Transcripts For CSPAN2 Corey Robin The Enigma Of Clarence Thomas 20220817

Columnist. Jimel bui. My name is salvatore skibono director of the dorothy in lewis b Coleman Center for scholars and writers here at the library. As some of you know the Common Centers selects 15 fellows a year for a nine month term fellows receive an office in the Center Access to our collections and to stipend so they can focus exclusively on their work during their fellowships. The fellows are some of the very best and most promising academics independent scholars poets playwrights journalists dramatists artists and fiction writers at work today. They come here from around the country in the world to use the unparalleled collections housed at this library do write the books of tomorrow. The program was founded in 1999 into date. It has supported the work of more than 300 fellows the deadline for applications for for next year is friday. Is free. I encourage you to come back in november for a free new exhibition that will open on the third floor of this Building Made at the new york public library. Well feature more than 30 works written right here with the support of this librarys collections. The show will include works by Common Center fellows and others who worked both here at the stevenage schwartzman building and in other Research Libraries of the nypl system. This series of conversations presents the books that fellows of the Common Center came here to write later on in this season will also present conversations with novelists taya obrecht and you and julie oranger in conversations about the new novels that they worked on during the fellow their fellowship. Youre here find more details on your rack cards. Youll find at the table by the door copies of the enigma of Clarence Thomas for sale. Corey robin has graciously agreed to stay after this conversation to sign them. The enigma of Clarence Thomas has already been called fascinating brilliant and counterintuitive by book form. And in the new in the National Review of valuable and overdue engagement with the nexus between thomass early life his black nationalism and his political views in a review for tomorrows New York Times jennifer zelli writes. Its a provocative thesis but one of the marvels of robins razor sharp book is how carefully he marshals his evidence corey has not heard any this review yet. He doesnt have to resort to elaborate speculation or armchair psychology psychologizing relying instead on thomass speeches interviews and Supreme Court opinions. Just as jurists make ample use of the written record. Robin does the same. She continues. The result is rigorous yet readable frequently startling yet eminently persuasive. It isnt every day. It is in every day. That reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling and robbins incisive and superbly argued book has made me think again. Were honored that cory will speak tonight with jamel buie. Jamel. Bui is a columnist for the New York Times where the editorial page and the book review do not speak to each other. They really dont. And hes also political analyst for cbs news. He covers campaigns Elections National affairs and culture prior to the times jamel was chief Political Correspondent for slate magazine and before that. He was a staff writer at the daily beast and held fellowships at the american prospect and the nation magazine. Corey robin is the author of the reactionary mind conservatism from edmund burke to donald trump hailed by the new yorker as the best the book that predicted trump and fear the history of a political idea which won the best first book in political theory award from the american Political Science association. His writings have been translated into 13 languages. He was a fellow at the Common Center last year from 2018 to 2019. If you have questions for mr. Robin or mr. Bowie as the conversation proceeds, please feel welcome to write them down on the note cards that you have received coming in questions not segments, please. A staff member will collect them about a half an hour from now and our guests will get to as many as time allows now. Were proud to present corey robin and jim el bui. Thank you all for coming spending on monday evening talking about a Supreme Court justice. Im not sure i would have done it. But here we all are so corey. Whats jump right into it we were talking in backstage a little bit about the origins of the book and you mentioned that this this wasnt a project or clarence. Thomas wasnt a person you were necessarily focused on you werent you didnt have some driving interest . Trying to work through its view. So what how did this book come about . So it began with an invitation to political scientists one of whom taught a class of yours. I think you said at uva. Were putting together a reader on africanamerican political thought along anthology and there are very few of these actually in my field and the critics the initial readers said, you know, were going to need something more on black conservatism. You dont you know, you should do something on thomas and so they approached me because ive written on conservatism at some length and i didnt want to do it. I said no several times. Both because i didnt actually have much of an interest in clearance thomas to be honest. And also i felt like i was done talking about the right. I didnt feel like i had much more to say about it. I was a strong armed into it and i was instantaneously sort of transfixed by by this man by his way of thinking by this kind of dostoyevskian character that he is not just psychologically and biographically, but intellectually and just the way in which his Supreme Court opinions which you know, youve read some of them theyre theyre kind of dry affairs. But with him, this is just a self that just leaps out off the page and i was really taken with the idea of trying to tell this mans story through his ideas through through his opinions. So the what are the i guess the central claim of the book is that we can understand thomas through reference to his youth as a black nationalist as someone who is swimming. I think thats the verb you were swimming in this intellectual current in late 60s and early 70s were black nationalism black power obvious things. Were very much in the mainstream language of africanamerican life. I think you you mentioned how liberal African American activist who julian bond to the world. Were all so speaking the language of black nationalism. Its just sort of what it was the way people engaged with black politics and that this is a this is a much more foundational thing for thomas than we tend to acknowledge or even talk about in his jurisprudence, right . Yeah, so thomas moves