Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said his views on race and politics have led critics to question his Blackness.
"I mean, how stupid is that? Look at me," Thomas said, grabbing his arm. "You know, then they say things like, ‘Oh, black is a state of mind.’"
Thomas made the remarks during a Hoover Institution conversation with Peter Robinson that included a discussion about the role of Black Americans in politics. The conservative justice reflected on how economist Thomas Sowell, a Black conservative, helped transform his thinking on race and politics and gave him the confidence to challenge prevailing expectations about Black Americans' political views.
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Thomas said that as a young man, he felt pressure to embrace certain political beliefs because he was Black and faced resistance when he began questioning them.
"You have these views, you have these instincts, but you are getting inputs from the media, from the politicians, the people who have the megaphone, the people who have the loudest voices, that tells you you’re wrong, that tells you you’re bad, that there’s something awful about you," Thomas said.
While at Yale Law School, Thomas said he bucked the push for school busing, questioning why Black families would want their children sent across town to unfamiliar schools and neighborhoods.
"I remember saying those things at Yale and people — the bottom line was, well, you shouldn’t believe that because you’re black," Thomas said.
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Thomas argued there was often a disconnect between positions championed by Black political leaders and the views of ordinary Black Americans, pointing to debates over school busing and racial preferences.
"If you ask the leaders, they thought one thing. If you ask the people, they thought another," Thomas said.
It was Sowell’s work, Thomas said, that helped him make sense of views he had already begun developing on his own.
A friend introduced Thomas to Sowell’s Race and Economics, which Thomas said helped free him from the isolation he had felt over his own views.
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"It was literally like a drink of water," Thomas said. "Here’s someone who’s thought it through and it makes sense. What your instincts were have been now demonstrated in a logical, analytical way. You’re not alone." He later sought out a friendship with Sowell.
But Thomas had not always embraced Sowell’s ideas.
As a Yale student in 1972, Thomas said he "reflexively" rejected Sowell’s Black Education: Myths and Tragedies, believing that "no black man" should think that way.
Thomas said Sowell’s example helped give him the confidence to voice his own beliefs even when doing so brought criticism.
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"If they can prove you wrong, fine," Thomas said. "But if they call you names or say you’re not black, I mean, how stupid is that? Look at me."
He tied those attacks to what he described as a broader pressure on Black Americans to conform to certain views.
"There’s this overriding public view that you’re not supposed to think this way, therefore you’re not black, therefore you’re discredited," Thomas said. "Nothing you say matters."
But for Thomas, the biggest lesson he took from Sowell was to think for himself.
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"He always says what he thinks, but he never tells you to say what he wants you to think," Thomas said of Sowell. "That is yours."
"There seems to be this overwhelming pressure for us to agree with the prevailing notions which I consider almost illusory in a sense," Thomas said.