Cuban Racist Angry That African American History Museum Excludes Clarence Thomas

Some questions require a yes and no answer. If a neighbor asks “Do you own the Irish terrier you take for a walk every evening?” to say no is not completely accurate, even if your husband or wife paid for the dog. A complaint by Ted Cruz would probably elicit such a response.

You see, Cruz, the white Cuban racist and republican senator from Texas, is angry. His emotions boil, as if they were a pot of overheated toilet water, every time he thinks about the National Museum of African American History and Culture and does not see in it a mural, a wallet, a black or red tie, or anything honoring Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Ted Cruz’s Dysfunctional Frustration
Cruz expressed his frustration in a formal letter to the Smithsonian Institute, written as a member of the Committee of the Judiciary on official U.S. Senate stationary, on December 19, 2016.

In the letter, Cruz complains that the exclusion of Thomas from the Museum is an enormous mistake. He believes that Thomas should be included alongside such giants, such African-American patriots, such gods and goddesses of the black struggle for freedom, as Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King, Jr. He presents three reasons to back his argument for inclusion.

Cruz’s Reasons for Including Clarence Thomas in the African American Museum
First, Cruz notes that Thomas had to overcome poverty and discrimination to become a success in America. He quotes Mark Paoletta, whom he calls a “Thomas expert”:

“[Thomas] grew up in the segregated deep south of coastal Georgia. Because of his Geechee heritage, he experienced discrimination from other African-Americans as well as from whites. Thomas was fortunate that he was sent at age 7 to live with his grandparents, who were both strong role models.

“His grandfather, Myers Anderson, was uneducated but built a small business delivering fuel oil, coal, firewood, and ice in the Savannah community. He instilled the values of hard work, perseverance, and accountability. He used to tell Thomas and his younger brother, 'Old Man Can’t is dead. I helped bury him.’”

Second, for interpreting the U.S. Constitution from a white right-wing (and in many cases, a racist) standpoint, Cruz praises Thomas as a supreme Supreme Court Justice. Cruz expresses his admiration in these words:

“Never afraid to oppose the prevailing trends of the day, Thomas has become the court’s foremost adherent to the idea that the Constitution should only be interpreted in accord with the document’s historic and original meaning, as opposed to the 'living Constitution' doctrine that has pervaded both the court and the legal academy for decades.”

Third, Thomas’s “moving story and incredible contributions … [are] uniquely compelling in the annals of U.S. history, African-American or otherwise” to warrant more than just a lone negative “reference to Thomas [by] a single individual’s controversial accusation against him at his Senate confirmation hearing 25 years ago,” insists Cruz.

(Cruz refers to the accusation by attorney Anita Hill, an accusation believed by millions worldwide as true after she passed a polygraph test, a test which a lying-looking Thomas was too scared to take, that Thomas sexually harassed her continuously when he was Hill’s supervisor at the Department of Education and later at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.)

Why Racial Justice Says “No” to Cruz’s Complaint
On the surface, Cruz’s complaint seems justifiable. But a picture is not the same as a fact. You cannot eat a photograph of red-skinned potatoes. Similarly, Cruz’s complaint is merely an expression of discontent. The reality is different.

In the first place, a complaint, to be acceptable, must be reasonable. Cruz’s complaint is neither justifiable nor reasonable. It spills, like liquid mash potatoes, from a racist perspective.

It lacks credibility for most blacks, because few blacks care about or listen to the arguments of a racist. And because Cruz is a white Cuban republican racist, the fingers of freedom push earplugs into her ears.

Then, as a consequence of an unacceptable complaint, the complaint also carries the scent of a bad smell, a silent smell that rises from the bottom of a swamp fertilized with cologne. Cruz thinks the struggle from discrimination to success automatically brands Thomas as a hero in black America.

How shallow! How empty! How like Irish beef stew, without the beef, without the garlic cloves, without the dried thyme, without the Worcestershire sauce, without the chopped onions and russet potatoes peeled and cut into one-half-inch pieces!

In 300 years of African-American history, probably 95 percent of successful blacks have sloshed through the mud of white discrimination and staggered through slush left by racism’s winter snowflakes. In other words, the struggle to succeed among black Americans is as common as sunlight.

Therefore, many blacks stress the integrity of success, not just the fact of success. If you gain success by being an Uncle Tom, you may receive applause from the bigots who conceived you. But you will also hear boos from black America that bust the eardrums. Thomas is such a Tom.

Hence, success does not always mean success. Consequently, as a racist, Cruz’s demand to fully include Thomas into the African American Museum argues, from a black perspective, for exclusion, not inclusion.

Finally, we have phrased Cruz’s complaint as a demand. That’s the aroma of the bad smell, the smell from the bottom of the swamp, we talked about previously.

A racist is a hypocrite, as two-tongued as any monster in world literature. And as a two-tongued monster, Cruz defines the essence, the instinct, of every two-tongued bigot. They just can’t be honest. They must deceive their way into your reason.

Thus, Cruz’s complaint is the white supremacist’s way of sweetly appealing to black sensibilities with the flat, lifeless white wine of sublime and subliminal threats.

But, Then, Education and Black Self-Preservation Take a Slightly Different View
Yet, despite the reasons we have given to say “no” to Cruz’s demand, there is at least one advantage to saying “yes” to the demand too. To explain an idea to a child—actually, to adults also—educators recommend you give powerful examples, examples that breathe life into the idea. Examples make an abstract concept talk or touch or smile or even snore. They convert confusion to understanding.

In that sense, including Thomas in the African American Museum makes sense, but only if Thomas is presented as a contrast, because contrast is to understanding what headlights are to a bonfire. It makes that which is relatively clear unambiguously clear.

Hence, Harriet Tubman is a black heroine because she was such a fierce and triumphant freedom fighter. Clarence Thomas is not a Harriet Tubman because he is an Uncle Tom.

Thurgood Marshall is a black hero because he fought successfully for black rights as a civil rights attorney and then as a Supreme Court Justice. Clarence Thomas is not a Thurgood Marshall because he has supported white supremacist views and dumped racial justice into the dumpster of neglect as an attorney in republican administrations and now as a Supreme Court Justice.

What better way to teach black kids self-esteem and black pride than to contrast Clarence Thomas with Malcolm X! What better way would it be to showcase in the African American Museum the royalty and majesty of Martin Luther King, Jr. than to display his exploits on a podium decorated with pearls and green emeralds high above a platform of dull, dingy memorabilia from the raggy, nasty, negro character of Clarence Thomas!

But, then, Congress could also legislate a separate museum for Thomas, so white supremacists, so Donald Trump and David Duke, can gloat.

Either way, it is not enough to merely declare to current and future generations of blacks that Thomas is an Uncle Tom and Steppin’ Fetchit. You must also explain and demonstrate and give justifiable reasons labeling him a traitor to black America. Knowledge must become the parent of unborn generations innocently evolving in the womb of time.

Then, all history will understand that the difference between Cruz’s demand and black dignity is like the bark of a tree, and a dog. Two different natures, two distinctions, two opposing intentions.