I don't understand what the Supreme Court has against minorities. (NY Times; registration required.) I don't understand what we did to them. I don't understand why they have to reach so hard; this case should never have been accepted by them, according to normal Court history and practice.
And I do sometimes wonder if Mr Justice Thomas ever looks about at what he's helping to come about, and thinks about whether or not it's worth it. He probably had aspirations of being as widely appreciated and admired among blacks, and indeed among most people in this country, as Thurgood Marshall was; how could he not? How could you not become only the second black justice on the court and NOT want to have people feel that way about you? And yet, the only sentiments most blacks can summon up about him are either indifference or disgust; almost everyone else, when asked how they feel about him, just says, "Who?" Surely not what he'd intended to happen when he reached the pinnacle of a legal career.
He complains
With respect to my following, or, more accurately, being led by other members of the Court, that is silly, but expected since I couldn't possibly think for myself. And what else could possibly be the explanation when I fail to follow the jurisprudential, ideological and intellectual, if not anti-intellectual, prescription assigned to blacks. Since thinking beyond this prescription is presumptively beyond my abilities, obviously someone must be putting these strange ideas into my mind and my opinions. Though being underestimated has its advantages, the stench of racial inferiority still confounds my olfactory nerves.
That said, people could be appalled by him because ... well, he doesn't seem to read very well, somehow. In Missouri v Jenkins, the case that allowed Kansas City, and thence Missouri, to cease all school desegregation efforts, he blatantly misreads Brown vs Board of Education. While quoting it, which is really rather impressive. Yes, the principal thrust of Brown was against state sponsored segregation. Nonetheless, that case, and the ones that followed it, don't simply assume that because a school is primarily black-attended, that makes it inferior. What they assume is that, given history, integrated schools fare better because it gives a broader investment in the results. If you make people with more resources attend other schools, they will demand more because they're used to more. It's very easy not to care that one neighborhood school is failing when the more visible parts of the school system are doing well.
That he will complain that this people's dislike of his reasoning is due to their assumption of his "racial inferiority" is both offensive and confounds the brain. That we could simply be observing his behavior doesn't seem to occur to the man, somehow. And, I note, he seems to want to have it both ways. If people are making assumptions about him due to his race, then it logically follows that people make assumptions about others for the same reason; in other words, many of the cases he votes against do, in fact, have some validity.
Mr Justice Thomas may well go down in history. It just won't be the way he planned or desired.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
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Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!