WEBVTT - Part One: The Clarence Thomas Story 0:00:03.360 --> 0:00:09.160 What's stroking out my all of Europe because of because 0:00:09.160 --> 0:00:11.880 of the heat and the lack of air conditioning and 0:00:11.960 --> 0:00:16.120 the houses built to retain heat and the climate change. 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.320 How you doing Europe? Everybody? Okay? Are you talking about? 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.320 Are you talking about the fun way that literally melted? Literally, Sophie, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.640 it's forty c over there, which in real people numbers 0:00:27.880 --> 0:00:30.560 is like a lot. Miles, do you know, Celsius? Do 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:37.479 you understand Celsius and co host of the Daily Zeitgeist Miles? 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:40.080 Why why do why do they use different numbers over 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:42.640 there for the temperature? We all know, man, they just 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:45.040 want to lord that ship over us because we kicked 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:49.800 England's ass. We fucking owned their ascids and then we 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.080 owned the only other country in Europe, Germany. Yeah that's right, 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.480 So that's right, that's the thing. We got the pane 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.200 stones for kicking Miles. We both know how terrible the 0:01:02.280 --> 0:01:04.360 United States is. What is why do we have Why 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:06.760 is there such joy as an American and making fun 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:08.679 of Europe? What is it? What is that about us? 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.920 I think because we know that we have no history, 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.160 so that really it's like, you know, it's like when 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.520 you have like a dumb sports argument and like there's 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:20.080 that one thing someone can say about your team that's 0:01:20.120 --> 0:01:23.840 so fucking true and it just upsets you and you 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:26.920 can't do anything about it. That's like when like Europeans 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.080 are like, but you have no history here is everything 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.600 is new like McDonald's and you're like, fuck you man, 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.360 and you're like, not true, that's true because it's all 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.679 stolen and built over. I have dranken a bar in 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:43.160 Dublin that is like was has been an operation since 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:49.120 before Columbus was a war criminal. Like, it's right, but 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.760 now you guys are toasty, so they're hold that. But 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.000 what's funny is too Like in Spain they know better. 0:01:55.040 --> 0:01:57.080 In Spain, they're like, Yo, you're out in the middle 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:01.080 of the day, stupid. They're they're like, look, we we 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:03.640 we have yielded to capitalism in many ways, but we're 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:06.920 not giving up our naps in the four hours in 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:13.760 the middle. Jealous, it's forty, it's forty two. It's real 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:17.000 people numbers. That's like, what's seventy Jesus, I don't know, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.160 I don't know. Nobody knows. You know what everyone does 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:27.160 knows that Clarence Thomas is a real piece of shit, Oh, 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:31.919 I can't wait a real he's he's a real one. 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.520 And we started this episode with some good old fashioned 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.560 American chauvinism, because most of this episode is going to 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.040 be talking about a number of things that are terrible 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:43.640 in our nation's history. Because the history of Supreme Court 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.400 Justice Clarence Thomas, the man who probably did more than 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.320 any other single government official to end rov Wade and 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:52.880 doing his best to end a number of other civil 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:57.480 rights UM is also the story of like everything that's 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:01.120 terrible about this country and its history. Like amazing how 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.440 much ship is packed into this guy's life and how 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.200 much like fucked up stuff. I mean, number one, you're 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.320 gonna be pretty sympathetic to this dude for the early 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.400 part of this UM. And I have to say one 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:13.160 of the things, like I want to start this, I 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.600 guess with like an admission for me, I think he's 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.600 probably the bastards pod subject. I've been wrongest about UM 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.280 because for a long time I've never even thought of 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.280 doing him until pretty recently. Not that I didn't think 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:29.240 he sucked, but like his years of like he's you know, 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:31.880 number one, for a very long time he was viewed 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:36.640 as like Justice Scalia's sidekick basically, um, and people who 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.240 knew anything about the Supreme Court were generally aware that 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:42.280 that was not fair. But I'm not a Supreme Court nowhere, Miles. 