Another comment on Clarence Thomas

My friend Robert Azeke gave me permission to share his  thoughts on the Clarence Thomas discussion:

 

Great exchange and dialogue   here on Justice Thomas!

 As a  black person looking back to that time,  I  considered his  appointment a great travesty for Black America and cruel manipulation  by the Bush Sr. Administration.    

But with some  time and maturity, I think his pariah status in the black community is  even more troubling.   We should create a bigger tent in  our community that  embraces Jessie, Rev Al, Obama, Oprah, Condi, and  even Clarence.   We are a diverse race with different styles,  opinions and viewpoints.  That is a strength.  Weakness is  excluding important people from the table "because he is not black   enough".

Regarding his   judicial judgements on affirmative  action:
I am   pro-affirmative action and have personally benefited tremendously from  it and there is no doubt that Clarence is a hypocrite on this  issue.

But so were the  founding fathers (George Washington, Thomas  Jefferson and the rest) on the slavery vs. Declaration of  Independence  issue.  But that hypocrisy does not diminish the  Declaration; in  fact, it enhances it, because the DOI was an elevation of principle over the  temporal, fleeting realities of the present.

I believe   that Clarence knows 1) that he is black and 2)  that he benefited  from  Affirmative Action   But, it is not unreasonable for a  black person to say that it was good for me,  but I am not sure  it is best for the country today and forever.   In fact it may be  more noble than we know since he may be  wittingly or unwittingly  insuring that segregation never comes back to haunt America -- just like the  slaveowners planted the seeds for the slow, but inevitable march toward the  end of the  slavery.