Making Sense of Clarence Thomas
The puzzle of this arch-conservative is solved by understanding his history — hidden in plain sight
Whether you love Dave Chappelle or can’t stand him, you have to acknowledge there is unalloyed comic genius in the premise of the Chappelle’s Show sketch “Frontline: Clayton Bigsby”. In the sketch Bigsby is a revered white supremacist writer and leader who — to great comedic effect — doesn’t know he is black. Chappelle plays the character to the hilt. The vehemence of Bigsby’s racism is so consuming that, once he is unmasked, the white white supremacists are struck dumb, unable to process hearing the words coming out of a black man’s mouth.
I can’t help but think of Clarence Thomas. Not because he is a cartoonish exaggeration like Bigsby, to be lampooned for a laugh, or to dismiss him as a lightweight conservative shill as many progressives have mistakenly done, but rather because the reality of him is so deeply and puzzlingly ironic.
The analogy actually fits better if you flip it. Clarence Thomas knows he’s black…acutely, unavoidably. It is his delivery of decisions that align to the goals of white supremacism that he seems blind to. How is it possible that a child of Jim Crow who has so poignantly felt the barbs of racism for himself and his family can stand…
