In our moment, we talk a lot about the dismaying degree of partisanship in our nation. We declare fealty to the ideal of being open to the ideas of others. Yet [Mitchell] Jackson exemplifies a sense that when it comes to [Clarence] Thomas, none of this interest in comity applies and that it qualifies as insight to discuss him as a horrid, pathetic figure.
McWhorter is addressing an Esquire article by Mitchell Jackson, "Looking for Clarence Thomas/He grew up speaking a language of the enslaved on the shores of Pin Point, Georgia. He would become the most powerful Black man in America, using the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court justice to hold back his own people. Now he sits atop an activist right-wing court poised to undo the progressivism of the past century. What happened?"
McWhorter continues:
Once again, apparently, there is a single Black way to think, with Black conservatism valuable only as a demonstration of what Black opinion is not supposed to be. It’s worthwhile, one would think, to assume first that people’s intentions are good ones. Writing someone off as monstrous should be a matter of last resort. To go with that immediately makes for good theater, but it’s also a kind of ritualistic hostility.
Posts
66 comments:
I will post this again.
The white left will have none of it. The exploitation gained by the white left's false ownership of maintained grievance and victimology will not be broken.
The left are not pro-diversity. Whenever they use the word "Diversity" - it should make everyone chuckle. The left maintain a fraudulent grasp on what constitutes an open mind. Clarence Thomas and the racist left's collective hatred of him are one example.
The democrat party destroyed the black family...
The left should be delighted that a black man is on the Supreme Court. Nope. They got nothing but hate.
Human rites, right? A Pro-Choice ethical religion. A Twilight Amendment and faith. Roe's regrets. Ruth's remorse. Sanger's unmitigated post-mortem in a wicked solution.
Progressivism is a philosophy of [unqualified] monotonic change: one step forward, two steps backward. The center/conservative-wing court has restored the principles and practices that freed Americans from slavery, diversity, inequity, and exclusion, and progressive prices and availability that are common with single/central/state/monopolistic solutions.
There’s a lot of “ritualistic hostility” going on lately. That’s an apt phrase for the times.
Accusing Justice Thomas of being a civilized white man instead of a Racist Democrat. I blame his wife and his Roman Catholic education. He became as bad as Kavanaugh.
Clarence Thomas is from the Booker T. Washington school of blackness, where you did your work, and if a white man stole it from you, you started over, never hoping for justice because there ain't any.
Most blacks abandoned that almost a century ago.
One of my BFFs is a Booker T. Washington black, and he's got a house, a lovely family, and other material things most blacks do not. I admire him for it.
But he admires me for my freedom.
And THAT is why so few follow his example.
“the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court Justice” reveals his ignorance. One vote. That’s it.
Weak writer.
Hypocrisy and condescension towards those who think differently is baked in the progressive cake.
"... a language of the enslaved ..."! Hey, I'm guessing this Mitchell Jackson is a light-skinned Negro who went to college! We are so fortunate to have his bloviating ass among us!
Funny. Last night I sat down to watch the documentary Uncle Tom Pt. 2. (I highly recommend watching Uncle Tom Pt. 1 first. Then move on to this next one.). There are plenty of conservative Black Americans. But it's hard to know what to think when you're constantly inundated- for generations- with the Marxist-based thinking of the Left, sold to you as a Black American as the voice of freedom from oppression.
Except that if you live in Detroit, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, New Orleans, Atlanta, LA, Boston, or any number of cities and you look around you, it's hard to think you're not already living under oppression. And who's running your lives there? It's not the right.
Instead Mr. Jackson makes the incredible assumption that progressivism is what is helpful to Black Americans. I think the evidence of our senses would tell us that progressivism is exactly what ripped the Black family apart and turned our cities into the nightmares that they are for those seeking a life in civilized society.
It's insanity to listen to the left any longer. To say that Justice Thomas is "holding back his people" is to say that if you don't think like a progressive, then you're damaging Black America. And that is just empirically not true. Not even close. It is the opposite. And that's why the Left so fears Conservative Black Americans. The Left has used Black Americans for decades now. Years. Black America is the only thing keeping the left in any form of leadership in this nation at the moment. It's certainly not the left's ideas that has done it. If Black America votes with independent minds, the Democratic Party in this nation is done. They know it. They fear it. And yet, I think it'll happen.
