Any discrimination, like sharp turns in a road, becomes critical because of the tremendous speed at which we are traveling into the high-tech world of a service economy.
CLARENCE THOMASAny discrimination, like sharp turns in a road, becomes critical because of the tremendous speed at which we are traveling into the high-tech world of a service economy.
CLARENCE THOMASWhen you look at where the real problems are among minorities in our society, particularly blacks, it’s at the bottom. It’s the people who are in school systems that don’t educate, neighborhoods where there is a lot of crime, drugs, the whole bit.
CLARENCE THOMASIn our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today’s decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.
CLARENCE THOMASYou didn’t think of angels as white or black. They were angels.
CLARENCE THOMASI don’t really have the luxury to be bitter. I don’t have the luxury of having negative things in my life.
CLARENCE THOMASYou have a number of choices. You could continue to always fight against people who are really distractions. They’re people in the cheap seats of life. Or you can do what you went there to do.
CLARENCE THOMASAnd I don’t think that government has a role in telling people how to live their lives. Maybe a minister does, maybe your belief in God does, maybe there’s another set of moral codes, but I don’t think government has a role.
CLARENCE THOMASDifferences in race, differences in sex, somebody doesn’t look at you right, somebody says something. Everybody is sensitive. If I had been as sensitive as that in the 1960s, I’d still be in Savannah.
CLARENCE THOMASThe truth of the matter is we have become more interested in designer jeans and break dancing than we are in obligations and responsibilities.
CLARENCE THOMASIt really bugs me that someone will tell me, after I spent 20 years being educated, how I’m supposed to think.
CLARENCE THOMASSo many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest
CLARENCE THOMASWhen I was a kid, we said that we were precluded from going to certain neighborhoods because of the color of our skin Now the neighborhoods are the neighborhoods of ideas, youre not supposed to be there because of the color of your skin.
CLARENCE THOMASAnd I thank God I believe in God, or I would probably be enormously angry right now.
CLARENCE THOMASPerhaps some are confused because they have stereotypes of how blacks should be and I respectfully decline, as I did in my youth, to sacrifice who I am for who they think I should be.
CLARENCE THOMASToday, now, it is time to move forward, a time to look for what is good in others, what is good in our country. It is time to see what we have in common, what we have to share as human beings and citizens.
CLARENCE THOMASI think segregation is bad, I think it’s wrong, it’s immoral. I’d fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don’t need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write.
CLARENCE THOMAS