conversationan : center of our h anniversary year corey robbins will discuss his new book theor enigma of clarence thomas with their times : this jim but wait. mymy name is salvador director of the dorothy lewis b : center for scholars and writers here at the library. estimate you know the : center select 15 fellass a year for a nine month term. fellas receive an office in the center, access to our collections and a stipend so they can both stick exclusively over (think independent scholars, playwrights, girls, dramatist, a fictional writer's today predicament from around the country inn the world using unparalleled collections house this leverage the book tomorrow.ou the program was founded in 1999 and today has supported the work of more than 300s fellows. the deadline for applications for next year is friday. three. i encourage you to come in november exhibition about third floor of this building made of the net public library will feature 30 works written right here the support of the slavers collections the show will include works by coleman center fellows and others who work both here the schwartzman building and other research libraries of the ny po system. this series of conversations present the books of fellas of the coleman center came here to write. later on the season will also present conversations with novelists to a born jerk in conversations but the new novels they worked on during the quarter to the by the door at nick meza clarence thomas for sale. corey robert has graciously agreed to stay after this conversation to sign them. the enigma of clarence thomas is already been called fast and brilliant and counterintuitive but book form national review valuable in overdue engagement with the nexus between thomas' early life, his black nationalism on his political views. in a review for tomorrow's "new york times" jennifer writes it is a provocative thesis but one of the marvels of razor-sharp book is how carefully he marshals his evidence and he is not heard this review it yet. it does not have to resort to elaborate speculation armchair psychology because it relies instead on thomas' speeches, interviews and supreme court opinions. just as jurors make ample use of the written record robert does the same she continues the result is rigorous yet readable frequently startling yet eminentlyy persuasive. it isn't every day i'm going to go now will it's a high note. it is not everyday that reading about ideas can be both so gratifying and unsettling. robbins incisive and superbly argued book has made me think again. we are honored that corey will speak tonight is economist the "new york times" editorial page in the book review do not speak to each other. they really don't. he is also political analyst for cbs news pretty covers campaigns, elections, national affairs and culture. click before that he was a staff writer american prospect in the magazine. conservatism from edward burke to donald trump by the new yorker as the book that tpredicted trump. and fear the history of the political idea the first book in political fury award from w political science cessation. his writings have been translated into 13 languages he was a fellow the coleman center at western for thousand 182,019. if you have questions as the conversation proceeds, please feel welcome to write them down on the note cards that you have received coming in. question, not statement plays a staff member will collect them about a half hour from now our guests will get to as many as time allows. we are proud to present corey robert and jamal billy. but spending a money monday morning. the origins of the book. something there necessarilyt focused on driving interest in trying to work through this? how this book come about customer it began with an invitation to political scientists onef of whom taught a class of yours i thought you said uva. you're putting together a reader on african-american political thought along anthology. quenching something a more black conservativism you should do something on thomas for the approach me because i've written on conservatism at some length. i did not want to do it. i said no severalal times. that have an interest in clarence thomas like a much more to say about it. i was strong-armed into it. transfixed by this man. by is not just psychologically graphically just the way in which the supreme court opinions you have read some of them. they leap off theas page. i was really taken with the idea of trying to tell us men start that this idea, to the his opinion. the central claim of the book as you can understand thomas reference to his youth. were swimming in the early 60s early 70s the power all of these things are very much in the mainstream language of life. american activists julian bonds of the world. we are speaking the language of black nationalism produce the way people engage in black politics. it's much more foundational thing for thomas that we tend to acknowledge or even talk about in his jurisprudence. thomas moves to the north in 1968. he goes to holy cross which is a college outside of boston. when he has radicalized in part by the assassination of martin luther king and bobby kennedy like many other people. no one's going to do anything for us. but estimates black people and nobody he really means white people. there's a really strong foundational experience lacks self-help black self organization and blackck autonomous organizations. thomas was not just kind of an intellectual drifter. he was an activist. i run into people often but every once in a while consider