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The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18255941/Justice Thomas’s life a mix of poverty, privilege
Race issue shadows only African American on Supreme Court
By Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher
Updated: 2 hours, 39 minutes ago
Adapted from the book "Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas" by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher, Doubleday, New York, © 2007
.... Thomas's intervention in this family crisis reflects a side of him not widely known. As arguably the most powerful African American in public life, he labors under expectations that none of his fellow justices face. Even as Thomas goes about his work, perhaps the purest conservative on the high court, it is his racial identity that shadows him. For 16 years, there have been questions: Would he be on the court if he were not black? Would his silence at oral arguments cast doubt on his intellect if he were not black? Would he be the subject of such public scrutiny if he were not a black conservative? ....
Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former clerk for Justice Stephen G. Breyer, remembers sitting across from Thomas at lunch once with a quizzical expression on her face. Jackson, who is black, said Thomas "spoke the language," meaning he reminded her of the black men she knew. "But I just sat there the whole time thinking: 'I don't understand you. You sound like my parents. You sound like the people I grew up with.' But the lessons he tended to draw from the experiences of the segregated South seemed to be different than those of everybody I know." ....
Thomas is not popular among the other inmates, the nephew emphasized. Most consider the justice a sellout, believing that a black jurist should not support draconian penalties but should question why the nation's drug laws hit low-level dealers and African Americans disproportionately hard. On the court, Thomas has largely backed the government's position on drug crimes and incarceration, including on questions of inmate property forfeiture, visitation rights and maximum sentences for repeat offenders. ....
But the truth is that Thomas's rise was never anchored in Pin Point, as White House advisers led the public to believe. His family's house had burned down when he was 6, and for most of his young life he was raised comfortably in Savannah by his grandfather Myers Anderson, one of the black community's leading businessmen. When Thomas does return to Pin Point now, he comes quietly and leaves quickly. He is not a frequent visitor. Some residents note he missed Pin Point's last two summer reunions, in 2000 and 2004. Thomas's sister says her brother has never even been inside her home. "No, I don't think so," Martin said. ....
Emma Mae Martin, who was once publicly singled out by her brother as an example of the debilitating effects of welfare dependency, is a high school dropout who later earned her diploma in night school as an adult. She and her brother don't talk politics or law or philosophy. Their conversations tend to be about, "well, not much really," Martin said. "Find out how I'm doing, what I'm up to, that's about it." ....
Though Thomas had not always thought the best of his mother as a parent, ... ....
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