Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison compared Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the house enslaved person named Stephen from the 2012 movie “Django Unchained.”
The Quentin Tarantino film starred Jamie Foxx as a former enslaved person looking for his lost wife and Samuel L. Jackson in the role of the house enslaved person.
Ellison sat down for an interview with the Michigan Chronicle on July 8, and he told journalist Andre Ash that Thomas should be removed from the Supreme Court due to ethics violations, such as receiving luxurious gifts and travel from wealthy Republican donors.
“Maybe we can pass an ethical standard for them so that they can’t be so obviously bought off by outside interests,” said Ellison. “Anybody who’s watched the movie ‘Django,’ just watch Stephen and you see Clarence Thomas.”
Ellison went on to say that Thomas should be impeached for “abdicating his responsibility.”
“Clarence Thomas has decided that his best personal interest is siding with the powerful and the special interests regardless of who they’re going hurt,” he continued. “So he’s abdicating his responsibility. He has abdicated it a long time ago. When he got in office, he was this way, he’s this way now, maybe he’s worse now. So, Clarence Thomas needs to be impeached.”
Ellison also said that Thomas was “controlled” by Republican billionaire and megadonor Harlan Crow. Thomas has enjoyed lavish trips on Crow’s yacht and private jets for many years even while cases that could affect the real estate mogul’s financial interests have come before the high court.
“Clarence Thomas is illegitimate and has no business in the job that he’s in,” he added. “And it’s a lesson to us as African-Americans. What is the lesson? Well, we all thought ‘Well, he’s a Black man raised in the Deep South. He knows what racism, segregation is. He knows what affirmative action is. He’s gonna come around one day.’ Understand that it’s not a matter of pigment. It’s not what’s on your skin, it’s what’s in your mind.”
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas shared a clip of the interview and reacted to Ellison’s comments, calling him “radical.”
“The left’s vile, vicious attempts to smear Justice Thomas are utterly transparent,” he wrote. “They just can’t stand that he doesn’t share their radical orthodoxy.”
Bishop Talbert Swan agreed with Ellison’s assessment and shared side-by-side pictures of Thomas and Jackson as Stephen. He captioned the post, “Yes, Clarence Thomas is Stephen from Django,” he wrote.
Swan went on say that Thomas is a “sycophantic, boot licking, tap dancing, yassa bossing, house knee grow.”
Thomas was also criticized after the Supreme Court ruled that using race as a consideration in college admissions at the University of North Carolina and Harvard University violated the United States Constitution’s 14th Amendment equal protection clause. The historic ruling was handed down on June 29, and Black Twitter dragged Thomas for his concurrence with the majority decision.