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.200 That's not my that's not my my strength. Um. But 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.440 even so, he's got years of like I knew he 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.720 had all these like cruel things he'd written into sense 0:03:52.760 --> 0:03:55.480 and all this like regressive ship that he championed, So like, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:58.560 I never doubted that he was a bastard. But again, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.880 there's a reason why we don't cover everyone who just 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:05.280 sucks on this show, and it's because, like, also, they 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:07.840 need to be interesting, because this is entertainment to right, 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:10.360 And I kind of thought, like, well, he's just like 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.160 a shitty guy who became a judge. How much could 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.160 there possibly be in that fucking life story? And now 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.160 we're going to do a four partner on him? So holy, 0:04:21.160 --> 0:04:23.760 I was very wrong about this guy. So let me 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.960 start by admitting that, Okay, this is like we're getting 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.599 a true we're getting the origin story, yeah, of the villain, 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.240 and a lot of weird shitty stuff spoilers. We're gonna 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.360 be talking about pubic hair. No, yeah, I don't remember 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:43.240 that weren't now. I don't know if you remember this part, Miles, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:49.960 I forgot where I was, where I learned about all 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:51.840 the things I didn't know. I didn't want to know 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:54.880 that was that was a horrendously evil laugh, and I 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.400 didn't have been working on it. I've been working on it, 0:04:57.920 --> 0:05:02.440 thank you. I'm sorry. I went to I went to 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.560 a class hosted by the Riddler this weekend about unleashing 0:05:05.560 --> 0:05:08.400 your inner batman villain, And uh, I don't know. I 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.039 don't want to like. I don't want to like. I 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:11.880 don't want to like toot my own horn because I'm 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.640 early in the process. But I did just kidnap a 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.520 billionaire's son. So a little bit of applause, a little 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.080 bit of applause. I'm working on it's gonna be good. So, Miles, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.320 if you casually read about Clarence Thomas the way most 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:26.599 people do, because who's got the time to really know 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:28.560 that much about the Supreme Court? While we all do 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.800 now because it's an immediate threat to all of our futures. Um. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.000 But if you, if you read these like real casual 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:36.960 breakdowns of him, you'll learn a couple of things. He's 0:05:37.120 --> 0:05:40.960 very conservative, he never talks during oral arguments. He's been 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:44.119 known as the silent Justice for that reason. Um, although 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:46.520 that's changed kind of recently, and he got his start 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.080 as justice school, he's like he was kind of his 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.279 Licks Bill, right, he would vote the same way Scooley 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:51.840 at it all the time. That's at least when people 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:53.680 would say about him. And then of course there's the 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:56.599 fact that he's sexually harassed Anita Hill, who was questioned 0:05:56.600 --> 0:05:59.640 by Congress and ultimately ignored when Thomas was voted in 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:02.600 on the narrowest margin in Supreme Court history. That's like 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:06.560 the the baseball card, you know, version of Clarence Thomas's 0:06:06.600 --> 0:06:11.760 history stats, the stats, right, all of that is technically true, um, 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.160 with the exception of him being Justice kalias lick Spill. 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.440 We'll talk about that later, um. But it turns out 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:20.279 it's also also incomplete that I now feel not going 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:22.920 into detail about the life and beliefs of Clarence Thomas 0:06:23.000 --> 0:06:25.880 is kind of a disservice, So here we go. Clarence 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.800 Thomas was born on June twenty three, nineteen forty eight, 0:06:29.880 --> 0:06:32.320 in an unpowered wooden shack on the edge of a 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:37.200 title swamp near the small town of pinpoint Georgia. Um, 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.040 as you might have guessed from everything in that last sentence, 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:42.359 he was born into the kind of poverty that most 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:45.200 of us who are capable of listening to podcasts can 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:48.840 only dimly comprehend. Very few, even as bad as poverty 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.760 is in the very few people exist in that kind 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.520 of poverty in the United States. This day, right um, 0:06:54.600 --> 0:06:57.720 like it is he is he is living, this is night. 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.040 He's living with access to like eighteen forties technology. For 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:03.440 the most part, right like that is this kid's childhood. 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.640 That's this kid's like the world he comes into. Um. 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.920 His great great grandmother had been born into slavery and 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:15.360 emancipated at age nine because of there's his war um Um. 