D.C. Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton made a shocking comment about Associate Justice Clarence Thomas this week, stating that ” We’ve got someone who proposes to be African-American on the court.” It is a shocking insult directed at Thomas and it is unworthy of Norton. It also seems to suggest that someone cannot be a true African-American if they are conservative.
The comment came in response to a question on whether President Obama would select a black nominee to replace Justice Stevens. Norton reportedly responded “We’re not sure this president is ever going to nominate another African-American to the court. [Barack Obama]’s African-American. We’ve got someone who proposes to be African-American on the court.”
One can only imagine the response if a white member said about Stevens that “we got someone who proposes to be white on the court.” There is no question that Thomas is a lightning rod for liberals, but this comment should be roundly condemned by liberals and immediately retracted by Norton. One can certainly disagree with Thomas’ writing, as I do, while preserving civility and, yes, respect in the debate. Thomas is a person with an amazing personal story. Clarence Thomas was raised in Pin Point, Georgia — a poor black town without a sewage system or paved roads. His father was a farm worker and his mother was a domestic worker who spoke Gullah as a first language. While liberals were quick to celebrate the life of Justice Sotomayor for growing up in the projects and achieving so much in her life, they appear unwilling to credit Thomas with his own amazing and difficult life, including being left homeless as a child.
It is particularly disappointing from a former Georgetown law professor. I have great respect for Delegate Norton, though we were on different sides in the D.C. Vote controversy. However, this is only the latest personal attack on Thomas that is entirely out of line.
For the story, click here
Blouise-
“I love it when someone tells me what I do and do not have a right to think and or say. It’s so …. didactic.”
I know, isn’t it horrible — oh wait, that was in response to my post. Hmm, I don’t see anything about telling people about what they have a right to think and say. My post does make the obvious implication that what you say has consequences, and though I will fight like hell to protect your right to think and do what you want, I’ll do so knowing it also protects my right to criticize what you say.
Note Rich and Gingermaker’s responses to my post. Though I do not find their arguments convincing (and others have already said more or less what I would in response), they addressed what I actually said.
Rich:
nothing like being unable to comprehend the written word.
“Freedom of speech means freedom from interference, suppression or punitive action by the government—and nothing else. It does not mean the right to demand the financial support or the material means to express your views at the expense of other men who may not wish to support you. Freedom of speech includes the freedom not to agree, not to listen and not to support one’s own antagonists. A “right” does not include the material implementation of that right by other men; it includes only the freedom to earn that implementation by one’s own effort. Private citizens cannot use physical force or coercion; they cannot censor or suppress anyone’s views or publications. Only the government can do so. And censorship is a concept that pertains only to governmental action.
“The Fascist New Frontier,” The Ayn Rand Column, 106
While people are clamoring about “economic rights,” the concept of political rights is vanishing. It is forgotten that the right of free speech means the freedom to advocate one’s views and to bear the possible consequences, including disagreement with others, opposition, unpopularity and lack of support. The political function of “the right of free speech” is to protect dissenters and unpopular minorities from forcible suppression—not to guarantee them the support, advantages and rewards of a popularity they have not gained.
The Bill of Rights reads: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . .” It does not demand that private citizens provide a microphone for the man who advocates their destruction, or a passkey for the burglar who seeks to rob them, or a knife for the murderer who wants to cut their throats.
“Man’s Rights,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 99
The communists and the Nazis are merely two variants of the same evil notion: collectivism. But both should be free to speak—evil ideas are dangerous only by default of men advocating better ideas.
The Objectivist Calendar, June 1978
I want to state, for the record, my own view of what is called “hard-core” pornography. I regard it as unspeakably disgusting. I have not read any of the books or seen any of the current movies belonging to that category, and I do not intend ever to read or see them. The descriptions provided in legal cases, as well as the “modern” touches in “soft-core” productions, are sufficient grounds on which to form an opinion. The reason of my opinion is the opposite of the usual one: I do not regard sex as evil—I regard it as good, as one of the most important aspects of human life, too important to be made the subject of public anatomical display. But the issue here is not one’s view of sex. The issue is freedom of speech and of the press—i.e., the right to hold any view and to express it.
