Justice Clarence Thomas says blacks didn’t think about race in the 1950s South.

[kpete]

Pre-Racial
Justice Clarence Thomas says blacks didn’t think about race in the 1950s South.
By Dahlia Lithwick

"we are probably today more race- and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school.”


Segregated drinking fountains in North Carolina in 1950.



"To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Ga., to go to a white school. Rarely did the issue of race come up. … Now, name a day it doesn’t come up. Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah. Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person. Somebody has said something that has hurt their feelings or did something to them—left them out."



Students hold a sign reading "Woodlawn Boycott ... We hate niggers" in downtown Birmingham, Ala., after cutting classes at Woodlawn High School on Sept. 10, 1957. About 100 white students refused to go to school as integration tension plagued the city.



“The worst I have been treated,” Thomas went on to add, “was by Northern liberal elites.”

Sarah Jean Collins, 12, was hospitalized by a dynamite explosion set off in the basement of her Birmingham, Ala., church on Sept. 15, 1963, that killed her sister and three other girls as their Sunday school class was ending.



MORE:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/02/clarence_thomas_childhood_in_georgia_images_and_video_of_the_south_show.html

[bettyellen]

1. what a liar. unfucking believeable.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

23. He is that, a liar. A justice, and a liar. nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

83. Or deeper in denial than anyone I can think of.

[steve2470]

2. he's such a liar nt

[randome]

3. Well, I'm not black but...what the fuck?

Why are there so many stupid people in the world?
[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[shenmue]

4. Sigh

[liberal N proud]

51. He is not stupid, just willfully ignorant

[brush]

55. And on the Supreme Court, and is never curious enough to ask questions during arguments. God! nt

[kwolf68]

5. Northern Liberal elites

in some cases GAVE THEIR LIVES for civil rights. Fuck this POS.

[ProSense]

6. Clarence Thomas

is a despicable cretin.

[3catwoman3]

8. You are much too...

...kind. I have trouble thinking of a word derogatory enough to adequately describe him.

[malaise]

46. And even that is a compliment

[noiretextatique]

88. on this we can agree

He is an idiot.

[Xipe Totec]

7. Deaf, Dumb, and Color Blind. nt

[elleng]

9. they thought about survival.

[IllinoisBirdWatcher]

10. and he would be jailed for trying to marry his current wife...

I'm sure he would have looked at that as a mere "slight" through his prison bars. Right. Also.

Thomas represents the best of the mental giants of the wingnuts.

[hedda_foil]

40. He wouldn't have gotten as far as the jail.

He'd have been lynched with her daddy holding the rope.

He married the whitest woman he could find. Her skin verged on albino.

[jwirr]

56. Or lynched for even daring to court her. How did he get so dumbed down if he lived through the

40-50s?

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

11. when I was a young girl in the south

There was a gas station nearby where we could walk to get a coke. It had 3 restrooms. Men, Women, and Colored. I did not understand it.

[UTUSN]

12. Clarence *said* something?!1 In what venue?!1 n/t

[Lifelong Protester]

13. Yeah, right.

What an ass.

[MrScorpio]

14. Thomas is the product of someone who's ashamed of walking around wearing Black skin in America...

[Capt. Obvious]

15. They were too busy thinking about

picking crops well enough to avoid being convict leased to death.

[Capt. Obvious]

16. Was Scalia drinking a glass of water when Thomas said that?

[11 Bravo]

61. Yup. He also appeared to be scratching Clarence's hemorrhoids for him ... or something.

[Bjorn Against]

17. What a tool, he knows that what he is saying is bullshit

Thomas and his wife get nice gifts for saying what the big money right-wingers want him to say though, the guy is totally sold out.

[GigiMommy]

18. He's an idiot

Clarence Thomas is a flat out fool. How dare he wear the Judicial Robe of the highest court in the land. I wouldn't let him judge a dog show.

[Le Taz Hot]

19. Says the man that took

the late, great, Thurgood Marshall's seat on the Supreme Court. It makes you weep, doesn't it?

[yardwork]

71. Thurgood Marshall was thinking about race in the 1950s.

I'll never forgive Herbert Walker for putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. Could be the most cynical act by a politician in my life time.

[noiretextatique]

89. so true, yardwork

His nomination was a slap in the face to the legacy of the great Thurgood Marshall, to black people, and to all americans who oppose racism as the natural order. A cynical ploy indeed.

[yardwork]

97. Indeed.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

20. Remember when someone threw a fit over the Clarence Thomas praising the KKK meme last year?

That wasn't parody, people.

What a fucking disgrace he is.

