(ThyBlackMan.com) Hear ye, hear ye, United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has died and has been memorialized. However, all is not lost because his protégé, man Friday and gopher, fellow Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who seems to have been legally and judicially deaf and dumb for the last decade as a result of not offering any verbal responses to cases brought before Americas highest court as any normal justice would. Justice Thomas has now after the death of Justice Scalia, suddenly come to life.
Has Antonin Scalia suddenly been resurrected and reincarnated in the person of Clarence Thomas? Was Mr. Scalia’s demise the antidote to the ten yearlong battle that Clarence Thomas had with self-imposed silence coupled with “judicial laryngitis?” Thomas often seemed disinterested with much of the litigation brought before the court, especially cases involving affirmative action, voting rights or any other cases promoting rights for minorities in general and Black Americans in particular.
Oftentimes even to the most untrained legal observer, Justice Thomas resembled a pre-civil war Black marionette in full whiteface whose actions and voice were being dictated by the ultra-conservative, post-Civil War “anti-Dread Scott” wing of the United States Supreme Court.
The following is why I am certain that my observation is astute. Jeffrey Toobin of the New York Times wrote this in regards to the silence of “Justice Thomas” on February 21, 2014. “As of this Saturday, February 22nd, [2014] eight years will have passed since Clarence Thomas last asked a question during a Supreme Court oral argument. His behavior on the bench has gone from curious to bizarre to downright embarrassing, for himself and for the institution he represents. Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The two oldest Justices (and the Court’s senior Ne
w Yorkers) usually jump in first with questions. Scalia, who is seventy-seven, often takes a barbed tone with the lawyers, and Ginsburg, who is eighty, is more polite, if no less insistent. Both of them set the tone with their ideologically opposed positions. They offer an early clue as to whether the Court will divide along familiar left-right grounds.”
That piece was penned by Mr. Toobin more than two years ago and one would have incorrectly thought at that time, just being exposed as semi-mute, Judge Thomas would have offered even a few mundane opinions just to silence his critics but the negative observations by Jeffery Toobin and others covering the court obviously just rolled off of the back of the most beleaguered and inconsequential jurist to sit on the court in more than a century.
On February 29, 2016 Adam Liptak of the NY Times wrote this. “Breaking a decade-long silence, Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday suddenly started asking questions from the Supreme Court bench. After saying nothing for years during oral arguments that have helped shape the fabric of American law, Justice Thomas seemed eager to re-engage as he subjected a government lawyer to a number of pointed inquiries. But Justice Thomas said nothing to clear up why he had chosen to end his silence now, exactly 10 years and one week after his last question. His record will stand for a long time — it has no modern competition. It has been at least 45 years since any other member of the court went even a single term without asking a question. Justice Thomas’s explanations for his disengagement have varied, but he has said lately that the other justices simply asked so many questions that they were rude to the lawyers before them. The member of the court who asked the most questions was Justice Antonin Scalia, whose empty seat next to Justice Thomas’s remained draped in black.
It was hard to escape the conclusion that the absence of the voluble Justice Scalia, who had dominated Supreme Court arguments for nearly 30 years before his death on Feb. 13, somehow liberated Justice Thomas and allowed him to resume participating in the court’s most public activity.”
Has Clarence Thomas just discovered that he has a genuine voice or is the late Judge Scalia functioning merely as a spirit guide, bellowing opinions from an eternal courtroom with Clarence Thomas merely functioning as nothing more than a ventriloquist’s “dummy,” eerily and involuntarily mouthing Scalia’s opinions and continuing his right-wing bidding from beyond the grave?
Please consider another opinion. Was Justice Thomas so dysfunctional during his “shared” tenure sitting side by side with Mr. Scalia, now that the loudest voice of the right of the court has been silenced, is Thomas now forced to take a daily trip to the attic to drag out the old Ouija board in order to communicate and receive instruction from his “mentor” not even deposed by death? Has Clarence Thomas voluntarily ended his judicial silence or will he continue to function as a clogged and judicially irrelevant pipeline only serving as a conduit to fill the vessels of all of us still in the land of the living with the polluted water of a dead jurist.
How else can you explain the now talkative nature of a man who silence was so unforced and blatant that many thought his vocal chords may have been voluntarily removed? Is Clarence Thomas now allowed to embrace his “Blackness” now that “Bwana” Scalia will not be returning from his final “Safari?”
I’ll bet you that as close as Clarence Thomas sat to Antonin Scalia when the court was in session, Thomas might as well have been communicating by Skype because I’ll be my granny’s last set of false teeth that Justice Thomas had no idea how far that apart that they really were as far as their ideology was concerned. If Thomas had been aware that Judge Scalia was a member or even was associated with the secretive St. Hubertus hunting club, even the Chief American “Oreo” would have been appalled. The International Order of Saint Hubertus was founded in 1695 by Count Franz Anton von Sporck in what was then the Kingdom of Bohemia, then territory of the Habsburg Empire, now the modern Czech Republic.
The Order was a knightly order with an emphasis on hunting and activities related to the pursuit and management of game animals. In the Middle Ages and again with the revival of interest in the forms of chivalry in Europe, hunting was considered a basic preparation for warfare and was held among the highest activities a gentleman could pursue. This a club that remains so private to this day that even US Marshall’s who provide security for all of the Justices of the Supreme Court were not permitted to accompany Antonin Scalia to the compound. I am reasonably certain that during the 300 plus years that the club has been in existence, there has not been an oversized welcome mat placed at the entrance for Blacks, Asians, Latinos, or any other races of color.
It continues to appear that Clarence Thomas may prefer to spit shines the boots of America’s most famous “preservative.” Can Thomas’s Ouija Board connect with the spirit world in general or is his instrument only attuned to the ghostly frequency emitted by his late tormentor? Will Clarence Thomas attempt to connect with the millions of Black slaves who have crossed over to the underworld, meeting their deaths at the hands of their captors who only desire was to brutalize them as human beings and utilize them as uncompensated laborers? Does the blood of those who died on battlefields to free a race in bondage have a voice in the choir of eternity that Clarence Thomas listens to? When you hear of the next dissent that Justice Clarence Thomas offers on behalf of the conservative majority and minority (when the conservatives lose) of a United States Supreme Court decision, don’t blame Clarence Thomas. Just forgive him because he knows not what he does. He is speaking the words of someone else.
Written by Aubrey Bruce
This talented brother is the Senior Sports Columnist for the New Pittsburgh Courier. You can reach him at: abruce@newpittsburghcourier.com or 412.583.6741
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