to the north in 1968. He goes to holy cross, which is a college outside of boston and he is radicalized in part by the assassination of Martin Luther king and Bobby Kennedy like many other people and the realization. He said he came to was is that nobodys going to do anything for us and by us he means black people and nobody he really means white people and so theres a really strong kind of a foundational experience of black selfhelp black selforganization and black autonomous organizations. Thomas was not just a kind of, you know, intellectual drifter he was he was an activist i run into people not often but every once in a while who say i tell them im writing about this and they say, oh, yeah. I was in the new left in the in the 60s and we about thomas in the boston area or things like that. So he was you know, he was a figure and he he derived as i said these sort of foundational commitments to black autonomy black selforganization a very foundational critique of integration and a belief really in racial separatism at its heart in racial selforganization. And and whats interesting. Is that though he has a very strong migration to the right. He doesnt lose a lot of those foundational commitments. They are the seed bed in which his conservatism then grows. So what what is the path to that conservatism . How does he make this move . Because black nationalism that has conservative elements has reactionary elements even and you see some of those in thomass work his is early life. He sort of subscribed to this highly patriarchal you might even call misogynist view of women and you can make a case. Thats still exists in the present day be the emphasis on selfautonomy and black nationalism can very easily become a very reactionary rejection of the idea of structural constraints and individuals, but its not inevitable. So what what drives thomas to the right . So i think the biggest thing to remember about thomas is the moment and when he is politicized the late 1960s and the really the early 1970s that period for many black activists is a moment of recognition with defeat, you know, theres you know, the last big legislative initiative. Its 1968. You have the election of Richard Nixon and then the reelection and there is a dawning awareness on the part of many black activists across the political spectrum of black political life. Who feel like the you know in the words there was a statement in 1973 by a group of black activists and intellectuals. Who said the marching is stopped and theres a real sense that black political possibilities are essentially either over or winnowing down. And thomas really takes the measure of that and takes it quite seriously and theres a real sense of of political defeatism and political pessimism that whether youre model is social movements in the streets revolutionary selforganization or mainstream electoral politics any of those models of politics, are no longer a path. So thats one part of it that i think hangs very heavily over his right turn. The second part of it and this was something that really came as a revelation to me. Among many black nationalists in this moment and black power activists the flip side of this political defeatism is a sense of experimentation with the institutions of capitalism and the marketplace. Theres some wonderful new scholarship thats come out in the last five to ten years about all the ways in which black power activists were looking towards creating either, you know, sort of black entrepreneurs a separate black economy black owned business more black hiring a whole variety of forms, but the central animating idea behind a lot of this is that the political pathways are closed. And so what you have to do is explore the economic pathways, and and i think this sort of changes our sense of a lot of black power movements, which we associate with kind of the left and socialism, but as charles hamilton, who is the coauthor with Stokely Carmichael of black power puts it in the afterward which comes out years later. He said, you know the logical and run of black the end the terminus of black power wasnt necessarily socialism or social democracy. It was what malcolm x said it was which was you know, black cap, you know black cell ownership independent black business and things like that. And so thats really those two things the sense that politics is just that is is closed off to black people. On the one hand and that the economy and particularly a capitalist economy may offer possibilities and niches for black selfdevelopment and selforganization. I think really become the sort of pincers that start moving him slowly to the right. So theres theres other biographical questions here like like thomas joins the Reagan Administration and sort of makes the way into they can sort of legal role, but i think this is a good place to turn towards his jurisprudence a little bit in the book. You set out the thomas has two visions of the constitution. Theres a black constitution. Theres a white constitution and they both transmit very different messages, but thomas reconciles them in his overarching vision of i mean, ill let you describe it. So, can you its your book theyre here too. So lets talk about this visions of the constitution. What what is thomass black constitution . What is his white constitution . What does that mean for his jurisprudence . Okay, so this is im going to try to keep this not to weedy as they say in two technical but most constitutional scholars believe that that there is the original constitution that was ratified in 1789. And then that there was a kind of second constitution that was created through the struggle over emancipation and slavery radical fundamentally embodied in the 13th 14th and 15th amendments what we call the reconstruction amendments now thomas is what we call a very says hes an originalist. He believes that you should interpret the constitution as it was understood at the moment of its adoption, but unlike many Originalists Thomas takes very seriously this second constitution that was created through the struggle through the black freedom struggle of emancipation. And theres some very technical aspects of of that which i get into in the book, but at the heart of that black constitution for thomas. And this is where i think it starts reconciling with his some of his conservatism. Um amongst the many charters of liberties and freedoms that were created by the 13th and 14th and fifth amendment at the heart of four, thomas. Is the right to bear arms. Um, this was actually quite central to the experience of reconstruction for black freedmen and interestingly thomas in his opinion on this question extensively quotes from herbert aptechers a