writing about this. it was a figure. foundational commitments to blow book so organization. critique of integration. a belief in racial separatism. strong migration to the right he does not list a lot of the foundational commitments. how does he make this move? has elements has reactionary elements you see some of these early life he subscribes he might : misogynist. live make a case that still exists in the present day fromy the emphasis on self autonomy and black nationalism can very easily become very reactionary at rejection of the idea of constructional restraints and individuals. but is not inevitable. what drives thomas to theo right? the extension member is when he is politicized really the early 1970s for many black activists is a moment of recognition of defeat. the last big legislative initiative is 1968. the election of richard nixon than the reelection. the dawning awareness on black activists across the political spectrum of black political life. i feel like a 1970. by a group of black activists is in the marching stopped. there's a real sense blackck political possibilities are either over or winnowing down. thomas with the text the measure of that and takes it quite seriously. there is a real sense of andtical defeatism political pessimism. if it's social limits industry, revolutionary self organization for mainstream politics. all of those models of politics are no longer a path. that's one part that hangs very heavily over his right turn. the second part of it, this is something it's one of those revelations to make. among many black nationalists in a small blackck car activists the flipside of this political defeatism is a wonderful new out last five -- ten years about all the ways much black power activists were lookingr, toward creating black entrepreneurs, a separate black economy, b black-owned business, more black hiring. whole variety of forms. the central animating idea behind a lot of this was the political pathways arere closed. but you have to do is explore economic pathways. change the sense of black power movements which we associate with the left and socialism. it is charles hamilton was a co-author withh carmichael of black power puts it in the afterward which comes out years later pretty set the logical black power is not w necessarily social democracy. but ownership independent black business and things like that. so really those two things the sense that politics is closed off to black people on the one hand. in the economy and capitalisty economy for possibilities for self-development self organization. makes herle way into it turns us towards jurisprudence a little bit. in the book you sent out thomas has two visions of the constitution. there's a black constitution is a white constitution. they both transmit very different messages. thomas reconciled the vision again i you described. you go ahead. it's your book. but the vision of the constitution. what is thomas' black constitution what is the white constitution? what does that mean for hisis jurisprudence? okay i'm going to try and keep this not too weedy and t technical. but most constitutionalio scholars believe there is the original ratified in 1789. and there was a second constitution created to the struggle over emancipation and slavery. fundamentally and radically called the reconstructionnme amendments. thomas is what we call he says he is an originalist. he believed you should interpret thes constitution as it was understood at the moment of its adoption. unlike many originalist thomas takes very seriously the second constitution was created through the black freedom struggle of emancipation. i'm there is a technical aspects of that which i get into, and the book. but at the heart of that black constitution for thomas this is where i think it starts reconciling some of his conservatism. amongst the many charters liberties and freedoms created by a the 13th, 14th and 15th amount part of the freedoms for thomas is the right to bear arms. this was actually quite central to the experience of reconstruction for black freed man.on interestingly thomas in his opinion on this question extensively quotes the book on this may be the only time in a supreme court justice quotes herbert scholarship as opposed to the communist activity why it should be banned or something like that. he takes this very seriously many of you know the historian has personal correspondence with thomas and thanks of thomas has read his book on reconstruction. does it quite well. this experience is not just a fetish because in that vision of black self armament, he sees the vision of black manhood and black patriarchy. black men being able to protect their families and their communities. this very resident images about one of his second amendment opinions working quotes from the memory of a son remembering his father. sometime in 1880s it was or around thereabouts. cynic with a rifle holding up white supremacist commentaries. the emblem of salvation and freedom. once you start look at the black radical tradition this is very foundational idea of black men arming themselves emblem of freedom that's at the heart of his black constitution. i can talk about is a white constitution the very unsettling i think ultimately both are unsettling visions. white constitution harkens back to the originalna constitutioner which is much more centered in the power estate is a national o government. in the parts of the white constitution is what we call the course will state. prisons, police, judges, juries, whole apparatus that prosecutes and convicts