WILL UNCLE THOMAS BE BLACKBALLED?
George Bush has scattered his enemies with a mischievous Supreme Court
nomination, reports Stephen Robinson Washington FOR THE 30 months or so that George Bush has occupied the White House, he has displayed a sound grasp of internation- al affairs, a canny knack for outmanoeuvr- ing his political enemies within the Washington beltway, and — during the Gulf war — a striking coolness under pressure. But not even his greatest admir- ers would ever accuse him of having a great sense of humour. By his own account, Bush's idea of a good laugh is to curl up on the sofa with Barbara to watch an old video from the BBC series Fawlty Towers. Any trace of a refined sense of the bizarre, or a mischievous sense of irony, remained con- cealed from most who live in the nation's capital.
Rather, it was hidden until last week,
when standing outside his holiday home in Maine, Bush announced to the world his intention to nominate Judge Clarence Tho- mas as the new Justice of the US Supreme Court. Like all the best comic raconteurs, Mr Bush maintained the straightest of faces as he delivered his lines. Mr Thomas, who has little more than a year's experi- ence as a federal appeals judge, was 'the best person for this position'. Race had absolutely nothing to do with it (Thomas is black, replacing the only other black Jus- tice in the history of the court, Thurgood Marshall, who had announced his retire- ment a few days before). Nope, he hadn't even asked where Thomas might stand on the vexed issue of abortion (though a few moments earlier, Thomas, a Catholic, had tearfully paid tribute to the nuns who brought him up).
The joke did not really lie in the succession of whopping fibs Bush managed to squeeze into a brief press conference (after all, no white American can speak honestly about anything to do with race: it is simply too painful.) Nor even in the fact that the President, who rejects mandatory racial quotas in other people's factories or offices, appointed a barely qualified candi- date to the highest court in the land, for no other apparent reason than that the nominee is a black man — who also rejects racial quotas.
No, the comic potential lies in the epic battle that lies ahead in the Senate Judici- ary committee. The liberal Democratic elite, the Ted Kennedys and Joe Bidens, must now decide whether or not to tear to pieces the black upstart who grew up in the segregated South, the grandson of a share cropper who nevertheless made it to the top, yet is still not grateful to the white political elite and their compassionate civil rights legislation.
Thomas detests those who profess to speak for blacks and merely 'bitch, bitch, bitch, moan and whine' about white politi- cians. His politics are not straightforward, but he is certainly no Uncle Tom who wants to get cosy with the white political establishment. Deeply conscious of his humble roots, he rejects racial quotas and other forms of affirmative action because he thinks they benefit only the black middle class, and the entrenched 'civil rights' bureaucracy, while leaving the underclass untouched in their ghettoes. Opinion polls show that affluent blacks are far more hostile to Thomas's nomination than their poorer brethren.
Thomas specifically rejects the notion that racial integration is a possible, even a desirable, goal. He once flirted with the segregationist Black Panther sect, and his outlook is similar in some respects to Black Consciousness philosophy propounded by African nationalist leaders like Steve Biko, who stressed black self-reliance and warned that white liberal meddling conde- mned blacks to perpetual inferiority.
Unlike the established black civil rights leaders and white liberals of the Kennedy mould, Thomas sees racial quotas as in- herently racist as they presuppose blacks are incapable of doing anything without the white man's help. He rejects affirma- tive action not because he denies there is racism in America, but because he feels only blacks can put it right. As he once said himself, 'I don't think we caused our problem, but we're damn sure going to have to solve it.' Oddly enough, it is Thomas with his homespun beliefs in self- reliance and God who appears modern and up to date, against the old black political elite wearily tugging along their tatty and widely discredited civil rights baggage.
Having promised all hell if Thomas were nominated, the civil rights establishment has since proved distinctly equivocal in its response. The quaintly named National Association for the Advancement of Col- oured People, holding its convention in Texas this week, has decided against flatly rejecting the nomination — which they had earlier threatened — instead it is rather feebly inviting Thomas to talk to its mem- bers about their concerns.
But, in some respects, race is a sideshow, because the most significant consequence of the nomination is likely to be the overturning of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling which found a constitutional right to abortion. Kennedy and his political allies find themselves torn between the two great liberal issues, race and abortion. This is the wicked genius of Bush's choice. The pro-abortion lobby has declared une- quivocal opposition to Thomas, but liberal Democrats know they cannot attack Tho- mas unless the larger black pressure groups like the NAACP give them the political cover to do so. Opinion polls underline why the NAACP has to be so cautious. More than half (54 per cent) of blacks approve of Mr Bush's choice. The Demo- cratic leadership is only too conscious that -television footage of the louche, privileged Teddy Kennedy tearing into a self-made black man like Thomas would make stun- ning Republican television shots in next , year's presidential campaign. Without the unequivocal say-so of the black civil rights groups, Kennedy and company dare not attack Thomas.
In the end the fate of the nomination will turn on how skilfully Thomas performs during the Senate hearings. It will be down to the toughness of the man who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in the segregated South. In that sense, it will be a quintessentially American spectacle. If the black establishment give Senate Demo- crats the go ahead for a brutal fight this autumn, Thomas can expect no mercy from his white tormentors. But then nor would he want it.
Stephen Robinson, is Washington corres- pondent for the Daily Telegraph `I'd like to know who's offered to donate my body for science.'
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