book on slave revolts. I think this may be the only time in a Supreme Court justice quotes herbert quotes herbert app deck or scholarship as opposed to his sort of communist activity and why you should be banned or Something Like that, but thomas takes this historiography very seriously eric phone or who many of you know, the historian has had personal correspondence with thomas and things of thomas as you know, thomas has read the owners book on reconstruction knows it quite well, so this experience of black arms really forms the heart of his vision of the black constitution and its not just a fetish for black arms because in that vision of black selfarmaments, he sees a vision of black manhood. End of black patriarchy of black men being able to protect their families and their communities and theres a very resonant image that he closes out one of his Second Amendment opinions where he quotes from the memory of a son remembering his father. On the night, you know sometime in the 1880s, i think it was or around there about remembering his father standing at the doorway with a rifle or with some kind of a gun. Holding off white supremacist terrorists and thomas has Something Like its an emblem of i cant remember the exact phrase an emblem of salvation or emblem of freedom. And so this is you know, once you start looking at the black radical tradition, this is very foundational this idea of black men arming themselves and protecting themselves and that not just being a kind of mode of protection but an emblem of freedom, right and thats at the heart of i his black constitution. I can now talk about his white constitution, which is a very unsettled. Well, i think ultimately both are kind of unsettling visions. His white constitutions harkens back to that original constitution, which is much more centered in the power of states as opposed to the National Government and at the heart of that white constitution. Is what we call the carceral state. Prisons Police Judges juries the whole apparatus that prosecutes and convicts people and this is something that whenever you say thomas is a black nationalist or has these leadings people find it very hard to reconcile with his kind of and its and its theres no other word for it, but grizzly and brutal endorsement of the power of the penal state. Theres theres no prettifying it in his decisions. He faces it full on. And the reason the the sort of the reason think that that white penal state is so powerful to thomas. Is that he believes that it is the closest thing to creating the conditions recreating . Excuse me, the conditions of jim crow. Which he thinks were a kind of golden age. Sort of renaissance moment for black america because that was the moment in his mind. When black men really . Grows to their full sort of power in the space of the most horrifying adversity and oppression which thomas does not in any way. Deny, he sees as kind of like a disciplining function right that it forces black americans into certain modes of behavior exactly a kind of disciplinary tutelage really a kind of educational kind of brutal pedagogy in what it means to be a full self. And thats what he thinks the penal state does and he goes through many many different ways and in which he sees this happening. But one of which is to create he believes it creates, you know men particularly men who can be market actors who can develop the habits and virtues. Of thrift and savings and and responsibility and all the rest of it and it and and but but this notion that adversity is central for the full flourishing and development of black people and that the minute that that slackens the minute things get too easy. The minute writes are granted becomes a moment of tremendous peril in his mind. And i think thats really at the heart of his idea of the white constitution. And so these things so his its jurisprudence on Voting Rights. For example, theres no contradiction in opposing or allowing states to put tight restriction on Voting Rights because his mind these are this is something that will help push africanamerican communities out of the political realm where hes not sure theyre ready for the kind of responsibilities. It entails and into the market realm. I dont know if he would say that theyre not ready for the responsibilities. I dont think thats the claim you but youre right. He definitely is hes quite hostile to Voting Rights. He doesnt really think its a but i think the foundation of that hostility for African Americans is that he believes that the electoral sphere is stacked against African Americans he gives this famous interview to Juan Williams back when Juan Williams was quite a serious journalist in in the 1980s in 1987. Everyone can win. And and he says, you know, just imagine if you know if if we were to in power black people in the political in the electoral realm and give some kind of sentence of you know, collective rights. He said, you know, just stack it up. Where will we come out . He says well always we always will come out at the bottom. The only one maybe worse. He says or American Indians maybe. So theres this real sense that the electoral space is just one that through the combination of white racism the white the majority the power of the white majority, you know, just the fact of the white majority means that African Americans will systemically lose and it is essentially to his mind a fools errand to be investing ones hopes in in voting in part of this is he sees not just racism is an intractable part of american society, but that even liberal whites integration integration is whites are not sincere. He doesnt trust them. He doesnt trust their motives. He thinks drawn in part from his experiences in the north that liberal whites. Specifically and their black allies are are the best way to describe to sort of traps for black people that theres no theres no real avenue of progression with those groups and and i should say theres a long tradition of this in black nationalism Marcus Garvey had very similar views he thought that you know the clansman was in some ways, you know the best friend of the black men because the clansmen was honest, you know exactly where you stood malcolm x uses i could always you know, its the the fox and the wolf. I might my my animal imagery is and so great. But theres the you know, the theres the whichever the one is the sneakier one who pretends to be your friend versus the one who kind of bears his teeth the white person who bears his teeth and really reveals who he is thomas uses the you know, i think he calls it a water moccasin and a copperhead but its the same kind of imagery that thomas really values racial candor and he says, you know, hes working in