Paul Campos found an old speech by Clarence Thomas that explains a great deal. In it, Thomas attacks his own sister as being a "welfare queen" who is instilling in her children a culture of dependency.
Needless to say, it was all bullshit. His sister and her children were working their asses off for not enough pay, the way the poor do everywhere. The venomous attack on his own family for the crime of being Black and poor is what set Thomas to ascend in the Republican firmament during the Reagan years. It is an article of faith among Reaganites that keeping the poor from suffering will lead them to be lazy. Thomas channeled through his own race and got a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court that he otherwise did not earn through legal scholarship - nor has he advanced any great arguments from the bench.
Thomas being an awful person - especially to other Black people - is precisely why he's on the Court.
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