal and professional jeal-
ousy is always unseemly – the
more so in a Justice of the United
States Supreme Court.
Lee A. Daniels is a longtime
journalist based in New York Ciry.
His most recent book is Last
Chance: The Political Threat to
Black America.
Blacks Underepresented in Immigration Debate
T
he Senate’s Gang of Eight
have put together an 844-
page monstrosity known as
the Border Security, Economic
Opportunity and Immigration
Modernization Act, legislation
that President Obama says he
“basically approves” of. The
crafters of this essentially unread-
able bill was put together by
Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.),
Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Chuck
Schumer (D-N.Y.), Michael Ben-
nett (D-Col.), Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.),
John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lind-
say Graham (R-S.C.).
On its surface, the bill provides
much-needed relief to many of the
11 million undocumented people
who live in our country. The chal-
lenge is that it disadvantages some
immigrants, especially African
and Caribbean immigrants, while
helping others.
Further, the Senators crafting
the bill put goodies into the bill
that only serve to advantage
themselves or their states. Sena-
tor Lindsay Graham wants more
visas for the meat packing indus-
try. Senator Charles Schumer
provided special provisions for
Irish people with a high school
diploma (why?), Senator Marco
Rubio, the much touted possible
presidential candidate in 2016,
asked for more visas for the cruise
ship industry, and Senators
Michael Bennett wants more visas
for workers in ski resorts.
Meanwhile, the legislation
would eliminate the Diversity Visa
Program, which allows a visa lot-
tery for countries that have low
levels (less than 50,000 people) of
B ENNETT
C OLLEGE
Julianne
Malveaux
immigration to the United States.
Many African immigrants come
here through this program (Ghana
and Nigeria each had 6,000 immi-
grants through this program in
2011; African immigrants are 36
percent of those receiving diversi-
ty visas). Thus, while Senator
Schumer pushes for special provi-
sions for Irish immigrants, there is
no one on the Senate side pushing
for special provisions for African
and Caribbean immigrants.
Instead of the Diversity Visa
to provide fewer opportunities for
those from Africa and the
Caribbean. Senator Schumer’s
special provision for the Irish car-
ries no stipulation that these
people be employed, essentially
granting them a pass from the
merit-based point system.
Many hi-tech companies use the
H-1B visa program on the grounds
that there is a shortage of skilled
workers in the United States.
There is evidence that this claim is
specious and that employers pre-
fer foreign workers who they can
pay less and control more. The
new legislation will prevent
employers from holding workers
hostage because their continuing
employment is necessary in order
to keep their visa. The new legis-
lation gives H-1B 60 days to find
a new job. But why do we have
H-1B visas at all. With unemploy-
Exactly who will have more economic
opportunity? And is immigration really
being modernized when it locks foreign-
born Black people out of the process?
Program, the Senate Bill 744 cre-
ates between 120,000 and 200,000
visas on a “merit based” system,
which gives highest priority to
those who have future employ-
ment opportunities.
Because
employers do not seek out African
and Caribbean immigrants for
employees (as they seek out Indi-
an and Chinese employees), the
merit-based point system is likely
ment over 7 percent, and Black
unemployment over 13 percent,
surely there are unemployed peo-
ple who could work effectively in
technology companies. Howard
University economist Bill Sprigs
has written that there are propor-
tionately more African American
students majoring in computer sci-
ence than White. Many of these
graduates cannot find jobs. Mean-
while, African and Caribbean
immigrants get just a small per-
centage of H-1B visas.
The Immigration Modernization
bill will spend $4.5 billion in an
attempt to secure the southern bor-
der, which will “secure” our
country from Mexican immi-
President Obama has had a bad
year, so far. He didn’t get his way
on gun control, and he’s been
kicked around by an obstructionist
House of Representatives. He
needs immigration reform to ful-
fill promises he made to the Latino
community during his campaign.
... there is no one on the Senate side
pushing for special provisions for
African and Caribbean immigrants.
grants, but ignores the northern
border, which makes our country
more open to Canadian immigra-
tion.
Of course, Canadian
immigrants are more likely to be
White, and thus less feared, than
Mexican immigrants. The Con-
gressional Black Caucus is one of
many groups that suggest that this
$4.5 billion could be more effec-
tively spent, perhaps on STEM
education.
The immigration bill is by no
means final. The House of Repre-
sentatives still has to vote on it,
and many of them will add amend-
ments and exceptions to take care
of their “pet” causes. Meanwhile,
President Obama has been urging
Democrats to accept the immigra-
tion bill as it is, because too many
amendments may jeopardize the
bill. For example, Senator Patrick
Leahy (D-Vt.) would like to pro-
pose an amendment that would
allow gay Americans to sponsor
their partners for green cards. The
Judiciary Committee is likely to
pass this amendment, but the
whole Senate might not pass it.
May 8, 2013
But the unwieldy 844-page piece
of legislation contains lots of pro-
visions that don’t pass the smell
test. It makes it more difficult for
African and Caribbean immi-
grants to become citizens of the
United States.
The African American commu-
nity must take a closer look at this
legislation. If Senator Schumer
can give 10,000 Irish immigrants
the open door, how many Africans
and Caribbeans will he make
exceptions for? At the very mini-
mum, Congress should restore the
Diversity Visa program. The bill
is called the Border Security, Eco-
nomic
Opportunity
and
Immigration Modernization Act.
Exactly who will have more eco-
nomic opportunity?
And is
immigration really being modern-
ized when it locks foreign-born
Black people out of the process?
Julianne Malveaux is a Wash-
ington, D.C.-based economist and
writer. She is President Emerita of
Bennett College for Women in
Greensboro, N.C.
The Portland Skanner
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