[tavernier]

21. There's only one explanation ...

While attending a circus side show at the age of ten, he was pulled from the audience by a hypnotist and told that he was Thurston Howell the third... and he's never snapped out of it.

Freakin' dumb ass.

[Luminous Animal]

22. Biden facilitated this idiot's confirmation.

Does Thomas have no clue that Thurgood Marshall argued civil rights cases in front of the Supreme Court in the 1940s?

[kath]

62. Yeah, thanks Biden!

What Biden did during the confirmation process is unforgivable. What an asshat he was.

[diane in sf]

24. sure they didn't...

[Benton D Struckcheon]

25. Hmm.

Short reading list for him, since he seems to have sailed through the 60's without noticing what was going on, somehow:

To Kill A Mockingbird.
Harper Lee was thinking about race, as were all the characters, black and white.
Why We Can't Wait.
MLK was thinking about race. As were all the people who marched and boycotted and all the rest with him, black and white.

Sigh.

[Fawke Em]

58. Drove my son to school today while he was reading

"To Kill a Mockingbird."

[RKP5637]

26. What an ignorant statement! n/t

[alittlelark]

27. Gotta be a personality disorder....

... he will be stuck in that 'Wanna be White' wonderland for the rest of his life. His skewed thought processes are reinforced by Scalia and whatever sycophants are scurrying about.

Guarantee - he was chosen because of his personality disorder.

[CherokeeDem]

28. I grew up in South Carolina....

and I have no clue what this idiot is talking about. I was born in Aiken, and we used to go to Augusta, GA on Saturday mornings. My mother loved to shop at the department stores, and we would have breakfast at the dime store. It was a treat for me. I could get a coke and doughnut on Saturday mornings. We went in the front door and ate at the front counter. The blacks entered from a side door in the back and ate at a separate counter. I'm sure they didn't think about race...

There is an old pillar that sits on 5th Street in Augusta... it's reported to be from an old market that was destroyed, but someone put one of the pillars back up. Legend has it is a pillar where slaves were tied to be sold. I remember asking my father what it was and told me that story. I didn't want to walk past it after that. But I'm sure the blacks walking the streets of Augusta didn't think about race as they walked past that stone pillar.

My mother hired a woman to make slipcovers for a couch during the summer when I was about five or six. The woman was really nice, and I liked her and when it came time for lunch, I wanted her to eat with my mom and me. She refused, said it wouldn't be right. My mom told her we would be happy to have her join us... but she sat on the back steps eating her lunch from a brown paper bag, sitting there in there in her nicely pressed print dress. I bet she didn't think about race when she thought it wasn't right to eat with the white folk.

I have been appalled by Clarence Thomas since he was appointed to the Supreme Court. At one time, I actually believe that the people who served on the Supreme Court were intelligent, honorable people who would uphold the Constitution and protect the people. I was wrong. That ended when this ignorant excuse for a man became a justice of the Supreme Court.

A sad day, indeed...

[catrose]

32. I attended a Catholic girls school in Louisiana

My class had fewer than 10 blacks in a class of 50. On our senior trip to Florida, the black girls were debating whether they could go eat at a certain diner. It took us lily whites a few minutes to understand that yes, they were thinking about race.

Clarence didn't?

[CherokeeDem]

36. He is either delusional or a fool....

or both. Another poster said he lived in a delusional 'white' world. I doubt he even considers he isn't white.

Hard to believe....

[npk]

29. Clarence led a sheltered life

Of course his rose colored glasses saw nothing but perfect sunshiny days.

[gerogie2]

30. CT is a useful idiot

I'm still so upset that the Senate approved this man for SCOTUS.

[Historic NY]

31. Really where was Slappy living on Mars....

I was a little kid and saw it first hand in Memphis and in Greenville Mississippi in 1965.

[sakabatou]

33. WTF?!

[proudretiredvet]

34. I do not believe what he said is true.

But I would love to sit and ask him questions about his context of that statement. AS in where the hell did that come from???

[Bortman33]

35. Well, there were only three lynchings

of blacks in the 60's, which was 50% less then the 50's, and since Clarence wasn't one of them, it must have been okay! Not to mention the list of 15 race riots below the lynching chart - naw, there were no problems between whites and Clarence in the 60's.

