The whining Thomas

By Weekly Archive On Oct 10, 2007

Life
has been good to Clarence Thomas. After a rough start, with help from
his grandfather, he attended good Catholic schools. He got into Yale
Law School, thanks to affirmative action. He got good jobs with the
Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. And he’s now on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yes,
life’s been good to Clarence Thomas. But you’d never know it from
reading his new book, "My Grandfather’s Son." Clearly, 16
years later, Thomas is still seething over his contentious
confirmation hearings. His memoir is nothing but 289 pages of pure
bile, directed against Democratic senators who opposed his nomination
and against his principal accuser, now Brandeis University law
professor Anita Hill.

Elaborating
on his 1991 charge that he was the victim of a "high-tech
lynching for uppity blacks," Thomas says his treatment before
the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed his childhood fears of Ku
Klux Klan lynch mobs. "My worse fears had come to pass not in
Georgia," he writes, "but in Washington, D.C., where I was
being pursued not by bigots in white robes but by left-wing zealots
draped in flowing sanctimony."

In
other words, he implies, Democrats didn’t want him on the court
because he was black. Nonsense. There was only one reason chairman
Joe Biden and others opposed Thomas’ nomination. It had nothing to do
with the color of his skin. It was because they didn’t trust him.
They didn’t believe his testimony that he’d never thought about Roe
vs. Wade. They feared that, on key issues like right of privacy,
choice and affirmative action, he’d become one of the most
conservative members of the court. And they were right!

Besides,
Thomas was opposed by the NAACP and the National Bar Association,
representing African-American lawyers and judges. And his biggest
troubles came from an African-American woman. Anita Hill didn’t care
about his race. She did care about his abusive treatment of women.

In
his book, Thomas is obviously eager to settle a score with Anita
Hill. He not only denies her claims of sexual harassment, he
belittles her as a "mediocre" lawyer, and accuses her of
waiting 10 years before complaining about his behavior, and then
doing so only for political reasons. Thomas insists: "She was
not the demure, religious, conservative person that they portrayed."

There’s
only one problem. During the last 16 years, many co-workers have come
forward to support her version of events. As recounted by columnist
Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post, four colleagues confirm that Hill
complained to them at the time about Thomas’ sexual overtures. At
least one other EEOC female employee complained that Thomas showed up
uninvited at her apartment and asked her breast size. And two others
recall his making comments about pubic hairs on Coke cans.

Bottom
line: Whatever happened at the EEOC between Clarence Thomas and Anita
Hill will always remain a question of he said/she said. But there’s
tons of evidence to support what she said, and none for what he said.

Most
importantly, because Anita Hill dared come forward, the issue of
sexual harassment in the workplace will never be taken lightly again.
As she wrote recently in The New York Times: "Today, when
employees complain of abuse in the workplace, investigators and
judges are more likely to examine all the evidence and less likely to
simply accept as true the word of those in power." Case in
point: the Oct. 2 verdict against New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas.
Anucha Browne Sanders would never have won her sexual-harassment case
against Thomas and the Knicks if Anita Hill hadn’t paved the way.

Frankly,
Thomas’ nomination hearing couldn’t have upset him too much. In his
book, he says he got home and, without even watching the vote, took a
bath. When his wife walked in to tell him he’d been confirmed, 52-48,
Thomas shouted out "Whoop-dee damn-doo."

Whoop-dee
damn-doo, indeed. And that’s the point. There’s no way Thomas can
claim to be the victim of racial discrimination, so he should just
shut up about it.

After
all, with all his Neanderthal views, he’s on the Supreme Court of the
United States. We’re the ones who should be complaining, not him.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "How
the Republicans Stole Religion." His
email address is: bill@billpress.com. His Web site is:
www.billpress.com.