It is not very inspiring to fight for the freedom of the purveyors of pornography or their customers. But in the transition to statism, every infringement of human rights has begun with the suppression of a given right’s least attractive practitioners. In this case, the disgusting nature of the offenders makes it a good test of one’s loyalty to a principle.
“Censorship: Local and Express,”
Philosophy: Who Needs It, 173.
conservativegirl:
You originally said:
“I am a white person married to a black conservative, who through hard work has created a much better life for his children than he had growing up. No one handed him anything and he is proud of that.”
When called on that line of utter stupidity. You defended teh inanity with this:
“I realize that people came before me and made my life possible. The difference is I am grateful for them doing it and am living my life in celebration of what they did instead of miring in the past.”
Let’s juxtapose those for a moment. Hum … do you really believe the language is so infinitely malleable that you can tell us he pulled himself up by his bootstraps with no help at all, and in a later breath, tell us that means you celebrate those who paved the way for him, and have us not laugh you all the way to the figurative blog door?
It’s not people of color who can’t think for themselves. Apparently it’s their spouses who simply can’t think at all.
Byron–you’re obviously such a tool: “but government has yet to be able to do that even after 80 years of ostensible financial reform and regulation.” We’ve been undoing regulation for 30 years and that’s the problem.
I realize that people came before me and made my life possible. The difference is I am grateful for them doing it and am living my life in celebration of what they did instead of miring in the past.
Yes racism exists in the world. Your inability to allow people of color to think for themselves proves that.
I don’t believe any of the “liberals” here said Thomas wasn’t black. We said (in summary) that he is a barely competent toady to Scalia and the dumbest justice at SCOTUS. That’s a comment on the content of his character and quality of his intellect (such as it is). He could be chartreuse for all I care. He’s a mediocre attorney, a demagogic ideologue, a misogynist and a puppet for the very forces that wish MLK had never been born. In short, an embarrassment to the Court and the Civil Rights movement based on his rulings (such as they are).
But his color doesn’t have squat to do with it.
And if you think Byron is a liberal? ha ha HA!
Oh, I almost burst a kidney laughing at that nonsense.
Come back when you can do something other than play the race card, James. We “liberals” are color blind, but not intellect and law blind. Thomas is a bad justice because he’s a mediocre attorney at best and socially tone deaf – nothing more, nothing less.
Byron,
I would rather be stupid than bankrupt!!! If conservatism was practiced in America would be a much better place. Then, liberlas like you could leave.
It is amazing how when an African American claims to a conservative, the Liberals always brand them as not being Black.
Byron:
“The most timid, frightened, conservative defenders of the status quo—of the intellectual status quo—are today’s liberals (the leaders of the conservatives never ventured into the realm of the intellect). What they dread to discover is the fact that the intellectual status quo they inherited is bankrupt, that they have no ideological base to stand on and no capacity to construct one. Brought up on the philosophy of Pragmatism, they have been taught that principles are unprovable, impractical or non-existent—which has destroyed their ability to integrate ideas, to deal with abstractions, and to see beyond the range of the immediate moment. Abstractions, they claim, are “simplistic” (another anti-concept); myopia is sophisticated. “Don’t polarize!” and “Don’t rock the boat!” are expressions of the same kind of panic.”
“Credibility and Polarization,” The Ayn Rand Letter,
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See, ol’ Ayn proves the point made eloquently by Mill. Just some conservative venomous conclusions with nary a fact in sight.
justaconservatiev girl:
“No one handed him anything and he is proud of that.
It is too bad that you see color, we see taking pride in hard work.”
