How Clarence Thomas Smeared His Own Sister to Gain Right-Wing Cool Points

[Nevilledog]

https://newrepublic.com/post/172494/clarence-thomas-smeared-sister-gain-right-wing-cool-points

No paywall
https://archive.is/PEyVn

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas hasn’t just lied about his own finances. He also lied about his own sister for political gain.

Thomas is under fire for hiding multiple major financial dealings, primarily that Republican billionaire megadonor Harlan Crow paid for Thomas and his wife to go on decades’ worth of luxury vacations. Crow also bought Thomas’s childhood home, where his mother still lives, and paid the private boarding school tuition for Thomas’s grandnephew.

The Washington Post also reported Friday that longtime Federalist Society executive Leonard Leo secretly paid Thomas’s wife, Ginni, thousands of dollars for consulting work she did a decade ago.
But lying about money is nothing new for Thomas.

Speaking to a conference of Black conservatives in 1980, Thomas described his sister as “dependent” on welfare—and accused her of making her children feel “entitled” to welfare payments, instead of being motivated to work. His comments reinforced a negative stereotype popular among conservatives that Black people are lazy and count on welfare instead of their own work, an attempt to set himself apart and advance his career.

But when a reporter tracked down Thomas’s sister, Emma Mae Martin, in the early 1990s, he found that nothing could be farther from the truth.

*snip*

[calimary]

1. Schmuck!

[Kid Berwyn]

2. What's it called when one believes delusions?

Delusional.

[maxrandb]

3. Great job there media

Only took you ever a decade to track down Thomas' sister?

Were there a bunch of emails you had to cover over those 10+ years?

[JHB]

4. I remember that from when the story first came out.

Last edited Mon May 8, 2023, 07:38 AM - Edit history (1)

The thing that stood out to me the most (at least, since my opinion of Clarence Thomas was already so low as to be subterranean) was that his sister's case was a textbook example of Welfare doing what it was supposed to do.

She went on it for a few years to take care of her aunt who'd had a stroke, then went off it and back to a job after that sort of constant care was no longer needed. Both of them. The aunt worked at the same hospital she did. And the kids grew up fine, no matter how awfully their uncle slagged them and their mom just to get in with the conservative "cool kids".

[TexasBushwhacker]

5. So his sister went on welfare to take care of THEIR aunt

I mean, I see no record of Thomas having half siblings or step-siblings, so I assume his sister's aunt was his also. That just makes his criticism all the more loathsome.

[JHB]

9. Yes, THEIR aunt.

But what's family when there's social climbing and networking to be done?

[Cha]

6. Jesus.. Clarence Crow Lied about his

Sister to pander to Black Cons!

What Sociopathic POS GD Idiot on the SCOTUS.

[Paladin]

7. So glad such a principled guy sits on the nation's highest court.

[bluestarone]

8. Man, what an easy buy thomas was!

These creeps got theirs moneys worth from this SLOB!

[LiberalFighter]

10. Who is lazy and counts on welfare?