Synopsis
Forty-one essays from across the political spectrum, plus Clarence Thomas's and Anita Hill's statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee and position papers from major black organizations Despite the intense media coverage of the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, one aspect seemed continually sidestepped: the response of African Americans to this televised investigation of race, gender, sexuality, and, especially, the black psyche and intra-racial politics. When the dust settled, and Thomas was confirmed, what did it mean for the black community?
Robert Chrisman and Robert L. Allen, the editors of
The Black Scholar, the most influential intellectual publication for African Americans, have assembled all the material relevant to understanding the Thomas hearings: a complete chronology of the confirmation process, the statements of both Professor Hill and Justices Thomas, and essays by prominent African Americans, including Maya Angelou, Derrick Bell, Julian Bond, Rosemary Bray, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Calvin Hernton, Gloria T. Hull, June Jordan, Maulana Karenga, Julianne Malveaux, Orlando Patterson, Barbara Smith, Robert Staples, Ronald W. Walters, and Sarah E. Wright.
This provocative collection examines such issues as how African Americans perceive their interests; the disturbing sexual backlash against Professor Hill and what it says about the position of black females; the inability of some members of the Judiciary Committee to comprehend the nature of sexual harassment; the continuing confusion and fixation of white America on black sexuality; and the character, goals, and values of the new generation of post-civil-rights blacks.
Representing voices from arch conservatives to liberals to radicals, this books reaffirms that the black community is the final "court of appeal" in this great debate.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
INTRODUCTION
Few recent events in the United States have generated such a level of controversy and debate as the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings on Judge Clarence Thomas’s fitness to serve as the 106th Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The process was charged with suspense from the moment President George Bush nominated Judge Thomas to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall, the only African-American ever to sit on the High Court. At the heart of the problem is the fact that, in all of U.S. history, there have been but this one black Justice and three black senators—Hiram R. Revels (R-MS, 1870–1871), who was appointed to serve out Confederate president Jefferson Davis’s term; Blanche K. Bruce (R-MS, 1875-1881); and Edward W. Brooke (R-MA, 1966–1978)—an insufficient presence to establish a black tradition of jurisprudence, inquiry, and method at the national level. The absence of such a tradition, and the question of how to represent a powerful minority that is systematically disenfranchised from government bodies, has resulted in total public confusion—both black and white—in all aspects of the political process.
The very composition of the U.S. Senate and the Judiciary Committee—overwhelmingly white and male—could only inflame the tinderbox situation that finally exploded with the testimony of Professor Anita Hill charging Judge Thomas with sexual harassment in the workplace. The testimony of Professor Hill did two things. First, it brought a substantive charge against Clarence Thomas’s fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. And, secondly, it catalyzed the fundamental issues around both black American rights and women’s rights that the Senate had been so carefully trying to skirt. In however spontaneous a fashion, this intervention brought the popular voices of blacks and women of all colors into the Senate chambers with a powerful presence and immediacy.
Over the few short weeks of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings—from September 10 to October 14, 1991—the entire spectrum of the histories, realities, metaphors, and mythologies of black-white relations, as well as the various relationships within the African-American community itself, was played out again via television in the nation’s living rooms.
The confrontation between the United States Senate, Clarence Thomas, and Anita Hill also underscored white America’s continuing obsession with the unresolved business of racial justice in this country. The evidence for this distinctively American preoccupation can be seen in the long-lasting impression created in the national psyche by such ideologically charged works of fiction and film as Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), Birth of a Nation (1915), and Roots (novel, 1976; television, 1977). These race-based sagas present the major icons, myths, and metaphors that continue to haunt and shape the American imagination and that helped determine the powerful national response to an actual historical event of major magnitude—the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
Two days after the hearings concluded, the Senate voted 52 to 48 to confirm Clarence Thomas as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. And yet, the deeper meaning and true impact of the hearings remained cloudy and unresolved. A vote for Clarence Thomas could be seen as either a liberal or a conservative gesture; as a pro-black or anti-black statement; or as an absolution of Thomas from the charges of sexual harassment.
What did all this mean to the black community? In order to provide a national forum for dialogue and debate, The Black Scholar decided to issue a call to more than eighty of the leading black intellectuals, scholars, artists, and activists for papers analyzing the meaning and impact of the drama that had unfolded in Washington.
Since 1969, The Black Scholar: Journal of Black Studies and Research has devoted itself to a critique of the black condition and an analysis of the African-American perspective in both historical and contemporary movements. Its mission is rooted in the philosophy of reciprocity of thought and action, and the belief that intellectuals are also individuals who assume the responsibility for acting upon their ideas.
Over the years, The Black Scholar has provided an outstanding forum for research, scholarship, and criticism on such important issues as the black prisoner’s movement; the black sexism debate; the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa; events in Nicaragua, Grenada, and Cuba; and the recent social crises of the black family and the black underclass. These vital subjects have been examined by black intellectuals, scholars, artists, and activists representing a wide variety of ideological persuasions.
