George Takei: Justice Clarence Thomas Is a "Clown in Blackface"

[47of74]

Rule number one: Don't piss off George Takei. Rule number two: refer to rule number one.

George Takei got heated when speaking to Phoenix's Fox 10 News about Justice Clarence Thomas' dissent on the Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage last week.

"He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court," said Takei. "He gets me that angry.

He talked not only about slavery, but what his own family went through in the WW II years, and capped it off by saying;

"This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America."

Here's a video of the interview;

[Aerows]

1. I fully expect people to yell at me

But I agree with George Takei on this one. Clarence Thomas is a clown.

[bravenak]

2. He is a clown.

I cannot stand him.

[Aerows]

5. He's the embarrassing

white person that comes to the family reunion and tells racist jokes except he's black.

[bravenak]

6. Exactly. Uncle Ruckus.

[marym625]

31. I'm guessing that this would have been said better

Had he said what you won't say?

[bravenak]

32. I try not to even think what I won't say. :)

I seriously think Clarence Thomas is just an asshole. A sexist asshole. A greedy asshole. A homophobe. People need to realize that this is not a mask, this is just who this guys is inside and out. He's not bowing to Scalia, he and Scalia are just the fuck alike. Twins. Has nothing to do with his color, he's was born like that.

[marym625]

34. so..

more like this

[bravenak]

37. Yep. Straight up asshole. Him, his wife, his friends: All assholes.

[marym625]

40. absolutely!

I don't ever recall George being so angry. But I'm glad he is. It only helps.

[hifiguy]

50. I think it really piques George because

Not only is he a gay man, but his family was interned during WW II. He has plenty to be personally pissed about and doesn't need the likes of Ruckus telling him what dignity means.

[marym625]

53. You would think that a Justice of the Supreme Court

Would have better sense. The dissents were all so bad! Just unbelievable

[Spitfire of ATJ]

49. Then there's this from 2003....

http://filmstripinternational.com/index.php?page=video&display=7

[marym625]

52. my phone won't play it

I will have to check it tomorrow. But damn am I curious!

[brewens]

76. I got scolded a couple of years ago when his wife was causing him some problems

for suggesting that some of Uncle Thomas' conservative buddies would be pissed that he couldn't control his woman! I don't think that way but I'd expect Clarence and his buddies to. I wondered if he wasn't losing it then?

How long could one of those Supreme Court justices get away with having Alzheimer's?

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

8. He is and he would say the same to Scalia if he gets the chance

[bravenak]

9. I'm sure he'll take care of Scalia.

Scalia looks ill to me. I hope he retires to get his health under control. Please.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

11. Can you IMAGINE the change if Obama gets to appoint a replacement for one of the criminals

[bravenak]

13. I would throw a party if one of those assholes passed away.

And Obama got to replace them.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

28. I might start sniffing glue again to party that day

[hifiguy]

3. Uncle Ruckus with a shave.

[Aerows]

4. "Reverse vitiligo!"

No relation.

[hifiguy]

7. . . .

[LittleBlue]

20. "Reverse vitiligo"

[Quayblue]

41. yo...

*dead*

classic. That show brought out my inner cynic.

[backscatter712]

25. When he dies, he's going to White Heaven!

[BDavinciNY]

62. Clarence Thomas is more like this

Although he is the Real Uncle Ruckus!

[Nevernose]

10. At least clowns are funny

[6000eliot]

59. Thomas only escapes being the most stupid person ever to sit on the SC

by the fact that Scalia also sits there.

[hifiguy]

65. Scalia is not stupid.

He's just 400 years out of date and pissed that he missed the Inquisition. He desperately wants to burn witches and heretics.

[6000eliot]

72. Scalia's a moron. The only thing he has going for him is that sometimes he has a majority.

His dissenting opinions sound like grade school rants. When they make any sense at all.

[ProfessorGAC]

74. Beg To Differ

His "originalist" philosophy is so vacuous that it cannot come from a sharp mind.

He, like George Will, worked with a thesaurus, uses big words that most people don't know, and everyone assumes he must be smart.

[hifiguy]

75. I knew a lawyer who went to law school with Scalia

when I was a young pup fresh out of law school and he was a senior partner. The man I knew clerked for Frankfurter. He was going to argue a case before the SCOTUS and someone asked him about Scalia in a meeting. John's wry, twinkle-in-his-eye comment was "Tony is very smart, but only about half as smart as he thinks he is."