the Reagan Administration in the 1980s and hes asked about the racism in the Reagan Administration and he doesnt deny it. He says at least theyre honest. At least theyre honest and you know one of his favorite songs is the Smiling Faces tell lies the 1971 song and he says the reagan amenities, you know, he loves he used to listen to it all the time at Yale Law School and he says at least you know, the people in the reagan administrator they dont smile it you and so i think this notion of kind of racial candor knowing where you stand its very important just one last thing because ive mentioned garvey on the vote, you know, that was also garveys idea of the boat. You know that this was a fools ireland and you know, something that black people should stay away from so one question i have is how thomass black nationalism is heavily patriarchal and so how is i mean, what is his relationship to black women . Right because he hes not married to a black woman he was and in someone like garvey right would say there are no alliances with whites. Right . Its complete separatism. And in that in that sense clearance thomas isnt quite a garvia because hes willing to make these. Strategic alliances with white conservatives and also to you know, his wife is a white woman and that seemed that would seem to be a bit of an incongruity there. So the first thing i should say is the argument in the book is not that thomas is just a black nationalism that black nationalism explains everything thomas is a conservative. Hes also a republican and you cant understand him without those other facets. And so its its it, you know, i i dont think the black nationalism, you know explains the whole of it. An interestingly thomas was against interracial relationships and marriage pretty much up until the moment. He met virginia lamp and then changed his mind on the topic. And you know this alliance with quite concern, you know, theres a number of black conservatives if who have been interviewed and who when theyre in moments of candor will say that you know, they understand exactly what it is that theyre doing and that these are strategic alliances and so forth. So and i think you know thomas is in that regard and i think you know, you have to understand the role of that conservatism. But yeah, i mean he he thinks that i mean for him conservatism really, i mean if you go back to these foundational questions about politics sort of political pessimism political defeatism and economic the notion of the economy is being the space. It would seem like that would be a kind of a Natural Force that one could turn to in his mind. So i do want to talk a bit more about this black nationalism question because the thing that i guess thats struggle with the question i have is that thomas has is in this black nationalist world as a young man takes these ideas very seriously makes a turn to the right so on so forth, but in that turn to the right he seems to really jettison some tenants of black nationalism that are quite important. So hes not hes not a separatist. He doesnt think that you know that just want to build a black nation state out of you know, louisiana and mississippi, but this idea that political autonomy is actually quite important for black communities that even if electoral politics isnt an avenue proliferation. It is an avenue familiaration seems to be thomas rejects out, right and im not gonna let you just psychologize. Yeah, thomass you know views but that seems to put a little tension on this idea that the black nationalist ideas that i have. No doubt. He identified with as a young man have really carried over all that much into its adulthood. So Dean Robinson whos a political scientist at the university of massachusetts will wrote a wonderful book about 15 years ago called black nationalism in american politics and thought i think thats the title that had a big influence on me in reading it and one of the key arguments that he makes is that black nationalism is a tradition both political and intellectual but its not hermetically sealed from everything thats going on around it in the in in American Culture that every generation every era has its own black nationalism or some, you know, a version of that and so the kind of romantic nationalism that sees kind of an essential black culture that you see in a lot in 19th century thought reflects larger currents in 19th century thought about nationalism and then that these change over time. So the best answer i can give to you which i dont think involves psychologizing thomas, which i think would be dangerous particularly on this question, but reading him politically is that he is what happens to a certain kind of black nationalism in a moment of massive conservative retrenchment when when the whole culture and not just conservatives, i mean liberals, you know, theres a whole shift in the Democratic Party. Stop believing in the power of political emiration the way that they once did between lets say the 1930s and the 19 early 70s or Something Like that. And so a lot of politics is taken off the table in the broader culture, and i think you could Say Something similar happens in thomass version of his black nationalism i would argue he is still committed to a kind of racial separatism. You see it in some of his opinions particularly on integration in you know in supporting each hcbus and so forth. So there is an element and he says, you know after he joins the court he says, you know many people worship at the altar of integration. I was never one of them. You know, he does not believe in in that kind of bringing together in that sense. So i think youre right about the political amelioration, but i think its not just peculiar to him. I think its kind of what happens to a nationalist idea in a moment of massive. Political retrenchment that is across the board. This is in the 70s as well. Theres a theres the market turn in the Democratic Party is the market term turn in. Liberal parties worldwide so youre arguing that thomass its part of that from his corner of the intellectual world. He has also making a market turn and filtering that through his black nationalist commitments. Yes. I think thats well, but so weve been talking about thomas as it relates to himself, but theres also the question of thomas of how we relate to the black public because he is quite unpopular with the black public and the funny thing understatement. The funny thing about and as a parenthetical that theres a whole literature around the idea of racial policing that you just thomas has sort of like a paradigmatic example, right does Clarence Thomas really count as a black person . Its a question that serious people argue grapple with and