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:17.880 She had a son, uh and that her son had 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.160 several young kids and then abandoned those kids, leaving her 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:24.200 to take care of them. So that's his grandmother. Uh. 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:28.320 Now one of his grandmother's son's kids who gets abandoned 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.160 by her son is a guy named Myers Anderson, who 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:36.120 is Clarence's grandfather on his mother's side. Um. Myers refused 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:38.680 to ever speak about his own father, but he also 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:42.160 would follow in his footsteps. So Myers has a daughter, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.280 Leola Williams Um, who is Clarence's mom. Um and Leola 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:50.840 is born out of wedlock. Her mother, myers partner dies 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:54.520 in a subsequent childbirth when she's three. Uh. Now, Myers 0:07:54.880 --> 0:07:56.800 is not the kind of guy who wants to have daughters. 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:58.920 He thinks that's kind of a waste of time. So 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:01.040 he decides he's not going to raise his daughter, and 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.680 he sends her to Pinpoint, Georgia, where she's raised by 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.200 his sister, her aunt. Um. Her her aunt is not 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:12.760 a nurturing kind of person. It's a very strict upbringing, 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:16.040 and there's never any belief that like Leola is going 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.680 to have a future right like, she does not have prospects. Um. 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:23.480 Aunt Annie was illiterate. UM, so Leola doesn't really learn 0:08:23.480 --> 0:08:26.480 how to read as a little girl. UM and Aunt 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:29.800 Annie keeps her kind of ward whatever you wanna call her, 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:31.680 from playing with other children. She doesn't want to let 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:34.640 her socialize. She wants to keep strict control over her 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.200 so she doesn't get pregnant young like it tends to happen. 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.440 Leola was so desperate for some kind of childhood that 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:44.200 she made dolls for herself out of clumps of weed, 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.000 washing the roots to simulate hair. So like again when 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.720 we're talking about how poor these people are, Clarence's mom 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.120 is making dolls out of clumps of weed, like weeds, 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:59.320 Like that is yeah, that's like a level yeah right, 0:08:59.360 --> 0:09:02.160 And like when you always talk about parenting, it's like 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.480 we're all just trying to break cycles. Yeah, like what 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:07.200 our grandparents did, what they did. So that's where we're 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:13.040 starting here, Like you're saying, like centuries past, you've got 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.080 centuries of slavery and families being forcibly broken up. And 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.960 then a pretty bad pattern gets started by um by 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:24.520 myers father who leaves the family. And Myers doesn't abandon 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:27.360 his kids because he has a relationship with him, but 0:09:27.400 --> 0:09:29.320 he also doesn't want to take care of daughters, so 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:31.199 he just kind of shuffles them off to whatever the 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:33.959 oldest member of his family is, right, and that person 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:35.920 is like, well, if you have any kind of freedom, 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.120 you're clearly going to have even more kids before you're 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:39.840 ready for him. So I'm going to basically make you 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.640 live in a prison. So that's how Leola grows up. Um, 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:47.040 when she's sixteen, she gets pregnant anyway with Clarence's older 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.439 sister mmam ay and she drops out of school. Um. 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.440 Leola was still a teenager when she had Clarence. A 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:55.920 little bit after she has m m a uh. The 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.920 shock that they lived in was insulated with newspaper and 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.400 talked with library A repaced that was again like that's 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:05.439 what they have access to, right, like where are things free? 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.000 What is it that you can get your hands on 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:09.680 in order to like fill holes in your house? Just 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.960 just about as desperate as it gets. Um. Clarence's younger 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.439 brother was born a little more than a year after him. 0:10:16.760 --> 0:10:18.560 Now you will notice that I have not talked a 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.240 lot about their father. Clarence Thomas's dad is known as M. C. 0:10:22.559 --> 0:10:25.120 Thomas UM. And the reason he doesn't show up in 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.520 this story much is that because as soon as he 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.640 has three kids with Leola, he abandons her and his 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:34.400 family because he's gotten someone else pregnant and her dad 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.640 threatened to shoot him if he didn't marry her. So 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:44.480 this is a rough start, right, I think it's okay. 0:10:44.600 --> 0:10:47.160 So it's the worst parts of everything go on this. 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.160 It is like one of those if you were if 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.360 you were like writing this background for like a fictional character. 