"I was interested to see that Hillary called Clarence Thomas a 'person of grievance.' That sounds like a phrase, whether newly minted or not, that Ann might be interested in discussing."

Wrote Norpois, in a comment in last night's open thread.

Is a "person of grievance" someone who overdoes their grievancing? as I think Hillary meant? More generally, aren't virtually ALL Hillary supporters "person of [some sort of] grievance"? I don't necessarily mean that in a condemnatory way. You could say, in a democracy, all political views are expressions of grievance. Is this a new phrase I've missed?

Here's the video clip of Hillary:

"I went to law school with him. He’s been a person of grievance for as long as I’ve known him. Resentment, grievance, anger."

I agree with Norpois that "person of grievance" sounds like a deliberate phrasing. The similarity to "person of color" seems non-accidental. She doesn't call him an "angry person of grievance" — though The Hill gives us that "quote" in its title for the video — but she says "anger" right after calling him a "person of grievance," so that feels as though it's wafting the stereotype "angry black man."

Now, is Justice Thomas more of a "person of grievance" than the sort of person of color that Democrats expect to vote for Democrats? Perhaps what's bothering Hillary Clinton is that Thomas stands back from the ministrations that Democrats offer to aggrieved persons. 

It makes me think of what Justice Thomas wrote at the beginning of his dissenting opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), which found that a subtle enough approach to affirmative action does not violate Equal Protection:

Frederick Douglass, speaking to a group of abolitionists almost 140 years ago, delivered a message lost on today’s majority:

“[I]n regard to the colored people, there is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested towards us. What I ask for the negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us… . I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm-eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! … And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! … [Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.”

What the Black Man Wants: An Address Delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 26 January 1865, reprinted in 4 The Frederick Douglass Papers 59, 68 (J. Blassingame & J. McKivigan eds. 1991) (emphasis in original). 

Like Douglass, I believe blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators.

We all have grievances. But what do we do with them? Do we center our life on grievance? Do we align with a political party that offers to help us — perhaps in election after election — and then wait and see what form that help takes and whether it actually helps? Or do we become skeptical — like Douglass — and say "Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!"

Thomas has made his position clear. It's the argument for going right-wing. Is that grievance or a withdrawal from a life full of grievance?

Hillary Clinton — a Democratic Party politician — wants to impugn him: A "person of grievance" seems like someone quite unpleasant. If you knew him as a schoolmate, you'd do that schoolkid shunning. And as an adult — an elderly adult! — you still want that old mean-girl action.