ill say to add a bit of the personal in this whats funny. Maybe find something wrong right word. But whats funny about thomas to me . Is that in some ways he reminds me very much of the men in my life as a child. Im from a military family. Im from a kind of conservative family religious family one. Thats very committed to these institutions of the black community and there are things that thomas says that i have heard almost verbatim for my father or my grandfather, whomever and yet my father who has said to me many times the difference between now and then is that we will shoot back in reference to races is that which is not historically accurate, but the sentiment i appreciate and understand my father does not see thomas as a fellow traveler right like many conservative black americans versus black republicans dont see thomas as a fellow traveler. And so im curious here, which you think you know, this isnt really topic something for the book so much, but im curious here. Would you think about thomass relationship . Yeah, not just with the republicans and black republicanism. But with black conservatism, yeah. Well, let me sort of take the first part of your question because i think its an important one and thomas is well aware of his standing in the black community and has spoken about it and and and the kind of sense of i dont know, you know personal pain he feels by the rejection of the black community because he you know, he he fully is any and he understands exactly why black people are opposed to him and sees himself as a kind of jeremiah sort of figure and and from the very start has really thought of black conservatism as as a political project like Many Political projects that begins with, you know, a kind of a voice in the wilderness that that needs to kind of create its own constituency. And i think thats exactly what he sees himself. As doing all evidence to the contrary, you know on the court, but i think thats really the way to understand him. I mean theres there is also a personal biographical dimension to this as well, which i talk about in the book and this is something that was very important to thomas growing up thomas grew up in savannah mostly and the sort of what we call colorism the kind of the divide between light skin blacks and dark skin blacks was very profound in his experience and he associates things like liberalism all kind of the black professional managerial class people like Patricia Harris who was in jimmy carters cabinet drew days who was in bill clintons cabinet. He associates all of that the sort of black political establishment that tends to be liberal and democratic with the kind of lighterskinned wealthier more elite blacks in the black community, and hes very candid about you know, what is a kind of very kind of delicate subject. So i think theres also that kind of dimension and i think that plays part of the role in how he sees some of these questions, but i think fundamentally, he sees himself as a kind of a sort of a prophetic figure trying to create something. Thats not there. He was quite tight with black conservatives throughout the 80s. They were kind of elevated to us, you know media province people like Robert Woodson at the time glenn lowery who has gone sort of all over the place. But so theres a group of black conservatives and he was a part of shelby steel who became you know was liberal at the time. He became more conservative my sense disease drifted away some of that, you know, i tend to focus once he gets onto the court. I really focus on the opinions rather than the kind of extra mural political activity. And thats sort of whats interesting because if thomas is trying to create space for a black conservatism what he seems to have done over the time of his course of time to support it creates space for of a i mean a radical right conservatism right white conservatism rather. Yeah that looking in we were talking about this backstage looking ahead. The energy in a rightwing jurisprudence is with thomas and his. Sort of for his the people. Hes influenced kavanaugh right gorsuch, right, so it seems as if that project hasnt if its for black people. Yeah hasnt necessarily been successful but has been successful. Its providing the legal architecture for a return to a kind of you know, 19th century stadium. I think thats right and i think if you were to put the question to him in an honest moment, im not sure he would flinch from that characterization because remember the 19th century for him. Is this you know, right the golden age and yeah, i i you know, i there is this, you know fraternity between a kind of not just a kind of radical reactionary, right but a White Nationalist right and a certain kind of black nationalism and i think thomas, you know would see that as a kind of familiar confirmation of a pessimistic and yet you know, he said i want to go back and yes these formulations. I want to go back in time, but forward into the future. Its sort of you know, its kind of time travel thing, but i think you know, he sees that kind of return as as a kind of an opening up a possibilities. So an argument you a big introduce the sort of the book and really return to the end of the book. Is this idea that looking at thomas isnt just useful for in its own right for thinking through. Its just for thinking to somebody whos quite influential and will continue to be for some time. But as a oh no, i did that all the time. But as a he is someone who represents who is channeling certain currents again in the broader political culture and one of those as a kind of deep deep racial pessimism that that problem that White Supremacy that racial inequality that these things are are truly intractable and that you make the case that if you believe that you may have more in common with thomass view of the world then then you may recognize so i just like that he talked about that a little bit and maybe say a little about what youre necessarily responding to because its not just a message. Aimed at the right but especially to think that the left as well. Yeah. So, you know, i think the in our conventional sense of the left and the right we associate the right pretrump. Lets say and and certainly on the court and you know among judicial conservatives with a philosophy of colorblindness, and its a kind of a brand that the right evolves beginning in the 1960s 1970s, but, you know antirace conscious is the position of the judicial right, you know and color blindness and we associate the left with a kind of much more racial conscious race consciousness and being aware of racial differences. And one of the things that thomas does is kind of scramble that a little bit is the first and once you