“The idea was to get rid of me.”
That’s how Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas described his own confirmation hearings in an upcoming documentary about his life called Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words. ABC News was given an advanced screening of the film, and their report made one thing clear: when it came to discussing his opponents, Justice Thomas didn’t hold back.
According to Thomas, his detractors felt he was “the wrong black guy” for the job.
“The wrong black guy”
Clarence Thomas was born in poverty to a teenage mother during the era of segregation in America, and in the film, he speaks of the discrimination he faced growing up, according to reports. But the Supreme Court justice also made clear that just because Democrats abandoned Jim Crow didn’t mean they’d stop trying to hold him back.
“I felt as though in my life I had been looking at the wrong people as the people who would be problematic toward me,” the associate justice remarked, according to The Hill. “We were told that, ‘Oh, it’s gonna be the bigot in the pickup truck; it’s gonna be the Klansmen; it’s gonna be the rural sheriff.'”
But according to Thomas, a hidden culprit emerged. “It turned out that through all of that, ultimately the biggest impediment was the modern-day liberal. They were the ones who would discount all those things because they have one issue or because they have the power to caricature you,” Thomas lamented.
He saw that power firsthand during his 1991 confirmation hearings, which were led by then-Senate Judiciary Chairman — and current 2020 hopeful — Joe Biden (D-DE).
“Do I have like stupid written on the back of my shirt? I mean come on. We know what this is all about,” Thomas said of the sexual harassment allegations lodged against him by Anita Hill. “People should just tell the truth: ‘This is the wrong black guy; he has to be destroyed.’ Just say it. Then now we’re at least honest with each other.”
Double standards
Indeed, to Thomas, it seems there’s a double standard at play.
“There’s different sets of rules for different people. If you criticize a black person who’s more liberal, you’re a racist,” Thomas explained. “Whereas you can do whatever to me, or to now Ben Carson, and that’s fine because you’re not really black because you’re not doing what we expect black people to do.”
Still, Thomas said it soon became clear to him why his enemies fought so hard to keep him off the bench.
“Most of my opponents on the Judiciary Committee cared about only one thing: how would I rule on abortion rights,” he said.
Produced and directed by filmmaker Michael Pack, Created Equal is scheduled to hit theaters early next year.
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