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Democrats Must Call Out Racist Attacks Against Clarence Thomas

DailyWire.com

During his three-decade tenure as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, two things about Clarence Thomas have been completely consistent, his rock-solid commitment to conservative jurisprudence and the near-constant racist attacks hurled at him by the Left. This week, another disgusting smear was leveled against him — this time on the floor of the Georgia State Senate as that body debated erecting a statue of America’s second black justice.

It needs to be the last time this happens. And only Democrats can assure that it is.

State Senator Emanuel Jones took the occasion of the debate as an opportunity to say the following, “I’m just trying to tell you what we have in the African American community when we talk about a person of color that goes back historically to the days of slavery and that person betraying his own community – we have a term in the black community. That term that we use is called ‘Uncle Tom.’ An Uncle Tom … talks about a person who back during the days of slavery sold his soul to the slave masters.”

Amazingly, Jones went on to say that he did not know if Uncle Tom was fictional or nonfictional and in fact did not know the origin of the term at all. Let’s set to one side the fact that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1852 novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is a seminal work of American literature that we might expect an elected official to be aware of, why didn’t his staff check? This guy walked onto the floor of the state senate and announced that he has no idea what he’s talking about, but Clarence Thomas is bad, or something. 

And this is far from new, after the leak of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade “Uncle Clarence” trended on Twitter, even though he was only one of five justices who decided to end Roe. This is also what happened when Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) gave the GOP rebuttal to Joe Biden’s 2021 address to congress and “Uncle Tim” trended. What we see here are clear and pervasive insulting attacks on black conservatives based solely on the color of their skin and having nothing to do with the content of their character.

As usual, there are no specifics about just what Thomas has done to allegedly sell out black people, instead the argument is that any black person who refuses to hew to the Left-wing ideology of the Democrat Party is betraying their race. So why do Democrats and their media allies shrug at these racist smears, not just against Thomas and Scott, but against other black conservatives such as Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who received the exact same treatment when he was nominated to be speaker of the House?

This will sound blunt, and harsh but it needs to: There are sadly times when as a society we suspend our sense of decency. Think of jokes made about men being raped in prison. It’s a carve out, rape gets to be amusing because we have disdain for the victim. That’s what Clarence Thomas has dealt with for three decades. We know that mocking people on the basis of their skin color is always wrong, but the Left’s disdain keeps the joke in circulation. 

It needs to stop and that will only happen when Democrat leaders, including Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, come out and forcefully say that there is no place for race based attacks and insults in their party. That shouldn’t be a heavy lift. But it is because this particular brand of vile racism is meant to prevent black Americans from embracing conservative ideas, which obviously helps to keep Democrats like Biden and Harris in power.

There are those who argue that the use of the term “Uncle Tom” should be policed solely by black people, but this is just not acceptable. Racism is racism and needs to be called out by all Americans regardless of skin color. There is no way to categorize Sen. Jones’ use of ‘Uncle Tom’ to describe Thomas as anything but an insult targeting his race. If this had been a debate about a statue for a white conservative justice it is possible that Jones would oppose it, but it is unfathomable that he would do so on the basis of race.

These racist smears against Thomas and other black conservatives have been a gray area in our discourse for far too long. It is not a gray area, it’s literally black and white. It is disgusting that as a society we turn a blind eye to this problem, it is not befitting a great nation. If Democrats do not stand up and demand that this stop then all of their big talk about fighting racism is a sad lie. It’s time to put this period of our discourse to bed — it has no place in the modern United States.

David Marcus is a West Virginia based columnist and author of “Charade: The Covid Lies That Crushed A Nation.” Follow him on Twitter @Blueboxdave 

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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