The response to our call on the Clarence Thomas–Anita Hill controversy was enthusiastic and swift. Within two months we had received over thirty-five essays presenting commentaries spanning the full sociopolitical spectrum—from ultraconservative to liberal to radical, and from both women and men. This collection became The Black Scholar’s special Spring 1992 issue: “The Clarence Thomas Confirmation.” It offered the black community its first opportunity to explore such vital issues as:
• How do African-Americans perceive their interests? Is there a contradiction between Clarence Thomas’s hostility toward the traditional black agenda of strong governmental support for civil rights and social and economic justice, and the support he received from blacks?
• The disturbing sexist backlash against Professor Hill and what it says about the position of black women—and by extension all women—in the U.S.;
• The inability of some members of the Judiciary Committee to comprehend the very existence and nature of sexual harassment;
• White America’s continuing confusion and fixation on black sexuality;
• The character, goals, and values of the new generation of post-civil rights blacks;
• The media’s skilled reformulation and manipulation of race-based images and stereotypes.
INTEGRATION AND THE SUPREME COURT
To fully appreciate the events of the Thomas confirmation, it is necessary to understand the historical and political context in which it took place. The issue at hand in the politically charged national arena was the filling of a vacancy created by the retirement of the first black justice in U.S. history, Thurgood Marshall, whose tenure ran from 1967 to 1991.
However, the composition of the Supreme Court had long been a political issue. With its monumental decision of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, the Court dissolved the legal, ideological, and cultural bases for the segregation of African-Americans. From that moment on the Court became a target of racist and conservative wrath.
Before the Brown decision, race relations in the U.S. had been determined by the Supreme Court ruling of Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, which had upheld “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites. The practical effect of Plessy v. Ferguson was the legalization of segregation and the disenfranchisement of blacks in all social, economic, and political sectors. With the Brown ruling of 1954, and a supplemental decision—Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka in 1955, which delegated to the Federal courts the task of evaluating desegregation activity—the deconstruction of Jim Crow society had begun.
The architect of the Brown case was Thurgood Marshall, then chief counsel for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), who argued it before the Supreme Court. Under Marshall’s direction, the legal strategy of the NAACP from 1948 on had become the total dissolution of segregation itself—not the correction of its abuses on a case-by-case basis.
Even with the Supreme Court’s remarkable initiative in 1954, the struggle to dismantle Jim Crow structures had already made impressive gains during World War II. The push for desegregation had come from pressure groups, black demonstrations, spontaneous protests, and the growing liberalism in establishment circles. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8802 of June 25, 1941, integrated the wartime labor force by barring discrimination in government and in the defense industry. Roosevelt’s action came in direct response to national black pressure, notably the planned March on Washington of July 1, 1941, spearheaded by labor leader A. Phillip Randolph, with the cooperation of the NAACP.
At the conclusion of World War II, most of the realistic thinkers in this country understood that the U.S. could not present itself to the world as a model democracy as long as blacks continued to be segregated and deprived of full participation in American society. There may have been an Iron Curtain in Europe, but there was also a Cotton Curtain in the United States.
Direct action was also taken by Presidents Harry S. Truman (1945–1952) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (1952–1960). On July 26, 1948, Truman issued Executive Orders 9980 and 9981, which began the integration of the U.S. armed forces, a process that was finally completed in 1954. Truman’s orders created the Fair Employment Board to eliminate discrimination in the Civil Service, and established the President’s Committee on Equality of Opportunity in the Armed Services. As it had in the Civil War, battlefield necessity also established a basis for equality.
In World War II only 30 percent of black troops overseas were in combat units, among them the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the first black unit in the Air Force, and the 761st Tank Battalion, the first black armored unit in combat in the war. The 761st was attached to General George S. Patton’s 3rd Army. In his welcoming address, Patton said: “Men, you’re the first Negro tankers ever to fight in the American Army. I would never have asked for you if you weren’t good. I don’t care what color you are, so long as you go up there and kill those Kraut sons-a-bitches.”
In his 1948 platform, President Truman insisted upon a civil rights plank, despite the Dixiecrat rebellion of Southern segregationists led by Strom Thurmond, then Governor of South Carolina. Truman also became the first President to address the NAACP.
Parallels were also occurring in popular culture. In sports, the Brooklyn Dodgers integrated professional baseball in 1947 with the hiring of Jackie Robinson. Soon after, black athletes were integrating other formerly all-white professional sports.
In the entertainment field, blacks began to appear as fully rounded characters in such films as Lifeboat (1944) and Home of the Brave (1949). Increasingly, a number of post-war films explored the problem of human relations in a society plagued by racism. Hollywood’s first black superstar, Sidney Poitier, appeared in a number of such films, debuting in No Way Out (1950), and continuing with Blackboard Jungle (1955), Edge of the City (1957), The Defiant Ones (1958), and A Raisin in the Sun (1961).
From the late 1950s through the 1980s, Congress and the Presidency established the basic legislative foundation of contemporary civil rights. Racist resistance occurred in the form of Ku Klux Klan activity, the creation of White Citizens Councils by segregationists in 1954, and the blockage of integration initiatives in the House and Senate.
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