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:54.560 People would be like, all right, well, maybe pick like 0:10:54.640 --> 0:10:57.960 one of these things. Yeah. An editor would be like, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.840 it feels like you're putting a hat on top of hat. Yeah, 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:05.480 and that's how vivid this the history of suffering is. Yeah, 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:09.360 it is. It is deeply difficult. Um. And it's worth 0:11:09.400 --> 0:11:13.160 noting the community and Pinpoint. This kind of upbringing is 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.760 not common for other people who live in Pinpoint, which 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.440 is a black community. Um. It is a very traditional community. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.440 It is very uncommon there for a father to leave 0:11:22.520 --> 0:11:25.000 his family or for children to be born outside of wedlock. 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.840 Everyone is extremely religious here. So from the start, Clarence 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.160 doesn't just grow up with all of this going on 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.120 in his family, which is tremendously difficult. He's also ostracized. 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.360 It is made clear to him by other people in 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.120 the area that his upbringing is fundamentally different and like 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:46.480 fucked up right, yeah, um right, So yeah, it's this 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:52.360 is fucking spooking me out, man, because it's so we 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.480 we constantly look at figures like this, like especially especially 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.360 the Supreme Court, where you're looking at this idea that 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.280 you know, on a whim, they can con curtail all 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.960 these human rights and We're just like, how the fuck 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.800 what's going on with you that you think it's all good? 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:15.680 And to hear this story even started for this early on, 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:19.480 I'm like, oh, fuck, this sounds again. It sounds like 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:27.040 centuries of like compounded negativity suffering coming together to form 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:30.240 like this human being. And you're like, oh my god, 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.320 of course, like it's you can't fathom it. Yeah, and 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.120 it's I mean, this is probably why it's a bad 0:12:36.160 --> 0:12:39.160 idea to just like pick nine random people, uh and 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:44.160 be like you you are our god kings. Now, yeah, 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:46.760 that's because all sorts of ship might have gone on 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.480 in their backgrounds that make them do real wild ship 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:53.240 and maybe yeah, that's not good. Um, I don't know, 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.760 Like you don't have to have had this background to 0:12:55.880 --> 0:12:58.720 wind up trapped in them. Nearly everybody winds up kind 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:00.920 of trapped in the past to extent. You know, maybe 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.280 you just love the music of the nineteen nineties, but everybody, 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.880 everybody like winds up growing up with something that you 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:09.680 never quite moved past. Right, which is why one of 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.719 the many reasons why people shouldn't be able to hold 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.040 too much power over each other, because we develop all 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.000 these weird fucking hang ups, and it's best to just 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:22.080 kind of minimize the damage that can do, is my attitude. UM. 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.040 So yeah, we've covered some desperate origin show stories on 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:27.920 this show, but I have to say, like Clarence Thomas's 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:31.080 early childhood is like it's up there, you know. Um, 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.000 that is that is rough. His dad, you know again, 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:37.640 leaves as soon as he gets another woman pregnant. It's 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.960 possible that Clarence's dad was bigumous lee married. Um. The 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.839 legalities here are very unclear, but none of his kids 0:13:44.840 --> 0:13:48.000 were planned. In general, that was not super common um 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.600 with his family. His mother later told interviewers, quote, we 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.520 didn't know anything about birth control or where babies came 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.920 from when you got pregnant. You just had it. So yeah, Um, 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.360 as I said at earlier, Clarence grows up aware that 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:05.720 he's not living with the kind of family that most 0:14:05.800 --> 0:14:09.360 kids have. You know, everyone is extremely pinpoint, Like money 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.720 isn't a thing anybody has. But most kids have fairly 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:16.840 stable family networks, um, and you know are born kind 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.520 of with at least that in their lives. Clarence is 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.480 aware that he's missing something. A black journalist who knew 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:25.960 Thomas when he was growing Up told Jane Mayor and 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:28.520 Jill Abrams and the journalist I believe is anonymous for 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.480 understandable reasons. Jane Mayor and Jill Abrams, authors of the 0:14:32.520 --> 0:14:35.320 book Strange Justice, quote, he starts out as a little 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.440 black boy, not accepted in the black world. He has 0:14:37.440 --> 0:14:39.640 no money, no family. This puts him at the bottom 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:42.160 of the pecking order amongst Southern blacks, a community that 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.320 is far more closed minded and rigid than many whites. Imagine, 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:47.280 as soon as he was born, he was just out 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.240 there a floater. So that's one attitude at least on 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.600 his background, right, that's a single person's opinion. Um. Now, 0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.160 once his dad leaves, his mom was forced to move 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.200 in with the aunt who had raised her miserably. Um. 