"Bush's choice of Thomas caught most black leaders off guard. Few had the courage to say publicly that this was an act of cynical tokenism concealed by outright lies about Thomas being the most qualified candidate regardless of race. Thomas had an undistinguished record as a student (mere graduation from Yale Law School does not qualify one for the Supreme Court); he left thirteen thousand age discrimination cases dying on the vine for lack of investigation in his turbulent eight years at the EEOC; and his performance during his short fifteen months as an appellate court judge was mediocre. The very fact that no black leader could utter publicly that a black appointee for the Supreme Court was unqualified shows how captive they are to white racist stereotypes about black intellectual talent."
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Justices of the Supreme Court of the United StatesLawyers from the United StatesMemoirists from the United StatesCatholics from the United StatesAfrican Americans
Original Language: English
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Sources
Cornel West Race Matters (1993)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clarence_Thomas
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Clarence Thomas
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