ABC did a fascinating series on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. You can read it here.

Thomas’s life and experiences — growing up in the Jim Crow South, integrating all-white public schools as the only black student, confronting more latent racism after he fled to what he hoped would be “utopia” in the North — clearly have influenced how he views the law and social policies like affirmative action. His brutal 1991 confirmation battle only reinforced those deeply held views. He says he believes every discussion of race in America is fundamentally dishonest.

“It’s even more dishonest than the ’60s,” he says.

He is adamantly opposed to affirmative action, but for entirely different reasons than white conservatives who drive the debate by arguing it’s unfair to white people. Thomas says affirmative action instead has hurt blacks. It not only sends them into environments in which they are doomed to struggle instead of soar, but it also perpetuates negative stereotypes that whites hold today that all blacks are inferior to them and don’t belong — just as whites in the South assumed 50 years ago.

“These ideologies that claim to be so warm toward minorities actually turn out to be quite pernicious,” Thomas says.

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