sort of and and and that creates a puzzle, i think given our sense of how things are on the left and the right which is how does somebody who believes in that firmly not just in his youth but as a you know as a jurist, how does somebody like that end up on the right . And what what is the political pathway out of that and you brought up earlier the kind of the market turn in kind of liberal and and democratic thinking and i do think there has a kind of winnowing of sense of what politics can do yeah not just on the question of race, but on a whole host of friends. I mean just think about Climate Change the idea that political leadership. You know could transform this sort of system. I think seems unfathomable to many people but a lot of this i think is rooted in this defeat of the black freedom struggle in the 1960s and 70s, and i think its really impossible. To underestimate the impact of of the loss of faith for lack of better word in political possibilities. And what happens when you start losing that belief in political transformation and by that i mean, you know whether through social movements or through state action. I think theres a tendency to start essentializing all forms of oppression and hierarchy not just when it comes to race, but you know a whole bunch of matters and i think that in some ways some of the discourse sometimes about race turns what something that was a political, you know, we all say racism social construction or a political construction, but the idea of the deconstruction of that doesnt seem somehow possible. And so i think thats really my concern. Is that once you start losing a political analysis of race a deeply political analysis of race to say that race if race was made by politics we can start unmaking it and i think you know thomas comes to to this by saying that. Is not possible. You know and then when thats not possible you get an awful lot of, you know, market Oriented Solutions and all the rest of it. And so i think thats you know, really where im im coming at this from is just a nervousness that the left has lost some of the tools of political analysis. On the question of race and then how it radiates up from there. It would be the the idea that the failure the defeat of the civil rights movement. Is this kind of fundamental occurrence in american political life is actually something. I hadnt really thought of because in my mind, its sort of old 68 happened 16 happens, and were kind of in this long retrenchment, but it doesnt necessarily reshape how people think of of things going forward, but the sense that in the face of this remarkable Mass Movement something that in a real sense is transformed or constitutional understanding much like reconstruction did the idea that this could not just peter out but sort of see a fundamental reversal does kind of encourage some of the fatalistic thinking and even i will admit its sometimes difficult for me to imagine what a posttrump politics looks like. I mean, i think i meant that epilogue. This is our problem. This is not you know, one group of peoples problem. This is all of our problem and i think this is something to wrestle with and honestly and what i worry about is when that kind of fatalism or pessimism, then gets congealed and then celebrated as somehow a kind of melancholy inside into the nature of things and i think thats its when it starts pressing up against that that i i get nervous because the ramifications of that are can go on for a very long time and and and and things can be. Set in motion by that kind of level of pessimism that we have really no cognizance of and just say one other thing like this isnt just peculiar to the United States or to the this moment like you know, this is what happens oftentimes to movements in defeat. Its not just that they get defeated politically. David bellis in the audience, so im not going to talk about france in the 1820s and french romanticism. No, please do but but there is you know when when political movements get defeated, its not its not just that they get defeated the memory of the defeat as i mean as you were just saying sort of recedes and suddenly this just seems to be the way things are and that loss of a sense of political plasticity and possibility that then falls under this name of race, i think is is what i i want to raise a question about yeah. All right, so we have a lot of questions here and im going to read them figure out if we tackle them or not, and if we if we did. Ill skip them, but if we didnt i will talk about them. So this question here goes into something that we kind of touched on thomass republicanism, which is important part of his life and it is to what extent is jenny thomass political activism a window into thomass view of partisan politics. Um, the truth is i dont know the answer to that question, you know, i think thomas is if by that you mean does thomas support the kind of turn and the Republican Party thats taken. Im i think all signs are yes, i mean, theres nothing in his theres very little as in his jurisprudence that would suggest he has much hostility to whats going on in the Republican Party. But as i said, i made a deliberate decision in this book, that once he got on the court the most important archive the most important pieces of evidence are the Supreme Court opinions themselves. Not what his wife is doing not what hes doing in his rv when he goes off in the summer and parks and walmart parking lots and things like that which attract an inordinate amount of attention. I mean, i should also say in fairness to myself that you know, theres such a tendency on the part of a lot of people who are liberals and demographic to just dismiss thomas as jurisprudence the man has over 700 opinions it is a vast archive. Believe me and you know, that would that to me is really the most important place to be looking at what hes actually been doing since 1991. What do you make of his his more recent jewish person because hes very much been on the side of essentially letting the Trump Administration and sort of the executive go as far as possible on. Punitive questions on immigration policy on enforcement power you see that as part of this larger jurisprudence or is this or is this or is this reflect his republicanism more than it does anything else . I think its you know, its pretty standard Republican Party jurisprudence that youd see. I mean he was a big supporter of the Bush Administration. In fact, he was further to the right than scalia on some of the Bush Administration war on terrorist stuff, but you know the power the untenable power of the executive branch has been a big theme amongst, you know, the jurisprudence of the right. I thought about kind