Thanks to the Chestnutarchive.org for the following table

Year Blacks
Lynched

1884 51
1885 74
1886 74
1887 70
1888 69
1889 94
1890 85
1891 113
1892 161
1893 118
1894 134
1895 113
1896 78
1897 123
1898 101
1899 85
1900 106
1901 105
1902 85
1903 84
1904 76
1905 57
1906 62
1907 58
1908 89
1909 69
1910 67
1911 60
1912 62
1913 51
1914 51
1915 56
1916 50
1917 36
1918 60
1919 76
1920 53
1921 59
1922 51
1923 29
1924 16
1925 17
1926 23
1927 16
1928 10
1929 7
1930 20
1931 12
1932 6
1933 24
1934 15
1935 18
1936 8
1937 8
1938 6
1939 2
1940 4
1941 4
1942 6
1943 3
1944 2
1945 1
1946 6
1947 1
1948 1
1949 3
1950 1
1951 1
1952 0
1953 0
1954 0
1955 3
1956 0
1957 0
1958 0
1959 1
1960 0
1961 1
1962 0
1963 1
1964 1
1965 0
1966 0
1967 0
1968 0

Rochester 1964 race riot 24–26 July 1964[6]

Harlem Riot of 1964 16-22 July 1964, New York City, New York, provoked by the NYPDs shooting of black teenager James Powell.

Philadelphia 1964 race riot 28–30 August 1964, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Allegations of police brutality sparked the Columbia Avenue race riots.[6]

Watts Riots 11 August 1965, Los Angeles, California, USA, The McCone Commission investigated the riots finding that causes included poverty, inequality, racial discrimination and the passage, in November 1964, of Proposition 14 on the California ballot overturning the Rumford Fair Housing Act, which established equality of opportunity for black home buyers.[7]

Hough Riots 18 July 1966, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, The underlying causes of the riots may found in the social conditions that exist in the ghettos of Cleveland.[8]

Racial tension in Omaha, Nebraska 5 July 1966, North Omaha, Nebraska, USA, More than 500 black youth gathered to protest the absence of recreation programs and jobs storm a local business district, throwing rocks and bricks at Jewish-owned businesses in the area. The National Guard is called in after three days of random violence and organized raids.[9]

1967 Newark riots 12 July 1967, Newark, New Jersey, USA, Factors that contributed to the Newark Riot: police brutality, political exclusion of blacks from city government, urban renewal, inadequate housing, unemployment, poverty, and rapid change in the racial composition of neighborhoods.[10]

1967 Plainfield riots 14 July 1967, Plainfield, New Jersey, USA 12th Street riot 23 July 1967, Detroit, Michigan, USA, The origins of urban unrest in Detroit were rooted in a multitude of political, economic, and social factors including police abuse, lack of affordable housing, urban renewal projects, economic inequality, black militancy, and rapid demographic change.[11]

Minneapolis-Saint Paul USA, Fall 1967. Racial tensions boil over in North Minneapolis as whites continue to leave the decaying core of the inner city bound for the suburbs.

1968 Chicago, Illinois riots 4 April 1968 Violence erupted in Chicago's black ghetto on the west side, eventually consuming a 28-block stretch of West Madison Street. Looting and arson took place primarily in the corridor between Roosevelt Road on the south and Chicago Avenue on the north.

1968 Washington, D.C. riots 4 April 1968, Washington, D.C., USA, A report from National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders identified discrimination and poverty as the root causes of the riots that erupted in cities around the nation during the late 1960s and in Washington, DC in April 1968[12]

Baltimore riot of 1968 4 April 1968, Baltimore, Maryland,

USA Glenville Shootout 23 July 1968, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, Shootout between black militant organization led by Ahmed Evans and Cleveland Police Department attracted large and hostile black crowds that caused a 4 day long riot Stonewall riots June 1969, New York City, New York, a turning point for the modern U.S. gay rights movement.

1969 North 24th Street Riots 24 June 1969, North Omaha, Nebraska USA, An Omaha police officer fatally shoots a teenager in the back of the head during a gathering of youth in local public housing projects. Many youth and adults from the local African American community gather in the local business district, routinely burning and otherwise destroying non-Black-owned businesses.[13]

[noiretextatique]

91. +10000

Excellent post.

[Major Nikon]

37. Up until he was 19 yrs old, CT wouldn't have been able to marry his current wife in GA

All the Southern states had anti-miscegenation laws and they were still on the books in the South as late as 2001. Even in 1967 nothing would have changed in the South had it not been for the SCOTUS decision.

The smartest thing CT does is keep his mouth shut.

