Prometheus 6   

Clarence Thomas Hides Behind Frederick Douglass Quotes
by Artelia C. Covington
NNPA National Correspondent

WASHINGTON (NNPA)�When one thinks about Frederick Douglass, the famous abolitionist, several familiar quotes come to mind.
�Without a struggle, there can be no progress,� is one.
Another is: �Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.�
And there�s this one, �If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are the men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lighting.�

However, when U.S. Supreme Court Clarence Thomas selects a Douglass quote to use in his dissenting opinion in the University of Michigan�s law school case that upheld affirmative action, he chooses one that many African-Americans have never heard. And if they have heard it, they don�t go around quoting it.

�The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us,� Douglass told abolitionists 140 years ago. �� I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us!�

Douglass continued, �If the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! Your interference is doing him positive injury.�

In his opinion, Thomas wrote: �Like Douglass, I believe Blacks can achieve in every avenue of American life without the meddling of university administrators. Because I wish to see all students succeed whatever their color, I share in some respect, the sympathies of those who sponsor the type of discrimination advanced by the University of Michigan Law School.�

Thomas�s critics are outraged that he is trying to use one of Douglass� lesser known quotes to defend his opposition to affirmative action.

�When you consider the many quotes you could have used from Fredrick Douglass, he clearly really looked for one that would suit his purposes and decided to omit the more salient ones and it�s reflective of the skewed logic that he uses in his opinion,� says Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.