of getting into it and then i looked at it and i just you know you you know you you can certain thomas opinions pop when all of a sudden things are happening and then other times it just its boilerplate and you know and those 10. I mean i i find them kind of boilerplate. Its like being a column this way. I will i will dunk on bit there. How do you understand thomass seemingly hopeless the sense drawing on extreme original ideas, for example his view that children are holy uncovered by the First Movement because the founders oh god not give Children Speech right . So the question the core of it, how do you understand his his hopelessness drawing on me . Yeah these extremely rings. So those childrens rights decisions kind of blue my mind in part because he cites the scholarship of people. I went to graduate School Including Jane Kaminsky some of you know on sort of child rearing and pure and colonial new england and hes hes really rooted in that and again the way i read it and i talk about this i think in the chapter on the white constitution is that you know, its really for him the power of fathers and sometimes ill talk about it as parents, but oftentimes well talk about the the power of the patriarch and its a vision of punishment as pedagogy and so he is absolutely you know committed to this vision of restoring the the power of fathers and he does this in all sorts of ways, but that First Amendment i mean the speech rights of of miners is is really kind of gripping. Stuff in a negative way gripping. Its i mean this is will make conservatives very mad. I dont say it and to do that, but there is this way in which thomas in this in this intensely black patriarchal and is intense black patriarchy. Its very reminiscent of louis farrakhan. Yeah, right. Its very reminiscent of this of his faircons hyper patriarchical vision of black life. So its interesting that you say that so thomas in his memoir, you know in elsewhere has spoken quite sympathetically about the nation of islam and both i would before anita hill. Happened during those hearings probably the well one of the two most explosive issues that was raised during in the summer buildup to thomass confirmation. This is in 1991 was the fact that i think was in 1983 and 1984. He had made two speeches praising louis farrakhan. And this, you know set off a huge battle at the time, of course the reason it set off the battle though, it had nothing to do with black patriarchy it was because of us antisemitism which the whole question of black antisemitism was a very live question at the time beginning, you know with Jesse Jackson up through the 90s. So that was a very explosive revelation which eventually, you know faded into the woodwork anita hill step forward. Would you say that your portrait of thomas kind of illuminate a black conservatism in general eg thomas . Oh or is thomas more idiosyncratic than that . So it definitely thomas sull was probably after you know malcolm x and the kind of reader the the taxi read in the late 60s and 70s thomas soul was probably the most influential thomas hall was a black economic is a black economist very conservative who wrote a book called race and economics and thomas Clarence Thomas gets a call saying you got to read this book. He reads it. Hes in hes at the capital of missouri. What is jefferson city, is that right . Okay. He drives all the way to saint louis because thomas soule, this is 1975 76 thomas soul is there to debate and up and coming law professor by the name of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and he goes and and you know, he kind of says this is his conversion. You know, this is the road to damascus or the road to saint louis. So seoul is a huge influence on him. However, i think you cant kind of homogenize black conservatives because there are other black conservatives who have a much stronger individualistic streak and a much stronger streak of belief in color blindness, and i dont think you see those in in thomas so i think you know seoul definitely but i think some other black conservatives hes a little bit more intention with is todays strain of afropessimism analogous to that of the early 70s and does a point in similar political directions . Oh god. You know, i i im gonna pass on that question to be honest with you. Yeah. Its its my thoughts are too unsettled on it. And i feel like id be thinking a lot which is always a very dangerous thing for me to do. So, yeah, ill think a lot real quick. I think theres the potential for currents now for pessimism to move towards rid of an antipolitics, but i also think thats a potential sort of in the one of the afro pessimists claims that you have to understand antiblackness is really like an organizing ideology in the modern world. I think theres a way in which that can. Be the basis for a a very aggressive antiracist politics. Its not either path isnt guarantee, but i think its there. I think you can go that way. Can i let me Say Something about that because you just reminded me of something. Ive been thinking about a lot a very important book for me was by Albert Hirschman who was a social theorist called the rhetoric of reaction and hirschman looks at three different ways that reactionary rhetoric works one of which he calls futility. Theres and the the futility argument the way right wingers argue is to say in the face of a, you know, a radical or reformist challenge that this is hopeless. This is pointless. This is futile and what harshman says is that that futility and argument from the right . Sometimes bears an uncanny resemblance to arguments on the left by which i by which he meant and which i mean that the left always wants to make a structural argument in other words if theres individual. Racism theyre not just individual personal. Acts of cruelty they bespeak an entire systematic form of oppression. But what hirschman but with the left always has to grapple with in painting that systemic portrait is you have to identify points of vulnerability by which you can disenter that structure in other words. Theres a danger always and this isnt just about races about any kind of structural argument that it would seem so deeply embedded. Accident spitting all over the place so deeply embedded as to be. Uninterable and i think youre right that these these kind of pessimistic arguments can go either way. Absolutely what i think we need to be alert to though is is that theyre kind of often the yin and yang of left and right and embodied in that futilitarianism and structuralism on the other hand. What is thomass relationship to the larger African Diaspora to africa . Is there space in this thought for for pain africanism . Absolutely, not, you know thomas