And both Justice Breyer (in his book "Making Our Democracy Work&quot and Judge Richard Posner, in this article http://www.newrepublic.com/article/magazine/books-and-arts/106441/scalia-garner-reading-the-law-textual-originalism demolish Scalia's "originalism" for the fraud it is. Breyer is far more gentlemanly about it than Posner, who in essence calls Scalia a phony and an intellectual fraud in no uncertain terms. He burns Scalia's 'philosophy' to the waterline and dynamites the wreckage for good measure.

[emsimon33]

12. Nailed it!

[Skittles]

14. Mr. Takei is dead on

Clarence Thomas has no business being ANY kind of judge

[Betty Karlson]

69. I thought he had been planted in the Supreme Court to

give Scalia an extra vote?

[Fuddnik]

15. And they have an interchange on I-95 in Savannah named for the prick!

The worst sight on my drives through there.

[Quackers]

16. I guess I'll be in the minority here but

It is never ok to refer to the color of someone's skin, especially when using it as an insult. You want to call him a clown? Fine! There are a million other ways to express anger at him without resorting to calling him a clown in blackface.

[ChazII]

39. We can be a minority of two.

I find his words inappropriate and agree there are better ways to express his anger.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

45. I wouldn't have gone 'there' either.

Even though I generally like Takei.

[hunter]

47. It's a response to the hypocrisy of the man.

And what do you mean it's "never ok to refer to the color of someone's skin?" What's with that? Are we supposed to pretend everyone is white? Are we supposed to pretend everyone is male? Are we supposed to pretend everyone is straight?

Being "colorblind" is white faced clownish racism. It's a refusal to recognize where other people are coming from. It's the "I have black friends, I have gay friends, I'm not a sexist pig," the big lie that many people tell themselves to absolve themselves of all responsibility for this society's problems with race and gender.

Takei is 100% correct in his observations, and justified in his anger.

Thomas hasn't got an ounce of dignity; if he had he would not have accepted a position on the Supreme Court.

Like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan he's a venal fool, a puppet.

[Number23]

56. I agree.

There are a million other ways to express anger at him without resorting to calling him a clown in blackface.

He is a clown (among many, many things) but the black face bit was unnecessary and over the top.

[spooky3]

70. I also agree with you.

[geek tragedy]

17. Spot on until the ugly blackface comment

I understand why George was letting it rip like that, but invoking someone's race in order to insult them is really inappropriate.

Plenty of ways to insult that wingnut asshole without going there.

[Quackers]

21. Lol

See #16

[geek tragedy]

23. At least we're not alone ... nt

[BumRushDaShow]

18. He sullies the entire stellar career of the man who he replaced.

[hifiguy]

22. Thurgood Marshall was a Titan of the law.

Ruckus isn't fit to carry his briefcase much less sit in his seat.

[Quayblue]

42. I think Thomas's appointment was an intentional slap in the face eom

Had to edit and add the name, just in case

[stevenleser]

30. I can't stand that the two men are even mentioned on the same website, the same internet.

It's an insult to Marshall that Thomas was born on the same planet.

[irisblue]

35. times a billion

[backscatter712]

19. If the shoe fits...

He's married to a white woman, which was illegal a generation ago, yet now he votes to deprive the LGBT community of the right to marry their loved ones.

He got through college, became a lawyer, and then a judge, and finally ended up on SCOTUS, because of Affirmative Action, yet he voted to gut the Voting Rights Act.

That is hypocrisy most foul.

And people wonder why he's called Uncle Thomas, or why George Takei said what he said. He's always following the lead of Massa Scalia.

[cwydro]

46. You should rethink

your post imo.

[backscatter712]

54. After what he pulled, no.

If a jury decides to censor me, I don't give a fuck.

Clarence Thomas earned the epithets that get thrown at him.

I'm calling a spade a spade, as did George Takei.

[Major Nikon]

24. Thomas forces his female interns to watch porn and his male interns to read Ayn Rand

I'm not sure which is worse.

[olddots]

26. his wife is a repuke operative

[still_one]

27. The "blackface" comment was not appropriate. It was not right for Cornell West to refer to the

President that way, and it is not right for George Takei to refer to Thomas that way either

It is a racist statement. West was implying the President wasn't "black enough", and Takei is is implying the same thing about Thomas.

[bravenak]

29. He should have left it at clown. I didn't like the blackface part either.

[cwydro]

44. I posted the same.

What he said was wrong.

