Fortunate Son

 [Over the years, Thomas has brushed off questions about the central contradiction of his life: how can a man who has benefited so greatly from racial preferences oppose them so staunchly for others? Thomas doesn't address the question directly in his new autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son." But he does, perhaps unwittingly, answer it. In chapter after chapter, a recurring theme seems to be that it's only affirmative action if you go looking for a job, not if it comes looking for you.]

[When a presidential aide called Thomas, then 32 years old, and offered him a job as assistant secretary of Education for civil rights, he did not marvel at his good fortune. Like Reagan, he believed the whole department should be abolished and wanted nothing to do with the place. What's more, he writes, "I had no background in that area, and was sure that I'd been singled out solely because I was black, which I found demeaning." ]

[A year later the phone rang again. It was a White House official, asking him to become chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Again, Thomas wanted no part of it. "I couldn't think of anyone who would want the job," he writes, "nor would I advise any of my friends to take it." The agency was unloved and underfunded; the offices were filthy.]

[When President Bush improbably sought to nominate him to the federal bench, Thomas claimed he had no interest in being a judge. "That's a job for old people," he told a friend. ]

[At nearly every significant turn in his life, he writes as though important decisions had been made for him by mysterious forces beyond his control.]

[Soon after getting married, Thomas enrolled in Yale Law School. Innocent of the ways of the world, he writes that he was shocked and angered to learn that he was admitted in part because he was black, not just because he was poor.]

[When a fellow black lawyer later tells him that he had left questions about race blank when he applied to law school, Thomas writes that he "wished with all my heart" that he'd done the same. In his eyes, his law degree would be all but worthless because others would assume that he'd gotten special treatment. He says he considered dropping out of school. But he couldn't. His wife told him she was pregnant, and they could not afford to move. Cruelly, fate had once again stepped in, this time forcing Clarence Thomas to suffer the lifelong disgrace of a Yale law degree.]

[Thomas dreaded the idea of having to become a Supreme Court justice, he writes.]

[Of course, he could have told the president that he didn't want the job. But he was powerless to do so. "Events were overtaking me, and once again I had the impression that somebody else had seized control of my life." Thomas gave Bush the answer he wanted. "`Yes, Mr. President,' I heard my voice saying reflexively. It felt as though someone else were doing the talking for me."]

[This time around, even Thomas had to wonder if his race had something to do with his selection, especially when Bush overpraised him as the "most qualified nominee" for the job.]

[During his time at the EEOC, he had "wanted to show that a predominately minority and female agency could be run as professionally as any other-and that it could be done without the benefit of affirmative action or quotas." But then, in the very next sentence, comes this: "All that was necessary, I believed, was a concerted effort to give those who had been excluded an opportunity to do their best." A textbook definition of affirmative action if ever there was one.]

[In the book, Thomas tells the story of one person he'd given just such an opportunity. He was still in the Department of Education when a black friend called and told him a young woman and fellow Yale Law alum named Anita Hill was looking for work. Would Thomas be willing, the friend asked, to "help a sister" with a job? Thomas didn't see why not. "Not only did I feel I had an obligation to help my fellow blacks," he writes, "but I remembered how hard it had been for me to land a job after graduating from Yale." Hill got the job, and he has regretted hiring her ever since. Is it any wonder Clarence Thomas can't stand affirmative action?]

Well, we did have school class rooms in San Diego set and ran in accordance with Shari Law..

And a state tech school in Minneapolis providing foot washing facilities per Shari law...

The former is now out of business and the latter is under pressure...

And Moslem cab drivers refusing to carry dogs and alcohol....

And Moslem check out clerks refusing to touch pork

He still denies that he is the beneficiary of the very race-based preferences he deplores.

Is every black person who is successful considered to be the product of affirmative action? Isn't it just a little bit possible that a black person can become successful without having that suspicion cast upon them?

How would you like to be a hard working minority graduate of a top school and always have people think that you are an affirmative action case?