people. this is something that with every estate thomas is a black national or has these leanings people find it hard to reconcile with his company is no other word for grizzly and brutal endorsement of the power of the penal state. he faces it full on. and the reason i think white penal status is so powerful to thomas is that he believes it is the closest thing to creating -- michael re-creating excuse me jim crow. which he thanks were a kind of golden age renaissance moment for black america. that was the moment in his mind went black men really rose to their full sort of a power in the space of the most horrifying diversity and oppression which thomas does not in any way deny. he sees it as a disciplining function that forces black americans into certain modes of behavior. quick's exactly. i kind of disciplinary tutelage really educational and what it means to be a full selfst and that is what he thanks the penal state does. he goes through many, many different ways in which he sees this happening. but one of which is he believes it creates jiggly men who can be market actors who can develop the habits and virtues of thrift and savings and responsibility and all the rest of it. but really this knowing that adversity is central for the full flourishing and development of black people. in the minute that slack goes, the minute things get too easy , the minute rights are granted becomes a moment of tremendous peril in hist mind. i think that is really at the heart of his idea of the white constitution. quick's to these things there is no contradiction in opposing or allowing states but tight restrictions on voting rights. this is something that will help push african-americanol r communities out of the political realm is not sure they are ready for the kind of responsibilities it entails and into the market realm. i don't if you say they were not ready for the responsibilities. i don't think that is the claim. you are right he isil quite hostile to voting rights. he does not really think it is. the foundation of that hostility for african americans is that he believes the electoral sphere is stacked against b african-americans but he gives us very famous interviewed juan williams back when one williams was a serious journalist in the 1980s, in 1987. everyone can laugh at that. the electoral remic of some semblance collective rights. they just stackl it up, where we comeay out? who will always come out at the bottom of the other went may be worse for american indians maybe. there was a surreal sense the electoral space is just one of the culmination of white racism the power of white majority means african-americans will systemically lose and simply to his mind a fools errand to be investingot one's hope in voting. part of this he sees just racism as part of american society not since he doesn't trust her motives. drawing from his experiences with liberal rights and black allies are the best way is there's no real avenue of progression for these groups. partition said there's a long tradition of this. marcus garvey had very similar views about the klansmen was in some way the best friend of the black because the klansmen was on a spring he stood. malcolm x fox and the wolf i am an animal imagery is not so greatev. which ever one is sneakier one who pretends to be your friend versus the one who kind of embarrasses teeth he white person bears his teeth and reveals who he is. i think he calls it a water moccasin. the same kind of imagery that thomas really values, racial candor. he is working in the reagan for ministration in the 1980s and he'sn asked about racism in the reagan administration and he does not deny it. he says at least they are honest. at least they are honest. ieone is favorite songs the smiling faces till the 1971 song. he says the useless into to all the time at law school. he says at least people in the reagan ministration do not smile at you. so i i think this notion of racial candor or knowing where you stand is very important. one less thing as i mentioned garvey. it's also garvey's idea this is a fools errand. something black people should stay away from. one question i have is how thomas is black nationalism is heavily patriarchal. what is the relationship to black women, he's not married to a black woman, he was. someone like garvey but say there are no alliances with rights is completear separatism. clarence thomass is willing to make the strategic alliances with white conservativism and also as a white woman. so the first thing i should say is the argument in the book is not that b thomas is just a black nationalist and black nationalism explains everything. thomas is a conservative is also a publican. you cannot understand him without the other facets. i don't think the black nationalism explains the whole of it. interestingly, thomas was against interracial relationships and marriage pretty much a mental the moment he met virgin atlantic. and then changed his mind on the topic. in this alliance the number of black conservatives who haveo been interviewed in moments of candor will say exactly what they're doing. and so forth. thomas in that regard you have to understand the role of conservatism. today flickinger i conservatism if you go back to the foundational questions about politics political political defeatism. in the notion of the economy as being the space. can be a natural force one could turn to in his mind. i want toes talk a little bit more about the black nationalism i struggle with thomas has black nationalist world as a young man takes these ideas