10-11-07, 9:43 am

During the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, a woman I was seeing at the time remarked how they always go after Black men in high positions. I recall telling her that while that was usually true, in this case she and no-doubt many other Blacks are misinterpreting this drama.

From what I gathered from watching his interview with 60 Minutes, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas seems to be implying in some roundabout way that his mother and grandfather didn’t love him. The horrible past he describes is lost on me. Understand, he was raised in southern Georgia. His mother was too busy working in the clam business and struggling to make ends meet to come home and feed her little clam Clarence and his brother. So she sent him to be raised by her father. Not uncommon back then for Black families (not that Clarence would notice).


Thomas’ grandfather made a relatively good living selling fuel oil to the townsfolk, taught young Clarence and his brother life-skills, and through it all Clarence feels that only his grandfather “cared” about him. Let me see now: live in a big house, grandfather a stable and gainfully employed Black man, work on a farm, get visits from mom and eat all the clams you want. And you’re Black and living in the old south. Hmmm… We got a deal.

I really wish I were the one conducting that interview. Was Justice Thomas harboring some animus toward granddad? Doctor Stevenson detected something was afoot with Thomas’ emphasis on his father insisting he couldn’t look a white woman in the eye on his journeys into town. Bam! It wasn’t the clams that Clarence wanted to shuck, it was the oysters, white oysters. Look them in the eye? Shucks Clarence would eventually become a virtual white woman Cyclops.

Thomas also tries to voice some mock outrage over his gramp’s involvement with the local NAACP (as if that were any of his business) and church because he felt they weren’t really serving in the best interest of blacks (don’t let him fool you, it was the white women). Little did granddad realize what a fiery pro-black radical he was rearing.

Clarence, take it from me, aside from his booting you over quitting seminary school, your pops was OK. His warning you about looking a white woman in the eye wasn’t meant to be as burdensome as 'don’t leave the toilet seat down'; it was all about keeping you and your brother alive. How was he to know of your lofty goals of marrying a white woman and sexually harassing black women? Who could realize what a renaissance man you’d become?

I have to say that after 16 years of watching you in action (and inaction) that frankly you’re killing me. Clarence Thomas you are killing me. I don’t know if I can put it any clearer. It seems the trials of a middle child eventually developed into selfish resentments that evolved into vengeful court rulings. Perhaps had you reserved your anger for your biological father who deserted your mother, siblings and yourself, you might have turned out different. At first I was going to buy the book, I mean normally I make it a rule to support black authors. But though as he says, he is a black man, Justice Thomas is neither a black judge nor a black author.

--Chris Stevenson is a columnist for the Buffalo Criterion.Contact him at