I've been a fan, but this makes me step back a bit.

[still_one]

66. I agree. There are quite a lot of ways to express your disgust with Thomas not involving race

[Utopian Leftist]

33. I'm a big fan of Takai

Funniest Man on Facebook, in my opinion, he posts laughable pictures every day.

But I agree, he went too far with that comment. It is hard not to come to his defense though, when one realizes that Thomas stated in his dissent on the marriage equality case that slavery did not steal anyone's dignity. That sort of ignorant comment, used to defend his own bigotry and homophobia, makes my blood boil. Thomas does not belong on the Supreme Court, Takai is right about that much, and he does not represent the interests of black Americans, either.

[still_one]

67. I agree. My comment was that Takai should not have injected race into his disgust with Thomas

[qwlauren35]

36. Actually, the comment is offensive.

The entire subject of blackface is a very negative one. Now, Clarence Thomas embarrasses me because I'm black and I think his views are destructive and promote racism. And the fact that he was chosen to fill Thurgood Marshall's "token" position makes me sick. We only get one... and the one we got, we would trade any day. So know that the man disgusts me. But I would not have used Takei's exact words.

[Number23]

57. I agree 100%. Call the man an imbecile. Bigoted. Dumb as a box of hammers. We can all agree

And he is disgusting in every sense of the word. But implying that he's in "blackface" is offensive.

By the way, nice to see you again. I was actually thinking about you just yesterday and wondering if you'd left the site as well.

[qwlauren35]

73. Just busy...

And a bit disheartened by Charleston.

[Number23]

77. I didn't post here for a week after Charleston either. I've found that this site is not a good place

at all to discuss racism, racial animus, racial discrimination etc.

[ChazII]

38. Oh my.... n/t

[cwydro]

43. I don't like his wording at all.

Thomas is a clown, but Takei said this in a way I think is offensive.

A shame.

[MrMickeysMom]

58. Would clown with a white face be any different?

Truth is, the "clown with the black face" comment was integral to Thomas' quote about how slaves in the south (e.g. black faces) were dignified.

I'd be that pissed off, were I black, which I am not. How offensive is Clarence Thomas? For starters, he would rather be the clown and a go-along on every decision. He's more than proven himself about pubic hairs on coke can and sexual harassment of Anita Hill.

His wording was commensurate with Thomas Clarence.

[lobodons]

48. Thomas deserves every insult in the book

No holding back on this evil vile disgusting piece of excrement.

[deathrind]

51. Thomas is a disgrace

To the justice system and an embarrassment to the country. His dissent on this case is appalling.

[WillowTree]

55. I'll say it.

I find the "blackface" comment racist regardless of the man's politics. Of all people, Mr. Takei ought to know better than to go there.

[Flying Squirrel]

60. Worthy of a DU poll, methinks:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026935269

[madville]

61. Racist

His politics and decisions have nothing to do with his skin color

[Starry Messenger]

63. Not cool.

All the comments about Thomas being an idiot are spot-on, but insults based on people's inborn characteristics are always low.

[Solly Mack]

64. Blackface is make up used by white performers to represent a black person.

And anyone that has ever seen the old shows of white people in blackface knows it is insulting to black people. The blackface performer always engaged in some stereotype of black people, whether through dialogue or antics, usually both. They behaved as buffoons, because that was the white stereotype of how black people behaved - like happy, smiling idiots always aiming to please and act the fool.

The act of wearing blackface is insulting. It served only to play on the prejudices of white people by denigrating black people to get a laugh.

To say an African-American man is in blackface is to say he isn't black, just wearing the blackface make-up and acting the buffoon for the amusement of others. That's insulting. Even toward Thomas.

Clarence Thomas is a black man. He may not be your ideal black man or how you think a black man should be, but you don't really get to make that determination.

Can't stand the man and find his remarks delusional. I have no problem calling him the hateful fuck that he is and I agree that CT is an embarrassment and I do find him a disgrace as a SC justice and a human being.

Still, he is a black man. He's not wearing a mask or make-up or pretending to be anything else but the man that he is - a loathsome man to be sure.

I like George Takei and I know his family's history. I fully understand his anger over Thomas' remarks. But that doesn't excuse using the derogatory term blackface to describe him.

[Fairgo]

68. I'm with you on this

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis.

[Solly Mack]

71. Thank you, Fairgo.