It`s time to pause, in all the hoopla over the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to fill Justice Thurgood Marshall`s seat on the Supreme Court, for a reality check.
First, it is no insult to Thomas` admirable achievements to point out that, yes, Thomas` race was a factor in his selection.
It is altogether appropriate for the nation`s highest court to reflect some of this nation`s vast diversity of people and experiences. Bush must be in a dreamlike state if he expects us to believe otherwise, yet he does, just so he can use racial quotas as an issue to bash Democrats, even as he practices them in his own administration.
It also defies reality for Bush and other conservatives to attack Justice Marshall for alleged judicial activism when the administration hopes Thomas will be just as much of an activist for its agenda.
Whether we like it or not, every justice brings his or her own prejudices to court. For all their flaws, justices are human, and human beings are not objective creatures by nature.
Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, has said in interviews that his opposition to affirmative action was shaped by his immigrant family`s tale of hard-earned bootstrap success. Thomas, a dirt-poor rural Georgia child saved from a dysfunctional family by a strict grandfather and Catholic school nuns, expresses similar sentiments based on his life experiences, and Bush is delighted.
So be it. So be honest about it.
On the other hand, liberals who plan to grill Thomas on Capitol Hill must be dreaming if they don`t realize President Bush has all the cards and the game is all but over.
Recent decisions show the Supreme Court has a 6-to-3 conservative majority in spite of Marshall`s presence, and even if the Senate Judiciary Committee rejects Thomas, which is not likely, it will only free Bush to choose another nominee who most likely will not be black but very likely will be conservative.
He or she might even be more conservative than Thomas, although that`s hard to say since we don`t really know just how conservative Thomas is and, realistically, we will not know until such time as he is safely ensconced in a seat-for-life and starts handing down opinions.
If anything, Clarence Thomas` background shows him to be a more complex individual than either his supporters or his detractors readily admit.
Although Thomas came to prominence as an assistant secretary for civil rights in the Department of Education and later as chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Ronald Reagan`s administration, he often was at odds with it.
During Reagan`s first term, Thomas blasted the Justice Department for setting a ”negative agenda” on civil rights and said the administration
”blew it” by supporting tax-exempt status for the racially separatist Bob Jones University.
He opposed Atty. Gen. William French Smith when Smith refused to comply with a law that requires agencies to submit annual breakdowns on the number of minority-group members working in the executive branch.
He opposed some of the Reagan Justice Department`s attempts to overturn local court-ordered quota plans for hiring and promotion and, in interviews for a lengthy February 1987 Atlantic magazine profile, stated frankly that he knew he was working with racists but added that it hardly mattered, since there are some in every administration.
”There may be more here now, they may be more out front. I don`t care,” the article quoted Thomas as saying. ”I prefer dealing with an out-and-out racist anyway to one who is racist behind your back.”
Near the end of Reagan`s first term, the article revealed, there was serious talk of easing Thomas out, either by forcing him to resign or by nominating a replacement when his term expired in 1985.
Does this make Thomas a closet liberal? Hardly. But I suspect Thomas might just bring a different brand of conservatism to the court than any it has seen before.
It is the kind of conservatism that comes from a man who was a goatee-wearing fan of Malcolm X in the `60s and still can quote Malcolm on the subject of economic independence: ”As other ethnic groups have done, let the black people, wherever possible, however possible, patronize their own kind, hire their own kind and start in those ways to build up the black race`s ability to do for itself.”
It is the kind of conservatism that comes from a man who was rejected by movie theaters because he was black, teased by white seminary classmates when the dorm lights went out (”Smile, Clarence, so we can see you”) and harassed by other black children because of his dark skin and ”nigger naps” texture of his hair.
It is the kind of conservatism that comes from a man who is embittered that his sister went on welfare and now expects a check as an entitlement and has raised her children to expect it too.
In short, Clarence Thomas` conservatism is the conservatism that runs like a mighty stream through black life in America, a set of values hammered together by a people who have had to struggle constantly between the virtues, limitations and deceptions of self-help and government help.
Perhaps I am prejudiced in his favor because of similarities in our age, experiences and first names (all three must have posed formidable challenges), but I expect Clarence Thomas has some surprises in store for us.