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.240 And she le was her kids with the aunt who 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.440 had raised her, this very strict woman who like has 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:08.880 had a life I can't even imagine in terms of difficulty. 0:15:09.240 --> 0:15:12.760 And Clarence's mom moves to Savannah, fifteen miles away, which 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:14.960 is a lot further back than to work as a 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:17.320 live in servant for a rich white family so that 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:20.560 she could send money back home. She made fourteen dollars 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.680 a day when she visited her kids, they would regularly 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.040 ask about their father, um, and you know, she would 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:30.400 didn't really have a good answer for where he was um. 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:32.760 And this was made more miserable that by the fact 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.240 that their father's father, their grandfather on their dad's side, 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:38.280 was the town bus driver, so that they had to 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:41.320 see their grandpa every day without like having a relationship 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:45.000 with them because like their dad was just gone. Yeah. Rough, 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.320 So life in Pinpoint was extremely difficult for Again, the 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:53.560 poverty here is very intense. Leola, like most local women, 0:15:53.800 --> 0:15:55.680 took the job that you could get as a woman 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.360 in Pinpoint, which was working at a crab and shrimp factory. Uh. 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:00.800 This is the kind of thing that most women who 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.560 grew up there spent their entire lives picking crab and 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:07.640 shrimp out of shells from dawn until dusk. Leola started 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.800 when she was nine, which was very common. Um. This 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.160 is how people spend their whole lives and fucking pen um. 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.360 It was illegal for her to start work at nine, 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.200 but the plant owner didn't care, and neither did the 0:16:19.200 --> 0:16:21.440 government of Georgia. And this is not a place where 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.040 government inspectors come. Right, nobody's showing up in Pinpoint to 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.280 check on these people because they are poor and black. Um, 0:16:28.320 --> 0:16:31.240 So the government doesn't give a ship what happens as 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.000 his life begins. Clarence seemed destined to a similar life path. 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.400 This is what happened to most people in pinpoint Um. 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.440 Education did exist technically, but it had to be done 0:16:41.480 --> 0:16:44.080 in between brutal workshifts because you have to help your 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.720 family survives, so like learning and stuff come secondary um. 0:16:48.800 --> 0:16:51.320 And of course you can't continue school once you have 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.560 kids of your own, which often happens at like fifteen 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:56.760 or sixteen. A lot of folks around him are alliterate. Again, 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.120 it's not it's looking like this is more or less 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:00.840 the path he's going to wind up on, just because 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.280 there's not a lot of options because set of segregation. 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.440 People in pinpoint we're not allowed to use the local beaches, 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.600 the libraries, or the parks um. All of those were 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.720 outside of pinpoint Um. And even if they'd been able 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:16.640 to afford traveling to such luxuries, again, there was segregation. 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:19.639 The constitution technically guaranteed them the right to vote, but 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.320 there were poll taxes and literacy tests in Georgia that 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:26.119 made it basically impossible. In the rare occasions where a 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.320 Pinpoint resident would wind it in the same court as 0:17:28.320 --> 0:17:32.399 a white person. They were made to swear on separate bibles. Um. 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.080 This is like as Jim Crow as it gets. Um. Now, 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:37.840 this is not the kind of upbringing that you would 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.920 expect somebody to be able to like get a law 0:17:40.960 --> 0:17:43.000 degree and become a Supreme Court justice from And it 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:46.679 did not happen too many kids in Pinpoint. Um. But 0:17:46.760 --> 0:17:49.560 in nineteen fifty five, when Thomas was six, his life 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.520 changed to his intense and lasting fortune. He and his 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.480 brother accidentally lit their curtains on fire with a wood 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:59.000 stove and burnt their family house to the ground. Uh. 