Bishop Talbert Swan @TalbertSwan: The tragedy of this moment is not simply that a Supreme Court justice is defending a [View all]

The tragedy of this moment is not simply that a Supreme Court justice is defending a powerful political ally. The tragedy is that a man who sits in a seat once occupied by Thorogood Marshall, one of the greatest champions of civil rights, has always used that power to undermine the very freedoms that made his own ascent possible.

The resemblance between Uncle Ruckus, a fictional, satirical, anti-Black character from ‘The Boondocks,’ who believes he is a white man suffering from "revitiligo," and Clarence Thomas is painfully familiar: a man so eager to defend the very systems that harm his own people that he becomes their most enthusiastic spokesperson, echoing white supremacist talking points while dismissing the lived realities of the community he comes from.

Uncle Thomas sits where a legal giant once sat, a man who argued for the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and devoted his life to expanding democracy for people who had been locked out of it. The legacy of Thurgood Marshall was built through sacrifice, courage, and the blood, sweat, and tears of generations who fought segregation, voter suppression, and white supremacy.

Yet time and again, Thomas has positioned himself on the opposite side of that struggle.

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