Justice Clarence Thomas's life should be taught to every child in America. Where he came from, what he went through, and what he has achieved is nothing less than amazing, a story of courage and strength. Instead the left has spent decades promoting him as a clown, an imposter, a 'race traitor'. It's disgusting, wrong, and evil. And it needs to be corrected.
For Augustine, charity is thinking the best of others rather than the worst. That's how it's soul saving. Only later did charity become money.
As to black opinion, the left attacks blacks who don't think whites are the enemy.
"Justice Clarence Thomas's life should be taught to every child in America."
He is - they look at his face, filled with condescension for anyone not like him, and they learn what they don't want to be.
Despised.
Mitchell Jackson has a stupid idea that trying to shame Clarence Thomas is an effective mode of discourse.
Justice Clarence Thomas's life should be taught to every child in America.
I gave copies of his book, "My grandfather's son" to each of my kids.
Ritualistic hostility. The left own ritualistic hostility.
Just turn on NBC.
"Once again, apparently, there is a single Black way to think, with Black conservatism valuable only as a demonstration of what Black opinion is not supposed to be. It’s worthwhile, one would think, to assume first that people’s intentions are good ones. Writing someone off as monstrous should be a matter of last resort. To go with that immediately makes for good theater, but it’s also a kind of ritualistic hostility."
worth a nice hearty bold.
If you assume goodwill on the part of your opponents, then opposing them requires some understanding of their position. It’s so much easier to simply dismiss them as bad people. As Michael Moore may as well have said in almost every film he ever made, “your opponents are bad people and you don’t need to know what their ideas are. It’s ok to lie about them.”
The only good negro, is a left-wing woke negro.
Until convinced otherwise, I assume that all criticism of Thomas is based on racism and ignorance.
I am rarely convicted otherwise.
McWhorter is good - surprised he has lasted.
Holding black people back? This writer must be on drugs. Clarence Thomas has written extensively on the 2nd amendment. A right that has done more help blacks than any other. Just on the 8th a study was released on 'Firearms and Lynching'.
"The interaction of these mechanisms with changing national market prices for firearms provides us with a credible identification strategy for Black firearm access. Rates of Black lynching decreased with greater Black firearm access."
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/09/firearms-and-lynching.html
Imagine what would have happened in 2020 with the Democrat politician rabble-roused crowds that burned black neighborhoods without private ownership of firearms to at least inhibit murders given the police were ordered to assist not oppose the mobs by white Democrat officials.
A black Supreme Court justice that rose from the sharecropper South, worked his way upward by virtue of his endowed intellect, grit, and tenacity, and as a capper, is in a strong, loving bi-racial marriage - in an accepting society.
What's wrong with this picture? That he wasn't guided each step of the way by the Empowering State, and that he dares to be an individual. His symbolic power carries the threat of a good example, and therefore, we must proceed directly to hateful characterization before the reader starts to think for himself.
'Language of the enslaved.'
What the fuck is that supposed to mean.
Is it the same tortured word-twisting like 'people of color'?
Or maybe ebonics?
You're a fucking writer...use proper language and syntax.
I learned that shit in third grade.
Whatever it is that's holding back Thomas's people, I'm pretty sure it's not the Supreme Court.
Unless Mitchell Jackson is referring to Bakke, Griggs and other cases approving or mandating racial discrimination--for which Thomas is most definitely not responsible. But that interpretation seems overly generous.
If one justice, not even the chief justice, can completely undo a century of progressivism than that progressivism is a house of cards built on quicksand on a sinkhole over a subduction zone.
Who the fuck is Mitchell Jackson, and why should I care what he thinks about Justice Thomas?
"In our moment, we talk a lot about the dismaying degree of partisanship in our nation."
Who dat we? We deplorables don't talk about "partisanship," we talk about prog cultural warfare and actual lawfare. Progs only talk about partisanship when things temporarily don't go their way.
"We declare fealty to the ideal of being open to the ideas of others."
Who dat we? Good call by Althouse: "we" do no such thing, progs least of all. As the history of free speech advocacy shows, it was strictly a tool to serve leftist interests, to be dropped once progs had achieved hegemony in most sectors.
