Resentment

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has written a memoir, and if this story by Robert Barnes, Michael A. Fletcher and Kevin Merida in the Washington Post is fair, he seems every bit the spiritually crippled bundle of resentments I have always imagined.

His character was shaped by his grandfather, a harsh and unbending man who hardly seems to deserve the devotion Thomas gives him:

Thomas writes of the hard lessons doled out by his grandfather, Myers Anderson, who raised him after his father abandoned the family and his mother was unable to care for her boys in Pin Point, Ga. "In every way that counts, I am my grandfather's son," Thomas writes, hence the title of the memoir.

Thomas's depiction of his grandfather is of a man unsparingly tough. Anderson wouldn't let him play on sports teams or join the Cub Scouts.

When Thomas informed the family that he was dropping out of the seminary, against the wishes of his grandfather, he learned, to his surprise, that Anderson had retreated to his garage and cried. Then his grandfather kicked him out of the house, telling him: "I'm finished helping you. You'll have to figure it out yourself. You'll probably end up like your no-good daddy or those other no-good Pinpoint Negroes."


At or near the core of his resentments is his confirmation hearing, most of which I watched. He lost me in his response to Anita Hill's testimony describing him as sexual harasser.

Thomas writes that he did not watch Hill's televised testimony against him at his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, and so he does not respond in detail to her charges except to call them lies.


When I saw him testify that he did not watch her testimony, I was certain that he was lying. This guy was a lawyer and a judge, and a witness is incriminating him - how could he not watch and prepare his rebuttal? Only, I think, if he knew very well that what she said was true and incriminating. The campaign of lies and calumny subsequently mounted against Hill, (and later described in detail by one of the men who led it) lends additional discredit to Thomas and his backers.

The truth, I suppose, will never be fully known, but the cramped and bitter Thomas of the memoir seems (to me) to be a lot more fitted to the role of guilty man who got off than innocent man cleared.

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