“

Indeed, Thomas’ embrace of the Republican Party is consonant with a deep mistrust of white liberals, the institutions they control and the policies they try to advance in the name of “social justice.”

This mistrust was widely shared among Black activists of his generation — and is in keeping with Thomas’ Supreme Court decisions, including overturning Roe. If anything, the racialized attacks many liberals directed at Thomas in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling confirm the pessimistic view of race relations that prevailed among many of the Black thinkers who shaped Thomas’ worldview and is exhibited by Thomas himself.

For instance, Thomas was deeply inspired by Malcolm X. He had a poster of Malcolm X that hung in his dorm room. He memorized many of his speeches by heart, and he continues to evoke him frequently to this day.

It was Malcolm X, of course, who famously declared that, “In this deceitful American game of power politics, the Negros (i.e. the race problem, the integration and civil rights issues) are nothing but tools, used by one group of whites called Liberals against another group of whites called Conservatives, either to get into power or to remain in power.”

He argued that white liberals and white conservatives differ “only in one way: the liberal is more deceitful than the conservative. The liberal is more hypocritical than the conservative. Both want power, but the white liberal is the one who has perfected the art of posing as the Negro’s friend and benefactor.” He continued, “By winning the friendship, allegiance and support of the Negro, the white liberal is able to use the Negro as a pawn or a tool.”

Musa al-Gharbi

What the reactions to Clarence Thomas post-Roe reveal about white liberals