"none of this interest in comity applies and that it qualifies as insight to discuss him as a horrid, pathetic figure."
When did it ever apply? FDR, Truman treated their just-like-Hitler opponents with "comity"? Progs need no insights as long as they purvey The Truth.
"Once again, apparently, there is a single Black way to think, with Black conservatism valuable only as a demonstration of what Black opinion is not supposed to be."
Correct. Now, John, instead of bemoaning the assumption, tell us what's wrong with the single way. Why might Thomas be right as a jurist and serve black interests? (In fairness, the reference to Robin is good.) So far, the open-to-the-ideas spiel is just an evasive maneuver in the actual political battle.
"it’s also a kind of ritualistic hostility"
There he goes again, this time smearing good progs as ritualistic, after tarring CRT etc. as "religion." But these are also evasions: they do not confront the actual substance of the actual battle and the actual progress progs have made with their tactics.
The usual suspects are vile racists. Every one.
What does McWhorter mean by “these days”? Have liberals ever been “open to the ideas of others”? Not in my lifetime! And fifty years ago I was a liberal myself.
There is being open to new ideas, and then there is "being open to the ideas of others". I would say that I'm very open to new ideas, sometimes to the point of credulousness, and always have been. But that is no ways incompatible with regarding particular individuals or groups as promoting pernicious ideas by tendentious arguments. NYT and WaPo, for example, are so contemptibly debased, prostituted and degraded that I assume anyone writing for them is saying what he was told to say. I don't feel any need to evaluate the arguments, because the evidence is invented. They are lying liars who always lie. That is not to say that they never surprise me. Although they wouldn't if you didn't quote them.
During the George Floyd shitfest, I wrote to a reporter at a national publication about an article he had written. He had said that Floyd "Was killed by police". I pointed out to him that no court had ruled, and it would be more accurate to say Floyd "died in police custody".
Somewhat to my surprise, he wrote back that "they tell us what to write, and we write it". Right down to the phrasing.
Have liberals ever been “open to the ideas of others”?
Classical or conservative liberals, yes. Progressive or monotonic liberals, not so much.
Ceciliahere said...
"The only good negro, is a left-wing woke negro."
The problem with conservative black icon is they seem to hate the rest of us.
That's why their message mostly appeals only to whites.
McWhorter and Loury (latest bloggingheads) go on about racism's there but you have to rise above it. Each describes how he's smart and succeeded where others didn't expect it owing to their being black. That's rising above it, to them.
First, not expecting it isn't racism exactly but Bayes's theorem. It's not racism in the form of ill will anyway, but just playing the odds. Sure there are really smart blacks - these are two - but the odds are against it. It's an expectation.
Second, it's not rising above it. Rising above it would be good character - not "I'll show them a thing or two" but not harboring ill will. There's a place for everybody who doesn't have a chip on his shoulder, no matter how smart or not. That seems to me to be the way forward for blacks regardless how smart they turn out to be when the DNA/nurture battle finally ends. It doesn't matter.
I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.
What, no comments section so the NYT's white readership can school McWhorter in the error of his ways?
Reprehensible.
Justice Thomas writes clear and convincing opinions. Hence the hatred from the losing side.
"Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person"
I thought he was buds with Tom Sowell.
Is like to be a fly on the wall when those two get together.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democratic-candidate-vicente-gonzalez-claims-mayra-flores-supporters-stole-texas-special-election
Democratic candidate Vicente Gonzalez claims Mayra Flores, supporters 'stole' Texas special election
As long as The ReTHUGlicans Keep STEALING elections (by having people vote for them, instead of their democrat masters); There will Continue to be problems
Any election said to be won by a ReTHUGlican, is; By Definition, a STOLEN ELECTION
right? i mean, right?
I don't dislike Clarence Thomas - I've defended him to my friends many times - and now I even admire him more since I discovered his wife was once in a cult and made it out.
But he and the other conservative black icons - no matter how clear and convincing their arguments - are still only talking mostly to whites.
In that way, they strike me, sometimes, as cowards.
'I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.'
Maybe Democrats can bring back segregation.
That would solve this issue you seem to have.
God forbid a black man should have freedom of association...
I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.
It's good to see that you are back from Drug Rehab, Crack.
