Supreme Discomfort
The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
“[An] impeccably researched and probing biography . . . invaluable for any understanding of the court’s most controversial figure.”—The New York Times Book Review
A sweeping, compelling portrait of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas and “an unflinching look at success and race in America” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review), from two Washington Post journalists
There is no more powerful, detested, misunderstood African American in our public life than Clarence Thomas. Supreme Discomfort is a haunting account of an isolated and complex man, savagely reviled by much of the Black community, not yet entirely comfortable in white society, internally wounded by his passage from a broken family and rural poverty in Georgia to elite educational institutions and finally to the pinnacle of judicial power. His staunchly conservative positions on crime, abortion, and, especially, affirmative action have exposed him to charges of heartlessness and hypocrisy.
Supreme Discomfort is a superbly researched and reported work that features testimony from friends and foes alike who have never spoken in public about Thomas before—including a candid conversation with his fellow justice and ideological ally, Antonin Scalia. It offers a long-overdue window into a man who straddles two different worlds and is uneasy in both—and whose divided personality and conservative political philosophy will deeply influence American life for years to come.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The conservatism of the nation's second African-American Supreme Court justice has made him a pariah in the black community, an irony that centers this probing biography, expanded from the authors'Washington Post Magazine profile. Thomas's rise from disadvantaged circumstances to Yale Law School, a meteoric government career and appointment to Thurgood Marshall's Court seat, Merida and Fletcher note, seems an affirmative action success story. Yet Thomas has opposed affirmative action, prisoners' rights, abortion and other planks of the liberal agenda, leading to ubiquitous complaints the authors cite black leaders, prison inmates, even Thomas's relatives that he's forgotten his roots. Merida and Fletcher present a lucid, well-researched account of Thomas's controversial life and jurisprudence, including evidence supporting Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations, and a nuanced discussion of the politics of black authenticity. They portray Thomas as a conflicted man: a committed conservative with an ethos of self-reliance, who took advantage of affirmative action only to have his achievements tarnished by his own insecurities and others' suspicions of incompetence or hypocrisy. The authors' attempts to link his convictions to his psyche they make much of his alleged resentment of light-skinned black professional elites don't always click, but Thomas still emerges as a fascinating and emblematic figure.
