Following the Supreme Court’s decision to strip colleges and universities of their means to employ race-conscious admissions processes, MSNBC’s Joy Reid lambasted Justice Clarence Thomas for his part in bankrupting marginalized people of opportunities that would level America’s institutional systems.
Thomas voted with a 6-3 conservative majority to gut affirmative action, a crucial process that allows schools to consider race when admitting students, especially at colleges with historically low minority representation.
“He appears to operate from a kind of rage, a cold rage,” Reid said on All In with Chris Hayes Thursday night. “Clarence Thomas has been on a mission to dismantle every institutional attempt to help and aid, not just Black people, but any people who have been disadvantaged in this society since he’s gotten on the court.”
Reid launched into a character breakdown of Thomas, recounting how his career positioning is the result of support from white benefactors throughout the whole of his upbringing and education.
“He has been assisted by white patrons really his whole life,” Reid remarked. “He seems to deeply resent all of the assistance he got, and he wants to make sure that nobody like him ever gets that kind of help again because it helps his self-image so that he can lie to himself and fool himself and maybe hate himself a little less for having gotten help all along his path to the Supreme Court.”
Reid claimed that one of the biggest determinants of Thomas’ Supreme Court appointment was polling that purportedly showed that the support of Black Americans was instrumental in his rise to the bench.
“The polling showed that about 7 in 10 Black people supported his ascension to the seat once held by the great Thurgood Marshall and he is not his equal. It was only Black people’s support in those polls that got wavering Democrats to vote for him,” Reid claims. “And he has repaid Black people with scorn ever since.”
You can watch the video of Reid’s comments below:
