“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.” Lord Acton – 1887
It’s hard to believe it was 28 years ago that black Americans were torn between having another black Supreme Court Justice nominee and that nominee being Clarence Thomas. We always knew there were those types of negroids around, but they had never held any position higher than assistant to Boss Hienmitee’s dog handler. They were the guys that carried the bosses guns and fetched the occasional raccoon they shot for lunch. But now a dog handler’s assistant was poised to become ‘Boss!!” In 1991, Clarence Thomas, who had only been a Federal judge for one year, was nominated to the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court. I know you know what the highest court in the land is. I’m just being me with my over the top self…
Anywho, before we get into the main discussion of the article, I know a lot of you have wondered why Clarence Thomas is such a pariah in our community. I didn’t like him because of how he and Biden treated Hill during the confirmation hearing, but there was always a simmering dislike for Thomas by black intellectuals and professionals well before the hearings started. In addition the fact that the NAACP would not endorse his nomination when it was put forth, weighed heavily in our community in the early 90’s. Back in those days, the paper lion had teeth and their acceptance of a political appointment was necessary in order to gain the acceptance of the African American community. After all Thomas was replacing one of our giants, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. But it wasn’t until a few years later in my mind that Thomas secured his place in the “Great Unabridged Uncle Tom’s Encyclopedia of Ashy Americans.” If you look in vol. 7 under “Great Crimes Of The HNIC’s (Head Ni**er In Charge),” you will see this entry:
On June 25, 2013, Justice Thomas voted with the majority in Shelby County v. Holder to strike down the Voting Rights Act’s system for determining which states must “pre-clear” any changes to voting by state and local governments due to a history of discrimination in voting. In a 5-4 vote, the majority ruled that the Voting Rights Act’s system for deciding which governments were subject to the preclearance requirement was “unconstitutional in light of current conditions.” ref.1
Okay, it’s not in the “Great Unabridged Uncle Tom’s Encyclopedia of Ashy Americans,” but it should be. He helped strike down the laws that prevented gerrymandering in states with historically known discriminations in voting practices against African Americans and poor people, who mostly vote Democratic. Before the law was struck down, affected states had to notify Congress before enacting any laws that would impact voting. I recently wrote about a city in some state that instead of letting a majority African American community vote in the city elections, they just re-drew the city boundaries so that the African American community was outside of the city and ineligible to vote in city elections. I will see if I can find that article and give you more information in an update. Anywho, that’s not the only thing Thomas has done to set back minority civil liberties. If you like to know more, check out ref. 1 at the end of this article.
So in October of 1991, the full Senate was in session deciding the confirmation of Clarence Thomas for Supreme Court Justice. It was really a formality, because up until the Hill accusations, no one had any doubt Thomas would be confirmed. It was a matter of chance that Anita Hill’s story even came up on the Senate’s radar. During Thomas’s vetting for the post, the FBI had interviewed people from his past. You know, family members, people who worked for him and people he worked for, friends and acquaintances, his honorary membership in Klansmens Of Mississippi and his subscription to “Massa Pleeze: A Quarterly Periodical For The Up and Coming Serious Uncle.” Anywho, it was during this vetting that the allegations of sexual misconduct by Thomas came to light. Initially the report was ignored, until someone leaked it to the press. Now as pro- Ayran as Thomas is, he is still a black man and you aint gonna get the title of “Boss HNIC,” without a fight. I mean the kind of fight you take your shirt and shoes off, and ball them hands up and start dancing and talking about, “come on!!, come on, come on and get some of this!!” Yessiree, if a black man was going to wear the “Boss HNIC” robes, the racist and haters was going to make sure it was as dirty as they could get it before he put it on. So the Hill report came before the Senate.
Now before we continue, I want to play a three minute clip of Hill’s opening statement. Her complete opening statement runs more than an hour and forty five minutes. There is a link to her complete opening statements along with a transcript under the reference section at the end of this article.
Anita Hill was born to a family of farmers in Lone Tree, Oklahoma, the youngest of Albert and Erma Hill’s 13 children. Her family came from Arkansas, where her maternal grandfather, Henry Eliot, and all of her great-grandparents had been born into slavery. After graduating from Morris High School, Oklahoma, she enrolled at Oklahoma State University and received a bachelor’s degree in psychology with honors in 1977. She went on to Yale Law School, obtaining her Juris Doctor degree with honors in 1980. In 1981, she became an attorney-adviser to Clarence Thomas, who was then the Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. When Thomas became chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 1982, Hill went along to serve as his assistant, leaving the job in 1983.
Anita Hill was an accomplished well educated black professional. The hearings lasted three days. They were presided over by Joe Biden, a current 2020 presidential candidate. Now many of you know from my past articles about Biden, that I ain’t really feeling that dude. But this is just another instance where his acquiescence to whomever is in control usually ends up costing African Americans dearly and I mean for generations. Let’s not forget he was also the author of the 1994 Crime Bill, otherwise known as Mass Incarceration which resulted in a generation of blacks and other minorities being imprisoned for decades for minor crimes. But that’s not the story here, so let’s get back on track. The similarities between the Kavanaugh and Thomas confirmation hearings are so close as to be almost imperceptible. Thomas like Kavanaugh ranted about the unfairness and absurdity of the charges leveled against them.
Brett Kavanaugh Statement to the Judiciary Committee:
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque character assassination will dissuade confident and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country, and as we all know, in the political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.”
Clarence Thomas Statement to the Judiciary Committee:
Clarence Thomas And Anita Hill at The EEOC
This is not a closed room. There was an FBI investigation. This is not an opportunity to talk about difficult matters privately or in a closed environment. This is a circus. It’s a national disgrace. And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I’m concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. — U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.
Of course in my opinion, both men were lying. Lying like a cheap rug. Both accusers testimony was so precise in detail, that any competent listener would hesitate to question their accuracy. “One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office. He got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, “Who has pubic hair on my Coke?” – Anita Hill. What kind of freaky supreme courting, law abiding, pimp talking $##@! is this? These women were sexually harassed and in Kavanaugh’ case “may” have been sexually assaulted. Still these men sit on the Supreme Court imposing opinions that will affect Americans for decades and maybe even centuries to come. But what Of Anita Hill? Anita Hill now works at Brandeis University. On March 26, 2015, the Brandeis Board of Trustees unanimously voted to recognize Hill with a promotion to Private University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s Studies. Last year Hill wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times regarding sexual assault allegations made by Christine Blasey Ford during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation. Anita Hill is an important figure in Black History and her story deserves to be told and remembered. As for Clarence Thomas, among the current members of the Court he is the longest-serving justice, with a tenure of 27 years, 323 days as of September 11, 2019. In October of 2019 he will receive his quarterly edition of “Massa Pleeze.” Just before Biden announced his run for President, he reached out to Hill. According to his campaign, “Biden “shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country.” Yeah.. right.. it took you 28 years for that? Where is the apology? How about saying “I’m sorry I presided over that circus. Can you forgive me?” Man that dude….
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