[struggle4progress]

38. If Roberts thinks he "was the first black kid in Savannah .. to go to a white school"

he wasn't paying attention then and hasn't bothered to learn his hometown history since

Integration of Savannah schools began in the Fall of 1963, and it was big news at the time. Thomas first enrolled in the previously all-white Catholic high school, St. John Vianney Minor Seminary, a year later in the Fall of 1964

1963, desegregation changed the lives of 19 Savannah teens, society
Posted: August 17, 2013 - 11:44pm | Updated: August 18, 2013 - 8:02am

[Downwinder]

39. Clarence was born in 1948, he does not remember the 1950s.

[madrchsod]

43. i was born in 47 and i remember the 50s

i remember going through the south on vacation and seeing "white only" signs.all black communities on the edge of all white towns. he remembers alright but he thinks he`s accepted. my black friend had to saying about guys like clarence

[SummerSnow]

41. what an ass

[theHandpuppet]

42. Clarence, get thee to a psychiatrist...

... if it isn't already too late.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

44. I can not believe this man sits on the highest court in the land.

[johnlucas]

45. We went from Thurgood Marshall to THIS?! His last name is definitely appropriate.

Yes, Thomas.
They updated it now & call it Ruckus.

Back in the day, Clarence would be hanged from a tree for even LOOKING AT much less marrying & having sex with his White wife.
He's a disgrace to everything that makes sense.
Throw in a Clayton Bigsby reference while you're at it.

kpete, thanks for putting the pictures to highlight how full of shit his words are.
A Black man from The South talking like THIS?!
Sorry MF'n sellout!
John Lucas

P.S.: I'm a Black man born in 1976. My grandmother was scared of me going to a town called Ludowici, Georgia in the 1990s!!
That's because she remembers how it was back then. But Clarence somehow doesn't. Tired of these Toms & Ruckuses.

[JHB]

47. The reason Thomas was put on the SC was...

Last edited Thu Jun 2, 2016, 07:34 PM - Edit history (1)

...NOT because he was the most qualified jurist. He wasn't.
...NOT because he was the most qualified black jurist. He wasn't.
...NOT because he was the most qualified black conservative jurist. He wasn't.

He was the most qualified black conservative with reliable but obfuscatable views on abortion & other subjects, and was young enough that he'd stay on the court for decades.

The Democratic senators were initially ready to give him a pass, since 1) they didn't look forward to another SC nomination battle, and 2) initially the black community was receptive to Thomas -- not enthusiastic, but not inclined to oppose -- and a fight against him wouldn't be well received.

At the time I thought Thomas should have been voted down just because of his lackluster record and ignoring conflict of interest (Thomas failed to recuse himself in a case involving the Ralston Purina company, where his political mentor Sen. John Danforth owned millions in stock and had brothers on the board of directors. Thomas' decision in favor of Purina directly benefited his pals).

Black opinion didn't shift until later in the process, after Thurgood Marshall made his "a black snake is still a snake" comment. The senators were finally forced to take a harder line when the harassment charges leaked out, and giving Thomas a pass would piss off another Democratic constituency: women fighting workplace harassment.

But all that happened too late: by that point conservatives were ginned up in support and the rest of the establishment didn't want another high-profile fight, so the Thomas hearings were kept to a he-said-she-said with Anita Hill (Angela Wright was shunted off to the side), giving the senators their excuse to just put it behind them.

So here we are, a quarter-century later, and he's still a lackluster jurist who ignores conflicts of interest, and is a reliable conservative operative in the courts.

[theHandpuppet]

57. Great summation.

Thanks.

[gollygee]

48. Except for the Jim Crow Laws, lynching,

limited opportunities, inability to vote, and overall terrorism.

[catrose]

59. My grandmother was right proud of my daddy, her son

because he didn't go beat up blacks on Saturday night, like all the other white boys did. He was too smart, she said. I like to think he was a decent person.

Clarence spent his youth unaware of Saturday night in the South?

[Dirty Socialist]

49. Uncle Tom

'Nuff said.

[TexasProgresive]

50. He's right

for himself because he just doesn't think. He doesn't think about racism or anything for that matter.

At least that my take from his stellar performance as a Supreme Court Justice.

[n2doc]

52. Savannah is STILL incredibly segregated

Race is STILL an issue here. Go to hell, you POS. Worst Supreme Court Justice of our time.

[JRLeft]

53. He's a token in the repuke party.

[lostincalifornia]

54. Clarence Thomas is where he is today because of the Civil Rights Movement. He has a problem with

that. It is no different Phyllis Schlafly campaigning against the Equal Rights Amendment

and no different then those who yell and scream against Social Security and Medicare, yet have no problem getting that monthly Social Security Check, and healthcare they could not afford without those programs

Hypocrisy runs strong in those who have benefited from society where it takes a village. They got theirs, and they will be damned if they will help anyone else will be afforded the same opportunities they have been given

[deutsey]

60. GHWB's legacy lives on

[Blue_Tires]

63. Thomas has just been in the ivory tower so many years

he's forgotten what the view looks like from ground level

[jsr]

64. Why, Clarence Thomas had no idea he was black.

[noiretextatique]

67. and he still doesn't

I knew a few black people like him in college, including Thomas Sowell's daughter. Can't help but feel sorry for them on a personal level. However, Thomas is a delusional liar...with power. He deserves to be crucified for his crazy comments.