has very little truck with any kind of internationalism at all. He loaths, you know, and its interesting because there is a tradition amongst the black panthers in particular aziz. Rana has done some really interesting work on this of kind of alternative constitutionalisms. That kind of break beyond the sort of american nation state and you know, this is thomas absolutely not, you know, hes very bound to the american nation state this i mean this i would say this would make him unusual in the constellation of black nationalism specifically because there is this, you know, theyre the coalition of people agitating for a separate state was highly influenced by internationalism highly influenced by third world struggles sort of that was part of that stew and its its interesting at thomas kind of just rejects. Well, you know, tommy shelby whos a philosopher at harvard has a great book we who are dark and you know, he says is that while sort of territorial selfdetermination independence say obviously a huge role. It doesnt always play as much of a role in black nationalism. As you know, we think it does its often leveraged in more pragmatic ways. So but yes absolutely thomas is not, you know, really part of that kind of trajectory is thomas a market fundamentalist or what relation of his economic what is his relation of its economic thinking to its black nationalism we touch on this a little bit yeah. I think theres an opportunity to go. Sure. Yeah, um one thing i will say, you know, it depends what you mean by market fundamentalism. I think sometimes when people think that say that they they mean that you know, the state doesnt do anything and mark and and thomas does not believe that first and foremost and this is very much connected with his race consciousness. He thinks that market actors need to be created. They dont they dont just happen. Its not just let the market do its thing and this is where a lot of the institutions and the kind of pedagogy not just the kind of carceral state but is understanding of black education, which hes spoken about at length the importance of historically black colleges and universities and the kind of skills and so on are all you know, very critical to him. He really values the kind of segregated school that he you know grew up in and really things you know that you know. Those are the seed beds for kind of the market fundamentalism that we see. How does thomas understand himself in relation to Thurgood Marshall . Hey. You know at his at his confirmation hearings in a statement. He made these very warm sort of encomiums to Thurgood Marshall. I mean it was it was all kind of boiler plate sort of pablum. He you know said what had to be said, i think his relationship is very antagonistic to marshal. He was quite critical of marshall during the 1980s. And you know, i in many ways i think seasons himself as kind of dethroning that jurisprudence and i think doubly so given the stature of Thurgood Marshall particularly in the africanamerican community. So, you know, i think its a its a pretty antagonistic relationship. Despite some positive things. He said about marshall at the time of his confirmation. I mean the marshall sort of the the embodiment of civil rights liberalism. So it makes sense that. Yeah. Absolutely thomass and then to and let me, you know, just say on that, you know, thomas is critique of that kind of civil rights liberalism. Its you know with its what we call the rights revolution and its a its a threefold critique, you know, its first and foremost aside from the kind of civil rights aspect. Its a critique of the kind of the reform of the transformation of criminal justice law which you know, the rights of prisoners all that the rights of suspects. Hes hostile to that its a critique of the sexual rights revolution the sexual immuncipation and all that part of the jurisprudence of the war in court on Birth Control and abortion and so on and so forth and then lastly its the economic component of the rights revolution, which he traces back to you know, fdr, so its its not just marshall as a kind of civil rights jurist and icon and and lawyer. Its what marshall represents and kind of that the whole of the rights revolution . So heres a question in this relates this relates to the economic thomas economic views and that is do you think he recognizes the ways in which . Your private economic power can be an oppressive force on black communities because that does seem to be like the week the weak point. Right if the goal is to shape up black people into market actors. Well what happens when theyre not shaped up by market forces, but simply oppressed by market forces, so i think he has an answer to that that is surprising and more interesting than your standard conservative because he is sensitive to the oppressions that happen it of private actors. He tends to view it overwhelmingly through a racial lens. However, so for him. Its white economic actors, you know, hes fascinating on this question. Like if you compare him to somebody like booker t, washington or other figures, you know, just how either absent or hostile he is to the whole idea of the black wage black laborers black workers. Its not that hes hostile the buck workers, but he thinks that that puts black people in a position of employment where theyre dependent on white employers that to him seems all too reminiscent of the kind of political subjugation. They would experience so his real emblem of the market is the black entrepreneur and you know this theres a very strong autobiographical dimension to this or do i say biographical if im talking about thomas, so im not like anyway a a biographical dimension to this which is his grandfather, you know raised raised him and his brother was a huge role in his grandfather was a kind of a black entrepreneur sort of a pillar of the savannah black community and you know, he sees that kind of man that black male entrepreneur really is the keystone so he is sensitive i think to some of those questions. Its again, its just its refracted through the racial lens. All right. I think we have time for one more question. I save this question for last. Its a great question. Whoever asked it was thomas upset that mookie through the trash can. Do the right thing . But really i mean i kind of you know, its sort of touches on well, let me say this. Let me say that. Thomas loves spike lee. Hes one of his favorite filmmakers and he loves you the right thing and malcolm x. Thats thats the best i can do as an answer. So i think i think thats it. I think were good. Thank you everyone. Thank you, corey. Thank you. Thank you. A reminder that tobys signing books so you should buy a book and get it signed