very seriously makes a turn to the right so on and so forth. and that turn to the right seems to jettison some tenets of black nationalism that's very important. he's not separate is not to build a black nationstate out of louisiana and mississippi. the political sign is quite important for black communitiesol. not an avenue for seems to be something thomas rejects out right. not going to ask you to apologize but that seems to put a little tension in the black nationalist ideas. identify as a young man carries over to adulthood. he's a political scientist nina percy of massachusetts wrote a wonderful book about 15 years ago black nationalism and american politics. and had a big influence the arguments he makes is a black nationalism and is not hermetically sealed everything going on around him and american culture kind of romantic nationalism larger currents about nationalism best answer i can give to tickly on this question. what happens to a certain kind of black nationalism consulship in the democratic party in the 1930s in the early 70s or something like s that. think similar happens in thomas' version of his black nationalism. i would argue he is an separatism. particular integration. in supporting cpus and so forth. there is an element and he says after he joins the court he says many people worship at the altar integration i was never one of them. he does not believe in that kind of bringing together in that sense you're right about the political amelioration. it's not just particular to him. it's kind of what happens to it nationalist idea in the moment and massive political entrenchment that is across-the-board. excellent 70s as well the market term, turn in liberal party is worldwide. according to thomas export from his corner of the intellectual world. he's making a market turn filtering through his black national commitment. women talking thomas as he relates himself but how does he relate to thepu public. the funny thing understatement, [whole literature around was an example, client thomas count as a black person is a question serious people argue, grapple with. i will say it a personal end of this is funny may be funny since the right word but what's funny aboutut thomas timmy in some ways he reminds me very much of the men in mym life as a child. i am from a military family and the conservative family one committed to this institution black community. there things that thomas says that i have heard almost verbatim for my father or my grandfather or whomever. and yet my father who has sent to me many times the difference between now and then is we will shoot back in reference to racism which is not historically accurate. the sentiment i appreciate on the stand. my father did not see thomas as a fellow traveler. many conservative black americans versus blackub republicans don't see thomas as a fellow traveler. i'm curious to hear you think. this is not the topic of the book so much. thomas' relationship but with black conservativism. was well aware of his standing in the black community. and has spoken about it and kind of sense and i don't know personal pain he feels by the rejection of the black community. connie understandsds exactly why black people are opposed to him. and sees himself as a jeremiah type of figure. and from the very start as early thought of black conservatism is a political project like many political projects that begins with the voice in the wilderness that needs to create its own constituency. and i think that is exactly what he sees himself as doing. all evidence to the contrary r in court. i think that's really the way to understand him. there is also a personal biographical dimension to this as well which i i talk about in the book. this is something very important to thomas going up. thomas grew up in savannah mostly what we call color is on the divide between light skin black and dark skinned black is very profound in his experience. he associates things like liberalism, all of the black professional managerial class people like patricia harris was in jimmy carter's cabinet, and drew days in bill clinton's cabinet. he associates all of those of black political establishment that tends to be liberal and democratic kind of lighter skinned, healthier more elite blacks in the black community. he is very candid what is a delicate subject. there's also that you mentioned the role once sees the question fundamentally sees himself as a prophetic figure.ot trying to create something that is not there. he was quite tight with black conservatives throughout the 80s. they were elevated with the who's kind of gone all over the place for this group of black conservatives he was aer part of, kill the became a liberal at the time the focus on the court focus on the opinions more than the extra activity. thomas is too create space. he seems to have done is right that this backstage right first is what thelu people the influence, people been successful. what successful is providing the children make entry. century there is the key reaction black naturalism. this would include a familiar of a pessimistic that he said back in time future time travel thing. as an opening up possibilities.o introduced over the book about business i own right thinking through quite influential. i like to have a little time. he is someone whose current broader culture and racial pessimism to see that racial things are truly intractable you may have more in common view ofik the world might recognize i like to tooth. twelve. parks court judicial conservative. seventys. race conscious right