All I cared about was finding answers, no matter who had them. When, later on, I began to associate with conservatives, it was because their ideas were closer to mine than liberals’ ideas, not because I saw myself as one of them. I’d already noticed that it was liberals, not conservatives, who were most likely to condescend to blacks, but I assumed, like the good radical I once was, that liberals and conservatives were simply two different breeds of snake, one stealthy, the other openly hostile.

~ Clarence Thomas, My Grandfather’s Son (pages 107-108)

My dad told me there’s no difference between a black snake and a white snake. They both bite.

~ Thurgood Marshall at a press conference announcing his retirement from the Supreme Court.

It’s said that hate is a wasteful emotion. It’s said that hating someone is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. It’s said that hating someone means renting space in your head and they probably don’t even know how much you hate them.

I accept all that to be true. But I still hate Clarence Thomas. I’ve done a good job of getting away from the days when I was quick to call someone an Uncle Tom. Thomas has been a massive failure as a judge on the Supreme Court, but beyond that he’s not just bad; he’s evil.

My good friend, Denise Clay, the Mad Political Scientist and I had a Facebook debate where she asked me wasn’t I being a bit rough when I described Uncle Clarence Thomas as a “lawn jockey?”

My response is I’m just upset EMERGE magazine beat me to it. I’d be a lot less hard on Uncle Thomas if he were a lot less hard on Black folks.

Two wrongs never make a right, Jeff…

Denise, EMERGE wasn’t wrong. Thomas has been a complete disaster. He’s the ultimate argument against affirmative action. An unqualified, unprepared bumbler who got his job only because Bush needed a Black conservative to replace Thurgood Marshall and Uncle Thomas was ready and on the case.

Calling people things like Uncle Toms, Lawn Jockeys and the like are dialogue stoppers.

Dialogue stoppers? I don’t WANT to dialogue with Uncle Thomas and his worthless ass. FUCK Clarence Thomas. I’d rather have a hardcore White conservative that hates Black folks like Scalia than a punk-ass sell-out like Thomas.

But you don’t neutralize him this way. You make him a martyr…which makes him stronger…

Fine. Let hit be a martyr. I don’t give a shit as long as he’s no longer on the Supreme Court making life hell for 36 million Black Americans, give or take a few conservatives.

I’m tired of hearing about how we need to reach out to Black folks who think and act like Uncle Thomas. Why isn’t HE reaching out to US? You never see Thomas go to a HBCU, an NAACP convention, or on Black oriented radio, television, newspaper or website trying to reach out to Black people. And you know what? YOU NEVER WILL.

Uncle Thomas doesn’t care what Denise Clay thinks. He damn sure doesn’t care what Jeff Winbush thinks. White people–specifically White conservatives–are the ONLY people he cares about. He cares very much about what they think. Why else would he throw his own sister under the bus for the entertainment of White conservatives? Thomas is whom we thought he was. A sell-out. A house Negro. A lawn jockey for the White Right.

And Ms Clay says calling him so shut down the possibility of dialogue. During WWII, did the French sit down to discuss their differences with Nazi collaborators? Clarence sleeps with the enemy. Literally, not figuratively.

Instead of playing Henry Kissinger with the low-life likes of Uncle Clarence, I opt for going Sgt. Vernon Walters from ‘A Soldier’s Story‘ on his ass:

“Them Nazis ain’t all crazy. Whole lot of people just can’t seem to fit in to where things seem to be going. Like you, CJ. See, the Black race can’t afford you no more. There used to be a time, we’d see someone like you singin’, clownin’, yassuh-bossin’… and we wouldn’t do anything. Folks liked that. You were good. Homey kind of nigger. When they needed somebody to mistreat, call a name or two, they paraded you. Reminded them of the good old days. Not no more. The day of the Geechee is gone, boy. And you’re going with it.”

Black people can’t afford self-hating, race traitors like Uncle Clarence Thomas no more. As someone who used to admire Malcolm X before he went mad and peddled his ass and soul, Uncle Thomas should understand how Malcolm warned us of Uncle Toms.

And calling him an Uncle Tom is a much better solution…

When he walks like an Uncle Tom, talks like an Uncle Tom, and acts like an Uncle Tom, it would highly inaccurate not to call Uncle Thomas an Uncle Tom.

Would you prefer I call him a duck?

Your desire to sit down and attempt to reason with an unreasonable man is charming and sweet and hopelessly doomed to failure. The problem is you think Uncle Thomas has a problem you can help him fix. He doesn’t think he has a problem. He thinks YOU do.

I just have a problem with the name calling. All it does is strengthen his position with the forces that want to do us in. Do I like this guy? No. He’s a bit of an ass. But Uncle Tom has a definite implication and I don’t think that I have the right to judge who is Black and who is not.

(I remember “A Soldier’s Story” too..)

Well, Niecey, I’ll put it like this. Many Black folks take offense to hearing the word “nigger” casually applied, but as Chris Rock put it, we know there’s a vast difference between how Black people and niggers behave, do we not?

It is undeniable there are Black people whose only purpose in life is to do dirt to other Blacks. Whether they were House Negroes giving aid and comfort to the White slave owners or the sell-outs that betrayed other Field Negroes who tried to rebel and escape their oppression, there have ALWAYS been Blacks happy to sell-out other Blacks just so long as they get over.

If you want me to lay out a case against Uncle Clarence Thomas and why I consider him a race traitor, sell-out, Uncle Tom House Negro who hates Blacks and loves Whites, I got no problem doing so.

Not that I’m trying to change your mind, but to make you understand I didn’t just wake up hating Clarence Thomas and everything he stands for. I’ve been hip to this head scratchin”, eye-rolling, chicken-n’-biscuit eatin’ Negro for some time, long before George Bush desecrated the Supreme Court and mocked Thurgood Marshall by replacing him with the Uncle Thomas shufflin’ minstrel show.

But talk is cheap. I have my reasons to hate Uncle Thomas. Very definite reasons and in my next post I’m going to focus on another member of the Supreme Court who is a worthy challenger to Thomas for the title of The Worst Justice Ever and may–operative word “may”–have hated Blacks even more than Thomas.