[noiretextatique]

86. no, I am not talking about lynching...to the person who alerted

I mean he should be crucified by the press. Thanks to all the jurors who can read.

[raven mad]

65. I grew up in the 1950's south.

He's lying.

[noiretextatique]

66. he's the perfect lackey

And a delusional LIAR to boot. I believe he truly "believes" this because he sees himself as an exception. No way in hell was he welcomed to an all-white school with open arms. That's fantasy...perhaps a defense against the awful reality. Either way...he is a disgrace.

[Quayblue]

92. he probably shucked and jived

And thought not twice about it

[noiretextatique]

93. perhaps...Stockholm syndrome is more likely

The oppressed identifies with the oppressor. Self-hatred and delusion all wrapped up in a bow. Pathetic.

[Quayblue]

94. you're probably right

I'm probably not as empathic because he is more intelligent than he lets on.

gonna read more on Stockholm... Thanks

[noiretextatique]

95. not so sure about his intelligence

he is a useful tool for the rw. I believe they picked a dumbass buffoon who is forever beholden, and always votes accordingly. He knows he is a mental midget and a fraud.

[Autumn]

68. Clarence must have been good friends with the duck guy.

[lancer78]

69. Clarence Thomas's twin

From the Boondocks

[mucifer]

70. The koch brothers probably pay him to say that.

[LiberalAndProud]

72. Things like this make me wonder what a different world we would live in if

Alexander Bickel had been Chief Justice and Earl Warren had been a professor at Yale.

Something happened to Clarence at Holy Cross and Yale Law School and whatever it was, it didn't make him a better person or impart to him a clearer vision.

[barbtries]

73. somewhere yesterday i read

that Thomas is extremely intelligent. i don't believe it. he is an extreme asshole however.

[laundry_queen]

75. Something interesting I read about psychopaths and sociopaths

is that they often appear more intelligent than they really are. IQ-wise, their IQs are in keeping with the normal distribution in the general population. However, most people with empathy use large portions of their brains for worrying and empathising and thinking about other people (their reactions, body language, guarding against their distress). Psychopaths/sociopaths don't use those parts of their brains so the theory is they may have more 'brain power' for other things, like memorizing/recall and thus 'appear' to be more intelligent (and may do very well in a school setting).

[noiretextatique]

87. ha!

his 'intelligence' is a rw lie. He is a buffoon.

[barbtries]

98. i think it was TPM

are they going the way of NPR, bought out by the right?

[Ikonoklast]

74. Clarence Thomas would be mightily surprised if he could hear what his fellow conservatives call

him behind his back.

He might think they don't use that word to describe him because he is useful to them and does their bidding, but he would be wrong.

[libdem4life]

76. Troglodytes are racially neutral, I hear.

[Botany]

77. Thomas does not care about the facts because he and his wife are well paid to play their parts ...

.... and to protect the right wing and the rich and powerful. The man doesn't give a
shit what people think about him. He is without shame.




BTW in the south of the 1950s he might have been lynched for having a white wife.

[Jamastiene]

78. He must have had blinders on then.

That is utterly fucking ridiculous.

[Iggo]

79. Well gosh, if he says so, it must be true...right?

[riqster]

80. A preeve and a liar. Christ in a teapot.

[c588415]

81. Justice Clarence Thomas (AKA) Uncle Rukus, is an

Uncle Tom.

[bravenak]

82. He talks?

Surprising. Thought they told him to keep quiet and vote with Alito.

Hope he retires.

[AverageJoe90]

84. Thomas is utterly deluded, I'm afraid.

He may not have been then, but he is now. And if he wasn't, something happened to this man along the ride to the USSC because it's obvious he's become blind to reality.....which is sad, but the fact that he's become a bit of a hard-right sociopath probably plays into it as well.

[3catwoman3]

85. It must be hard to see things...

...as they really are when you've got your head up your ass.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

90. He must have been really good at eating his peas...and a lot of shit.

[tabasco]

96. When you run off to vote for Nader or some other asshole...

just remember - this is the type of idiot that gets appointed to our highest court when Dems lose.