Clarence Thomas

Bill Kauffman from the November 1987 issue

(Page 5 of 6)

You've got a situation recently where the president of the NAACP or one of his spokespersons is defending a kid who punched out a teacher. Give me a break! How in the hell are the kids going to learn if they can punch out the teacher? I would have died if I'd done something like that and I went back home to my grandfather--literally died. You've got to have some standards of morality, some strong positive statements about expectations--and those organizarions could do that. Instead, they spend their time telling minority kids that it is hopeless out here. Why is it hopeless? Because Ronald Reagan is making it hopeless.

When Ronald Reagan is gone, why are you going to tell them that it's hopeless? Because the government isn't spending enough money. It will always be hopeless if that's the reason. You don't have any control over that. What you do have control over is yourself. They should be telling these kids that freedom carries not only benefits, it carries responsibilities. You want to be free, you want to leave your parents' house? Then you've got to earn your own living, you've got to pay your own mortgage, pay your own rent, buy your own car, and pay for your own food. You've got to learn how to take care of yourself, learn how ro raise your kids, how to go to school and prepare for a job and take risks like everybody else.

Reason: Why do you think the NAACP has never really picked up on any of the opportunity themes that Walter Williams sketched in The State Against Blacks, like taxicab regulations? Why do you think they seem uninterested in things like that?

Thomas: They are pro-government. It's simple. My grandfather had an opporrunity to make a lot of money during the building boom after the Korean War and World War II. He couldn't get the license. These are things that I didn't have the read the The State Blacks to know. We saw it. A black person could not obtain an electrician's license. So what they would do is wire an entire house and then pay maybe $100 to a white electrician to connect the wire from the post to the box--about a two minute job.

Reason: I guess it's dangerous to speak about people as a block or a monolith, but do you think a large number of black Americans share your instincrive aversion to governmen?

Thomas: I think that a lot of black Americans have a lot of different opinions on a lot of different things. But I know that the vote of 9 out of 10 black Americans for the Democratic Party or for leftist kinds of policies just is not reflective of their opinions. The Republican Party and the conservatives have shown very little interest in black Americans and have actually done things to leave the impression among blacks that they are antagonistic to their interests. Even as someone who's labeled a conservative --I'm a Republican I'm black, I'm heading up this organization in the Reagan administration--I can say that conservatives don't exactly break their necks to tell blacks that they're welcome.

Reason: Is the solution for guys like you to assume really public profiles, maybe not as Republicans, but as independents or something and run for office?

Thomas: I don't think we'd ever win. Certainly the blacks won't vote for you --at least not now. And whites...I'd have to say there is still racism in our society and there are still attitudes based on race. So I wouldn't expect that that would work anytime soon. We've gotten beyond the point where we were totally ignored--"They're just pimples on the horizon. They'll disappear and everything will be all right. It's a passng fad. Like hula hoops or pet rocks." We haven't gone away. And I think the best thing we can do is not to go away. One of the things that it's forced us to do is to think through everything. I don't know one of my friends who is considered a conservative who has not had to go back and thoroughly think through everything. You do a lot of soul-searching--'cause we are not going to win any popularity contests.

Reason: You seem uncomfortable with the label "conservative."

Thomas: I'm willing to accept it for the sake of discussion so I don't have to spend a whole lot of time on definitions, etc. But I'm just Clarence Thomas. I'm an individual. Some people say well, you're something. Well I'm Clarence Thomas. okay? I'm black. I know it. I'm a male I know that. I know my biography up to a point and these are my beliefs now. If that adds up to your view of what a conservative is, fine.

Reason: You took this job in government, and all of a sudden people are saying terrible things about you--are you used to that now? Does it bother you when you go home at night?

Thomas: It doesn't bother me when I go home. Early on--you have to remember I was thrown on this scene. After we got back from the Fairmont Conference in 1980, it was a the first time I'd had any kind of articles written about me. All of a sudden my views, or at least the journalistic synopsis of my views, are in a major paper, the Washington Post. I wasn't used to this kind of thing. I never ran for office. I rarely raised my hand in college. And suddenly, my name is in the paper. And to hear the things they said about me--Carl Rowan and some of the others. It does affect you. But it is so bad and so offbase that you just have to shake your head.

Winston Churchill was asked, Why did you become prime minister? He said, "Ambition." Well, why did you stay so long? He said, "Anger." That's one of the reasons I went back up for reconfirmation. You're not going to run me out of town. I'm going to stay right here. If I'm not reconfirmed, I'll drive a truck. I'll work in a gas station. I'll work at McDonald's.

Reason: I guess it was at the Fairmont Conference that you said, "If I ever went to work for the EEOC or did anything directly connected with blacks, my career would be irreparably ruined. The monkey would be on my back to prove that I didn't have the job because I'm black.'' I assume you've changed your mind?

Thomas: No. I haven't changed my mind.

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Clarence Thomas suggests Obama’s SOTU criticism was ‘irresponsible’ | Raw Story links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:

…Commission says that black leaders are 'watching the destruction of our race' as they 'bitch, bitch, bitch' about President Reagan but fail to work with the administration to solve problems." In an 1987 interview with Reason, Thomas said that he held "some very strong libertarian leanings." "I tend to really be partial to Ayn Rand, and to The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged," Thomas said in 1987. "But at this point I'm…