[Uncle] Thomas Speaks ... Blindly About Race

Charles M. Blow, NYT
FEB. 12, 2014

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas doesn’t often speak during oral arguments before the Supreme Court.

But often what he says outside the chamber is eyebrow-raising. Such was the case Tuesday when Thomas told an audience at Palm Beach Atlantic University:

“My sadness is that we are probably today more race- and difference-conscious than I was in the 1960s when I went to school. To my knowledge, I was the first black kid in Savannah, Ga., to go to a white school. Rarely did the issue of race come up.”

He continued:

“Now, name a day it doesn’t come up. Differences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah. Every person in this room has endured a slight. Every person. Somebody has said something that has hurt their feelings or did something to them — left them out.”

(More here.)