I wasn't the only one to pick up on Dowds awful column today. Here is Sullivan's take.
THE 'INGRATITUDE' OF THOMAS: It would be hard to find a more appalling example of racial animus than in Maureen Dowd's column this morning. For some reason I guess I do understand, Clarence Thomas isn't just opposed by many on the Left; he is hated. He is hated because he is, in Dowd's extraordinary formulation, guilty of "a great historical ingratitude." The good negroes, in Dowd's liberal-racist world, are those grateful to their massas in the liberal hierarchy: they are grateful to Howell and Gerald and Arthur; and they know their place. For them to express the psychological torment of being advanced for racist reasons, to explain in graphic, brave and bold terms the complexity of emotions many African-Americans feel as 'beneficiaries' of racial preferences, is unacceptable. To describe such a person who has been courageous enough to put these feelings into a powerful dissent as "barking mad" is nothing short of disgusting. Yes, there are all sorts of psychological inconsistencies in Thomas' journey. But that, in part, is the point! If Dowd supports "diversity" as a good thing in elite institutions, why isn't it a good thing for one black Justice to contribute his own experience as part of a landmark judicial ruling? Of course I don't know whether Dowd supports diversity in this sense. That would require her to argue something - of which she is apparently incapable. And then Dowd, of all people, complains that Thomas is more interested in his own personal dramas than "bigger issues of morality and justice." When was the last time you read a Dowd column that grappled with "bigger issues of morality and justice"? andrewsullivan.com |
