Clarence Thomas: Please shut up

Although each network touts their “rare interview” with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, he is in fact all over the media selling his new book My Grandfather's Son. I caught a part of an interview last night on ABC, and realized, this man is really a lunatic. Every answer he gave was filled with victimization of himself, as if the only reason anyone could possibly not want him on the Supreme Court is because he's black. No, sir, but how about because you're nuts?

So I was pleased to read an opinion piece in this morning's New York Times by Anita Hill. Among Hill's thoughts:

I will not stand by silently and allow him, in his anger, to reinvent me.

Regrettably, since 1991, I have repeatedly seen this kind of character attack on women and men who complain of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. In efforts to assail their accusers’ credibility, detractors routinely diminish people’s professional contributions. Often the accused is a supervisor, in a position to describe the complaining employee’s work as “mediocre” or the employee as incompetent. Those accused of inappropriate behavior also often portray the individuals who complain as bizarre caricatures of themselves — oversensitive, even fanatical, and often immoral — even though they enjoy good and productive working relationships with their colleagues.

Finally, when attacks on the accusers’ credibility fail, those accused of workplace improprieties downgrade the level of harm that may have occurred. When sensing that others will believe their accusers’ versions of events, individuals confronted with their own bad behavior try to reduce legitimate concerns to the level of mere words or “slights” that should be dismissed without discussion.

Read the rest here.