Justice Thomas obviously hates Black people as your brilliant observation shows.
I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.
Damn him for turning down all those invitations to Rainbow/Push, the NAACP Awards and BET television all these years...
The left is unbelievably bigoted. The most bigoted people in this country.
I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.
All you had to do was watch any of the annual SOTU's until recently.
"Mitchell Jackson has a stupid idea that trying to shame Clarence Thomas is an effective mode of discourse."
Every plantation in the South had a Stephen Warren (Big Daddy's). Their role was to ensure a softer life for themselves by riding herd on the plantation's strongbacks for the plantation owner. This ensured a nice bedroom in the big house. Not out back with the pigs and such.
That's all that's happening here. Mitchell Jackson is performing the historical role that Samuel L. Jackson played in Django. He's letting Justice Thomas know who the house negro is and it ain't Thomas.
A single Black way of thinking is a hallmark of fascism. In fascism, all must support the state, or in this case the Black way of thinking. Obey us, or else. Think like us, or else.
The problem with conservative black icon is they seem to hate the rest of us.
That's why their message mostly appeals only to whites.
This comment and Crack's prior ESP about Justice Thomas's condescension toward other black people prompt me to suggest that if talking with "my own kind" was going to lead to my being "despised," as Crack said, then I wouldn't be too inclined to talk with them. One nice thing about live-and-let-live conservatism is that you can make that choice for yourself - not to beat your head against a wall, not to associate with people who are predisposed to despise you in what may be a futile effort to "convert" a few and would certainly be frustrating and energy-consuming. You can choose to be an unwelcome evangelist for your cause, or you can choose to live in a more comfortable space.
On the progressive side, OTOH, we are told that "silence is violence." You must Speak Your (that is, The Approved) Truth, or you're inauthentic, cowardly, craven - it's never just that you want to be left alone.
Come to think of it, IRL I do choose not to talk politics with "my own kind." That "kind" just can't be so readily identified - i.e., by skin color.
Carol said...
"I thought he was buds with Tom Sowell."
Have you ever seen them together? I haven't.
And while that's a fair assertion, my point is, the people white conservatives most think would benefit from those two - liberals, say - never seem to get a visit from them anywhere.
Joe Smith said...
"God forbid a black man should have freedom of association..."
What a crazy assumption/elaboration/twisting of what I said.
Maynard said...
"Justice Thomas obviously hates Black people as your brilliant observation shows."
Everything is an extreme rewording of what I say - through the filer of fanaticism - NOT a true reading of what I said.
Gahrie said...
"Damn him for turning down all those invitations to Rainbow/Push, the NAACP Awards and BET television all these years..."
You guys want to criticize blacks, and can't admit your hero accomplishes little for us by talking exclusively to you.
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
"A single Black way of thinking is a hallmark of fascism."
Or a culture.
But he and the other conservative black icons - no matter how clear and convincing their arguments - are still only talking mostly to whites.
Maybe only whites and black conservatives will listen? Has that occurred to you?
From the article:
"He would become the most powerful Black man in America, using the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court justice to hold back his own people. Now he sits atop an activist right-wing court poised to undo the progressivism of the past century. What happened?"
So much to parse, but I'll focus on the bolded print. What is it that Clarence Thomas has done to hold back his own people? The progressivism of the past century, and even more so that of this century so far, has done precious little to improve the lot of African Americans, other than making them dependent on entitlements and killing their unborn. You can argue in favor of Affirmative Action, but even that has been a mixed bag.
I think 'language of the enslaved' refers to Gullah, a particular African dialect of the Georgia/Carolina sea islands. It's not the same as Ebonics. It uses some English words but it is a different language. Thomas spoke it as a child.
Jackson does not appear to be lightskinned in his Wikipedia picture. Not real dark either.
He is, however, a recipient of the "Whiting Award" for literature and is the "John O. Whiteman Dean's Distinguished Professor" at Arizona State University.
I wonder if there is some secret code there?
He also did prison time for drugs and, more power to him, seems to have risen above it.
John stop fascism vote republican Henry
Gahrie said...
I've never seen Clarence Thomas in the presence of another black person in all the years I've known of him.
Damn him for turning down all those invitations to Rainbow/Push, the NAACP Awards and BET television all these years..