colorblindness. we as much more consciousness racial differences thomas does. create a puzzle i think given a sense of how things on the left and the right in his years as a jurist, how it does sum up like on the right? what if political thinking. to think of what politics can do. the question of the race whole host of climate change that your political leadership could transform this system comparable to many people. a lot of this is rooted in the defeat of the black freedom struggle in the 1960s and 70s. i think it's really impossible to underestimate the impact of the loss of faith or lack of a better word and political possibilities. what happens researcher lose that belief in medical transformation through social movement or state election i think there is a tendency tot start centralizing all forms of social hierarchy. comes to race but a whole bunch of matters. in some ways, some of the discourse about race turn something that was political. we all see race is a social construction work political construction. the idea of the deconstruction that does not seem possible. we might. want to start losing a political analysis of race. his race was made by politics unmaking. i think to this by saying that is not possible. that is not possible to get up, up a lot of the rest of it. it was from. he is loss of political radio defeat of the civil rights movement is this fundamental something i hadn't thought of as a silly word. sense of understanding with reconstruction to the idea this could not go so sick thinking. sometimes it is difficult for me to imaginehi what postdoctoral politics look like. that epilogue, this is our problem one groupup of people's problem. this is all of our problem. this is something to wrestle with. what i worry about the natures ofon things often times in defeat. they recently intimately talk about france and romanticism. political movements get seated is not just to get defeated. the memorynd of the defeat as you were just saying sort of receipt. thanks. that once he got from court most important pieces of fact trucks and an ornament amount of attention i should also say in fairness to myself to just dismiss thomas jurisprudence the vast archive believe me since 1991 very much been on the side the trump administration go as far or is this reflect his republicanism more than anything else? quick to standard republican party. it was pushing ministration were hunters stuff. the power of our our biggest nontraditional burdens the right thing by getting into it, i looked at it certain thomas opinions, and all the sudden things are happening. other times is boilerplate. and i find this kind of border plate. like being a columnist i will dunkel myself about them. how do you understand thomas a seemingly hopeless drawing on extremist original ideas is viewed children are wholly uncovered by the first amendment and not give children speech rights? the corvette how you understand is hopeless on these extreme reasons? quick to children's rights decisions blew my mind in part because he cites scholarship of people i went to graduate school including some of you know everything colonial trees really rooted in them. again the way i read it might talk about this often times he is absolutely restoring the power of fathers and he does this this speech rights of minors is a gripping depth in a negative way. i don't say it to do that. there is a way in which thomas in this intensely black patriarchal very reminiscent in her more before anita hill happened, only to most explosive issues that was raised in the summer buildup to thomas' confirmation 1991. it goes in 1993 and 94 making speeches praising this set off a huge battle at the time. of course it set up the battle had nothing to do with black patriarchy. it was because a of anti-semitism which the whole question of black anti-semitism was very lackluster at the time. beginning with jesse jackson up to the '90s. that was very explosive revelation which eventually fade into the woodwork once anita hill stepped forward. would you cite your portrait of thomas illuminate black conservatism in general or is thomas than that? rex probably after malcolm x and the taxi red light 60s and 70s, this by the most influential is a black is black economists veryd conservative who wrote a book called race and economics. and clarence thomas gets a call saying you got to read this book. he reads it is in the capitol of missouri and jefferson city is that right? he drives all the latest st. louis because thomas always the 1975 -- 76 to debate up-and-coming law professor by thego name of ruth gator ginsburg. he says thiss is his so as a whole influence on him. however you cannot homogenize black conservatives. their other black conservatives have much stronger individualistic streak in believingth colorblindness. i don't think you see this in thomas. sold he is a little bit more intention. :: to be the basis for a very aggressive politics. it isn't a guarantee. >> melet me say something about that because you reminded me of something i've been thinking about a lot. a very important book for me as a social theorist called the rhetoric of reaction and hirschman looks at three different ways the rhetoric works, one of which he calls futility and the futility argument the way they argue is to say in the face of a radical or reformist challenge that this is hopeless, this is pointless. and what he says is that argument from the right sometimes bears an uncanny resemblance to arguments on the left by which he meant and which, i mean, the left always wants