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:01.440 This put their eight aunt. She was no longer able 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.439 to take care of them, right because like they were 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:06.960 in her house now, so her mom, their mom takes 0:18:07.000 --> 0:18:09.959 them in at first, but she is living in servants quarters, 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:13.240 which is like this filthy tenement in Savannah. Um that's 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:15.680 like built by rich people to be as small as 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.200 possible so their servants just have a place to live. Um. 0:18:19.200 --> 0:18:22.160 It is a single bedroom with an outdoor toilet. Um. 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.000 And it's not a kind of thing that you can 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:29.439 really raise. Two boys in Leola begged their father for help. Um, 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:31.639 he wasn't willing to do anything. So she started to 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:36.800 beg her father, Myers Anderson, who had abandoned her, for help. Um, 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.960 and Myers eventually agrees to help because again, they're boys, right, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.920 he didn't really care about raising girls, but these are boys. Um. 0:18:44.080 --> 0:18:46.400 Now I'm gonna quote again from Strange Justice to talk 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:50.520 about how Clarence would later relate what he said had happened. Quote. 0:18:50.520 --> 0:18:53.600 Thomas's recollection of how Myers Anderson came to intercede is 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:55.840 somewhat different. He has told a number of people over 0:18:55.840 --> 0:18:57.960 the years that at about this that time, his mother 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.560 became romantically involved with a man who had interest in 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.679 taking on her children. As his friend Michael Middleton remembers it, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:05.680 Thomas told me his mother dumped him and his brother 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:08.359 on the grandfather because she'd met some man. So, by 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:10.800 the age of seven, Clarence Thomas had been abandoned by 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.120 both parents. Now that could be true. She could have 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.840 liked decided to abandon them, but it seems more likely 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:20.720 that she was just in a desperate situation and did 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.760 it help from her grandfather. Clarence hates his mom. Um. 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.320 He is like will be mean to her his entire life. 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:29.000 You can have whatever opinion on that you want. I 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:30.800 think he might have made that up. He makes a 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:34.920 lot of stuff about his back story up. Oh interesting, Yeah, yeah, 0:19:34.920 --> 0:19:37.560 I mean because that absolutely when you describe, you know, 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.199 her living situation, How could how could anyone think like 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.160 that that was going to be the place where, yeah, 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:47.680 she could have her kids grow up. Well. Yeah, and 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:51.600 Myers is kind of like if you're if you're Leola, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.520 Myers is a great person to give your kids to because, 0:19:56.160 --> 0:19:58.760 unlike everyone else you know in your life, he has money. 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.280 He gets out of pinpoint. We're talking about this in 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.120 a bit, but he is doing well financially. So it's 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:06.800 not just like, well, you're a man in my family 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:08.720 and I need help with these kids. It's well, you 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.960 have fucking resources, and I've literally never met another single 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:16.600 person who has resources. Um. So yeah, Myers is not 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:19.000 thrilled to take on new kids. Uh. He yells at 0:20:19.080 --> 0:20:21.520 Leola and he refuses it first, but then his wife 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:23.879 threatens to leave him. Uh, and so he agrees to 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.159 take in both boys. Uh. Now Clarence has an older 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.679 sister too, m m A. Myers. Anderson still refuses to 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:32.800 help with her, he's only going to raise the boys. 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:41.160 Oh my god, it's it's yeah, the worst fucking messages 0:20:41.200 --> 0:20:44.359 are constantly being reinforced. This person as like a child 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:46.840 and you're my god, like you're seeing it all start 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.879 forming like so early, where it's like, no, Um, I 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:54.200 have value because I'm boy. Yeah, I have value because 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.639 I am boy, and like I am being now separated 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:59.439 from my community and given an opportunity no one else's 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.320 and um, yeah, a whole bunch of ship is going 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.280 to to result from this. Um so m m A. 0:21:05.400 --> 0:21:08.719 His sister remains living in poverty with her aunt, um 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:12.280 living with like family because their house got burnt down. Um. Now, 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.440 while up to this point, again Clarence and his brother 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.000 had been as poor as it gets, once they move 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.679 in with Myers, there suddenly middle class instantly his life Obviously, 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:23.760 this is a fucking man who grows up in the 0:21:23.880 --> 0:21:27.800 late eighteen hundreds in Georgia a black man. His life 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:31.000