**********
Yes, and DAMN him for not wanting to walk into hostile venues where he can be savaged on camera.
Are you still so THICK not to know that the left will pounce on him in every public forum?
But here's one to falsify your claim:
https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIP.Bq8EuZMTLjONX0h1Dh8h4QHaEU?w=306&h=180&c=7&r=0&o=5&dpr=1.14&pid=1.7
I guess the POTUS doesn't count.
The Crack Emcee said...
Maynard said...
"Justice Thomas obviously hates Black people as your brilliant observation shows."
Everything is an extreme rewording of what I say - through the filer of fanaticism - NOT a true reading of what I said.
*************
Crack, we were done with your passive-aggressive self-pitying bullshit the last time AA put you into the corner.
Nothing's changed.
Jackson's objective obviously isn't to change Thomas's opinions, values, and actions -- he knows there's no hope of that. His target is Blacks who are thinking about departing from left liberal orthodoxy. His message: Don't even THINK about it! "Real" Blacks will read you out of the Black Race.
In other words, don't leave the plantation.
Michael K said...
"Maybe only whites and black conservatives will listen? Has that occurred to you?"
No, because blacks aren't like that, except on college campuses apparently. I even thought of an exception who proves it - Larry Elder. He has a radio talk show that goes directly to blacks in Los Angeles, I think. His style isn't helpful (where I think Justice Thomas' would be more effective) but he's there.
effinayright said...
"DAMN him for not wanting to walk into hostile venues where he can be savaged on camera."
What a weird assumption - you guys are BIG on wrong assumptions asserted as reality - Larry Elder's on the radio. Nobody with a name has to "go" anywhere today to reach an audience.
I wish you guys would ponder how many wrong assumptions you make. It's not a good way to go through life.
effinayright said...
"Crack, we were done with your passive-aggressive self-pitying bullshit the last time AA put you into the corner.
Nothing's changed."
1. I do not recall being put in a corner - that's why I'm here. I get sick of y'all's shit and leave sometimes. Ann & Meade had nothing to do with it. You are the issue.
2. "Nothing's changed" implies what? I still don't accept your world view as accurate? Correct.
Crack--Thomas, like most Supreme Court Justices, keeps his public appearances rare and avoids speaking out about political issues. which is how judges are ethically supposed to behave.
Larry Elder is a radio personality who ran for Governor of the largest state in the country.
Theres a huge difference there.
I have to be honest here--I don't look for it, but I don't recall seeing candid photos of any Supreme Court justices hanging out with "their people" in any circumstance. Who the hell knows whether Thomas spends his time with black friends or white friends? And so what?
Also--you know who else, besides black lefties, treat him with utter disrepect, and speak of him in terms of rage, contempt and hatred? White lefties. Another reason to keep a low profile.
Neither diversity nor contrast, only diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgments, class-based bigotry) including color blocs (e.g. "people of color").
This was also interesting:
This presumptuous — cartoonish, really — presentation is questionable as analysis. Among other things, it elides the nuance offered fairly recently by the Brooklyn College political scientist Corey Robin, the author of “The Enigma of Clarence Thomas.” Robin, certainly no acolyte of Thomas’s, explains how Thomas’s jurisprudence, whether one agrees with it, is rooted in a coherent and by no means malevolent philosophy compatible in many ways with Black nationalism. As Robin writes, “Thomas is not a conservative man who happens to be Black. Thomas is a Black man whose conservatism is overwhelmingly defined by and oriented toward the interests of Black people, as he understands them.” Jackson’s take, on the other hand, is not only crude and hasty but also written as if the shopworn Thomas-as-race-traitor thesis is something new.
I wouldn't have thought subtlety was Corey Robin's thing.
"He would become the most powerful Black man in America, using the astonishing power vested in a Supreme Court justice to hold back his own people. Now he sits atop an activist right-wing court poised to undo the progressivism of the past century. What happened?"
What happened is that progressives declared equality under the law to be racist. Unfortunately the U.S. Constitution (as amended) seems to require it. For progressives it follows that black supreme court justices have a moral duty to act extra-Constitutionally by reversing the plain meaning of such things as the 14th amendment.
Thereby rendering the court ipso facto illegitimate, but who fusses over such details when a Greater, Revealed Truth is at stake?
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