In this
book, Corey Robin investigates Clarence Thomas’ jurisprudence through three
lenses: race, capitalism, and the Constitution. Robin is a liberal, and he
offers a critical look at Thomas’ opinions, though I think he also does a good
job of explaining them in a fair way. I finished the book with a greater
understanding of and more respect for the Supreme Court justice. You learn a
lot about Thomas the judge and Thomas the person because his upbringing, according
to Robin, had a big effect on his philosophy.
Thomas
was born in Pin Point, Georgia and lived in that community until he was about
seven years old, when his family moved to Savannah. He lived the rest of his
childhood and teenage years there before moving to Massachusetts to study at
and desegregate Holy Cross College. Robin writes that, “In college, Thomas wore
a Panthers-style leather jacket and beret. He sported Black Power buttons,
including one that said, “No Vietnamese ever called me Nigger” (attributed,
wrongly, to Muhammad Ali). He signed his letters “Power to the People.” He
championed the cause of Black Panther leaders and of Communist Party member
Angela Davis, in flight from the government after being charged in connection
with a politically fraught kidnapping and murder.” He was truly a radical on
the left wing of the Democratic Party. But during college, he became
disillusioned with liberal ideas for race relations. He decided that racism would
always exist and that he preferred the racism of the South, which was obvious
and apparent, to the racism of the North, which was hidden. He preferred that
cruel honesty.
Thomas is
not a big believer in integration if he believes in it at all. For example, he
dissented in one case in which the Court ruled against racial segregation in
California prisons. Thomas argued in his dissent that it is reasonable to
respond to the social reality of racism by segregating prisoners, which he
thinks keeps them safe. Thomas sees separation as necessary to black success. He
points out that under Jim Crow, blacks could become successful and develop
their own capitalist middle class. Under integration, they ended up buying most
products from white people. He would perhaps support optional integration, rather
than the legally enforced integration of Brown v Board. Thomas is quoted
when speaking of his own youth that, “the problem with segregation was not that
we didn’t have white people in our class. The problem was that we didn’t have
equal facilities. We didn’t have heating, we didn’t have books, and we had
rickety chairs.… All my classmates and I wanted was the choice to attend a
mostly black or a mostly white school, and to have the same resources in
whatever school we chose.” The author Corey Robin writes, partially quoting
Thomas that, “Thomas believes that the very fact of race mixing can be a harm
to black people. When white liberals trumpet the benefits of diversity—thinking
mostly of the white students who will go on to lead a diverse society, or of
abject black students in desperate need of exposure to the mind and manners of
whites—they overlook the fact that ‘racial (and other sorts of) heterogeneity
actually impairs learning among black students.’” I understand Thomas’
perspective as trying to get out from under the system to create a parallel,
rather than rising up within the system. It makes me think of Jews and Native
Americans, who tend to be pushed out, rather than just down in white society.
There’s
a really strong theme in the book of the powerful and defiant black patriarch,
which Robin sources to Thomas’ maternal grandfather, Myles Anderson. He
respected that his grandfather created his own business and succeeded under Jim
Crow and developed a preference for a free market, entrepreneurial economy,
because black businesses offer ways to achieve autonomy and control. Thomas recalls
his grandfather telling him that, “Once you accept [aid from the government]
they can ask you whatever they want to. They can tell you whatever they want
to. They can come into your home whenever they want to. They can tell you who
can come and who can go, and I’d prefer to starve to death first,” and that “I
never took a penny from the government because it takes your manhood away.” Robin
says that Thomas’ goal is to persuade black people and especially black men to
give up the idea that politics can improve their situation since they are such
a small part of the population and to focus their effort on the economy, which
offers African Americans more opportunities. This is where I really couldn’t
understand Thomas, since the economy and politics are so closely tied together.
Power in one is inherently tied to power in the other. I do, however, understand
the basic idea of manhood and why taking government money can diminish that. That
idea of the “defiant black patriarch” as Robin calls it comes into Thomas’
analysis of the Second Amendment. Robin writes that, “When white conservatives
think of the right to bear arms, they imagine sturdy white colonials firing
their muskets at redcoats and then mustering in militias, or modern-day whites
guarding their doorways against government tyranny and black criminals. Thomas
sees black slaves arming themselves against their masters; black freedmen
defending their rights against white terrorists; and black men protecting their
families from a residual and regnant white supremacy.”
This is
a highly recommendable book to anyone interested in Thomas or constitutional
law. Thomas has very unique opinions on the law and is at least interesting to
probe what they are for someone like me who doesn’t really agree. He seems to
be an impressive thinker, though the book still leaves me with doubts. For
example, if Thomas doesn’t believe in a government role in helping black
people, why is he so accepting in a government role in punishing and harming them?
I suppose he views the government, even in racist actions, as improving people
by punishing them, but it feels inconsistent to me. This is a great book that
is very clearly written. I really liked Robin’s style and he made case law come
to life.
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