Clarence Thomas: Society is overly sensitive about race

[Redfairen]

Americans today are too sensitive about race, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas told a gathering of college students in Florida on Tuesday.

Speaking at Palm Beach Atlantic University in West Palm Beach, Fla., Thomas, the second black justice to serve on the court, lamented what he considers a society that is more “conscious” of racial differences than it was when he grew up in segregated Georgia in the days before — and during — the civil rights era.

“My sadness is that we are probably today more race and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school. To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white school. Rarely did the issue of race come up,” Thomas said during a chapel service hosted by the nondenominational Christian university. “Now, name a day it doesn’t come up. Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah. Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person. Somebody has said something that has hurt their feelings or did something to them — left them out.

.......

"The worst I have been treated was by northern liberal elites. The absolute worst I have ever been treated,” Thomas said. “The worst things that have been done to me, the worst things that have been said about me, by northern liberal elites, not by the people of Savannah, Georgia.”

.......

“I quite frankly don’t know how you do these hard jobs without some faith. I don’t know. Other people can come to you and explain it to you. I have no idea," he said. "I don’t know how an oath becomes meaningful unless you have faith. Because at the end you say, ‘So help me God.’ And a promise to God is different from a promise to anyone else."


http://news.yahoo.com/clarence-thomas-on-race-194104252.html

[SummerSnow]

1. He's a damn liar

In Georgia during the 1940's + there was segregation as he duly noted. Maybe he was sleeping under a rock or in a coma. Pretending he didn't feel the effects of it and all his mistreatment came from liberals only. As if you know what political party the person mistreating you were from.

[struggle4progress]

9. It's mind-boggling. He's said "Daddy .. was an active member of the local chapter of the NAACP

and had routinely put up his property as bond to bail student protesters out of jail" link

If so, Thomas' family was certainly aware of Stell v. Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education, which was the 1962 case challenging segregation of Savannah's schools, leading to integration in 1963 when Thomas was still a sophomore in a segregated black high school

Thomas himself became attending a previously all-white private Catholic school a year after that in 1964

[Orsino]

23. And I can see Scalia's lips moving. n/t

[Skittles]

2. "northern liberal elites"

this guy has no business judging a dog show, let alone being a Supreme

[kelliekat44]

13. He should talk to those about the hooded-white-sheet "good people" who burned crosses and even

lynched blacks in GA without so much as a notice by law enforcement in the 60's. Thomas is a piece of shit!! Period. He can't believe that some people don't like him simply because of his race and others don't like him simply because of his politics.

[Skittles]

20. yup

he is definitely full of shit - gawd, what a disgrace he is. Sometimes I try to imagine what Thurgood Marshall would think of Clarence Thomas and, mmmmmm it ain't pretty.

[arthritisR_US]

3. Spoken like a true sell out. nt

[joeybee12]

4. Northern liberal elites treat you like **^%...

Because they know that's what you are. They didn't buy that you didn't harass Anita and SEVERAL other women.

[Scuba]

5. Also about sexual harrassment, eh Clarence?

[jsr]

6. What a tool

[Cha]

12. and, right out of central casting.. I swear.. all these

ugly greedy lying hatemongers look like they were born for the part.

[pampango]

7. And Thomas "Sowell writes “Western nations take tolerance to the extreme,” particularly when it

comes to immigrants."

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/conservative-columnist-offers-random-thoughts-unattractive-women-tolerance-immigrants#sthash.SQUHsrKE.dpuf

There's just way too much tolerance and sensitivity in modern society.

[struggle4progress]

8. Justice Thomas never seems particularly eager to get his facts right

He attended segregated schools in Savannah, through his sophomore year in high school, and shortly before his sixteenth birthday in late June 1964 decided he wanted to attend a private high school, the Catholic St. John Vianney Minor Seminary, from which he graduated several years later

Integration of the Savannah public school system began in 1963 -- so it's difficult to understand how Thomas can say today, To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Georgia, to go to a white school

One might, I suppose, note that he was merely a high school sophomore in 1963; but many people of that age are aware of the larger controversies of their time; and it was really big news at the time -- and it's rather difficult to imagine he was unaware of newspaper, radio, or TV coverage

In any case, fifty years having passed, he's had ample opportunity to learn something about the era in which he came of age, beyond his recollection of being the only black student at St. John Vianney Minor -- and it tells us something about him that he hasn't done so


Slow journey into desegration
... Almost 10 years after the U.S. Supreme Court mandated equal access to public schools, seven black teens - all seniors - registered to attend previously all-white Groves High School on Savannah's westside. Twelve others followed a similar path into all-white Savannah High across town ... Parents of 36 black students, led by the Rev. L. Scott Stell, went to federal court Jan. 18, 1962, to challenge the segregated Savannah-Chatham public schools ... Pupils entering Groves found Garden City and other police department officers waiting for them on those first days. They also found the glare of media coverage. The blacks selected for Groves had been taught non-violent techniques during the summer, and had been told not to respond to mistreatment ...

[MisterP]

10. how about obvious, shambling undead? nobody likes that!

[Solly Mack]

11. Fart noises

[BootinUp]

14. What a strange alternate reality he desires to believe in. nt

[Paladin]

15. I'm trying to think of somebody who's LESS entitled than Clarence Thomas......

....to whine about excess racial sensitivity. I haven't come up with any other candidates, so far.

[libtodeath]

16. A typical right wing hate filled liar is all he is.

[Le Taz Hot]

17. Said the man who took advantage of Affirmative Action

and then slammed the door behind him.

And to think, this man took Thurgood Marshall's seat. It makes my stomach turn.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. Puppets come in all colors.

[Buns_of_Fire]

19. This, from the man who referred to his confirmation hearing as a "high-tech lynching"... nt

[butterfly77]

21. Has he looked at his party lately?

[Aerows]

22. Society is overly against Clarence Thomas

and his ugly views regardless of whether he was green, purple or the generally awful color of his opinion's makeup.

I wouldn't like Clarence Thomas if he looked like Angelina Jolie, and spoke as articulately as Roosevelt. The content of his words are still trash.