Black enough ='s liberal enough

Washington Times:

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was in a happy mood, talking about stereotypes — racial or religious — and how he enjoys defying them in the pursuit of impartiality.

"You know what?" he asked editors and reporters at a luncheon yesterday at The Washington Times. "I love walking on the third rail because I am a free man. It's more important to me to be free than to be popular."

In a wide-ranging interview, Justice Thomas discussed the popularity of his recently published memoir, his judicial philosophy, his dirt-poor upbringing in rural Georgia and his views about affirmative action.

Displaying an easygoing joviality, he punctuated his remarks with dashes of humor and a hearty laugh.

He addressed criticism that he isn't "black enough" because of his belief in personal responsibility and his opposition to affirmative action, noting similar criticism of Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama. "It's ridiculous," he said.

"Years ago, people started to say 'black is a state of mind.' So a Klansman is going to come up to me now and ask, 'what is your state of mind?' I don't need anybody to define me. That means nothing to me. Look at me. I don't argue about things like that. That's too low in the weeds for me to argue about."

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He is right. The absurdity of the "black enough" attacks is that Obama and Bill Cosby are being challenged on that score while Bill Clinton is being hailed at the first black President. It is clear that "black enough" really means whether you agree with the victimhood of the "down with the struggle" civil rights movement. This is important to this group because victimhood is used to shake down those with white guilt. Instead of lifting up blacks to achieve their potential, the "black enough" crowd want to exploit their dependency which they encouraged by destroying the black family in the 60s. It is one of the defining struggles of our time and if blacks are to achieve greater success they are going to have to break away from the dependence of the "black enough" thinking and achieve the freedom that Thomas enjoys.