********************
Oh, really! You may want to get down on your knees tonight in thanks to the thousands of people in the 60’s who worked damn hard and gave up lots of blood and sweat so you can pontificate about how “hubbie” did it all on his own. Start with Mildred Loving who made your union even possible in Loving v. Virginia. You can then perhaps read about the civil rights movement that freed that “little-engine that-could” husband of yours from the social restraints that conservatives like you ensnared most African-American in for decades. No one succeeds entirely on their own and the fact that you think they do shows both your arrogance and your ignorance of the past. Spare me the ingratitude that conservatives like you foist upon us all for the sacrifices those like us made in the past and continue to make today while you smugly assume that all this was possible only because you made it so with a snap of your fingers and “hard work.”. The world didn’t begin with your birth.
By the way, I do see color with you; it’s gray — and appended to an animal with long ears and a distinctive braying sound.
Rich:
I agree we don’t have free markets and more the pity. I also agree that we need transparency in markets, but government has yet to be able to do that even after 80 years of ostensible financial reform and regulation. And you want more of the same? What is that about doing something over and over again and expecting a different outcome?
Give me a break and take some of your own advice.
Nothing like quoting someone liek rand was a true neo-Stalinist in terms of form—a dogmatic, self-serving personwho wouldn’t know free speech or actual free enterprise if it kicked her in the butt.
Mespo:
“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.>/i>
~John Stuart Mill (Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)”
I’ll agree and go you one better 🙂
“The most timid, frightened, conservative defenders of the status quo—of the intellectual status quo—are today’s liberals (the leaders of the conservatives never ventured into the realm of the intellect). What they dread to discover is the fact that the intellectual status quo they inherited is bankrupt, that they have no ideological base to stand on and no capacity to construct one. Brought up on the philosophy of Pragmatism, they have been taught that principles are unprovable, impractical or non-existent—which has destroyed their ability to integrate ideas, to deal with abstractions, and to see beyond the range of the immediate moment. Abstractions, they claim, are “simplistic” (another anti-concept); myopia is sophisticated. “Don’t polarize!” and “Don’t rock the boat!” are expressions of the same kind of panic.”
“Credibility and Polarization,” The Ayn Rand Letter,
Forget race. I’d have said “proposes” to be a man.
LONG LIVE ANITA HILL
DigitalDave
just a conservative girl — It is too bad that you see color, we see taking pride in hard work.
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It’s too bad that you don’t see color, because there is such a thing. Norton was pointedly asked a question about color, so to you I guess the answer ought to have been “What? Color? What’s that?”
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Colbert? Is that you?
just a conservative girl — It is too bad that you see color, we see taking pride in hard work.
———————
It’s too bad that you don’t see color, because there is such a thing. Norton was pointedly asked a question about color, so to you I guess the answer ought to have been “What? Color? What’s that?”
Jason
I hope everyone here who is excusing Norton remembers it the next time a conservative says something stupid and inflammatory (and let’s face it, it won’t take long). You have no right to be outraged about stupid, snotty discourse from the right if you endorse what Norton said. Your criticisms of Thomas are accurate, but taking cheap shots based on race is despicable.
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I love it when someone tells me what I do and do not have a right to think and or say. It’s so …. didactic.
You’re right. The next time a black conservative criticizes a liberal black Supreme Court justice for betraying his ethnic group by not being conservative enough I will refrain from denouncing it.
“My guess is that he isn’t so ‘bright’ because he believe in individual liberty, the rule of law and constitutional prohibitions against the power of the state. He probably also believes in free market capitalism which must make him a really dim bulb.” Actually, he’s happy to support coercive state actions when initiated by a Republican. he is no scholar and basically seems to sign onto Scalia’s opinions. He’s basically an oversensitive mediocrity who has traded on race and then denied it. Norton is right on.
BTW–we don’t have “free market capitalism.” Free markets assume transparency and equal access to information. The financial sector’s exotic instruments an dendless repoackaging of junk, not to mention the coercive monopolism/oligarchy of companies like wal-Mart, Microsoft, et al. is hardly a “free market”. You need to get wingnut talking points out of your diet and look at the real world.
It is nice to see that the tolerant left is alive and well. It says a great deal about who you are if you are sticking up for these comments.
I am a white person married to a black conservative, who through hard work has created a much better life for his children than he had growing up. No one handed him anything and he is proud of that.
It is too bad that you see color, we see taking pride in hard work.