to make a structural argument. in other words if there's individual acts of racism for an entire systematic form of repression but what the left always has to grapple with in painting that portrait is you have to identify points of vulnerability byy which you can do send her the instructor in other words there is a danger and this is about any kind of structural argument that it would seem so deeply embedded and i think you are right these kind of arguments can go either way absolutely. but i think we need to be alert to is often the left and right. >> what is the relationship to the diaspora to africa? is there space in this? >> absolutely not. [laughter] thomas has very little with any kind of international. he loathes.ng it's interesting because there is a tradition among the black panthers in particular that they've done some interesting work on thetu alternative constitutionalism's that a break breakbeyond the state. this is thomas absolutely not. he's bound to the american nationstate. >> i would say, there is a coalition of people for a yseparate state that was highly influenced struggles and it's interesting. >> thomas shelby was a a philosopher had a great book. it's often leveraged in more pragmatic ways. is he a fundamentalist or what kind of relationship -- it depends what you mean by market fundamentalism. sometimes when people say that it means the state doesn't do anything. and thomas doesn't believe that. first and foremost, and this is connected, he thinks that market actors need to be created. they don't just happen. it's not just let the market do its thing and this is where the institutions andnd the pedagogy and the understanding of black education, which he is spoken about at length and the ieimportance of historically blk colleges and universities and the skills and so on are very critical to him. he values the segregated schools that he grew up in. those are the seed beds for the kind of market fundamentalism. >> how does he understand himself with thurgood marshall? >> at the confirmation hearings in a statement it was all kind of he said what had to be said. i think that his relationship is very antagonistic. he was quite critical in the 1980s. and in many ways,y i think they are kind of dethroning that jurisprudence and doubly so inn- the african-american community. it's a pretty antagonistic relationship despite some positive a things he said about marshall. >> he's the embodiment of the civil rights liberalism. >> absolutely. >> and let me just to say on that, thomas' critique of that kind of civil rights liberalism, what is called the rights revolution, it is a threefold critique. it's first and foremost aside from the kind of civil a rights aspect it is a critique of the kindfo of reform of transformatn of criminal justice law, the rights of prisoners and all the suspect is hostile to that. it's the critique of the sexual rights revolution, the emancipation and all that part of thehe jurisprudence of the wr on court, birth control and abortion and so on. and then lastly, the economic component of the rights revolution which is traced back to fdr. so it's not just marshall as a kind of civil rights jurist and icon and lawyer, it's what marshall represents is the triad hof the rights revolution. >> so, here's a question. and this relates to the economic views and that is do you think he recognizes the way in which private economic power can be an oppressive force? >> that does seem to be the weak point to shape black people into market actors but u what happens when they are not shaped but simply oppressed. >> 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 happened with kind ofng private actors. he tends to view it overwhelmingly through a racial lens however so for him it's white economic actors. he's fascinating if you compare him to someone like booker t. washington just how either absent or hostile he is to the whole idea of the black wage, black laborers, black workers. not that he's hostile with black workers, but he thinks that puts black people in a position of employment where they are dependent on white employers that to him seems all too reminiscent of the kind of political subjugation. so, his m real emblem of the market is the black entrepreneur, and there is a very strong biographical dimension to this. do s i say biographical, i'm talking about thomas -- anyway. the biographical dimension to this, which is his grandfather. he raised him and his brother and his grandfather was a kind of black entrepreneur, sort of a pillar of the community and he's these that kind of blackmail entrepreneur as the keystone. so he is sensitive to some of those questions.. just again it is retracted through the racial lens. >> i think we have time for one more question. i will save this question for last. was thomas upset about the trashcan? [laughter] >> doing the right thing. >> but really, it sort of touchest on -- let me say this. thomas loves spike lee. he's one of his favorite filmmakers and that is the best i can do. >> i think that's it. we are good. >> thank you. [applause] a reminder that toby is signing books so you should buy a book and get it signed. [applause] funding for c-span comes from these television companies and more including wow. >> the world has changed. today a fast reliable internet connection is something no one can live without so we are there for our customers with speed, reliability, value and a choice. now more than ever it starts with great internet. >> along with these television companies supporting c-span2 as a public service.