Beyond “Blackface”

Why George Takei Was Right About Clarence Thomas

Wingnuts are outraged that George Takei got so mad after Justice Clarence Thomas said slaves had "dignity" that he likened the sitting justice to being a clown in blackface…

Wingnuts are all about “freedom of speech”, that is, until a dissenter tries to use it and then it’s all moral outrage wrapped in a flag.

This brings us to George Takei and the moment when he got so mad after Justice Clarence Thomas said slaves had “dignity” that he likened the sitting justice to being a clown in blackface.

“He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry.”

“We are overjoyed, we are proud, and we feel fully American,” George Takei said at the start of the interview, referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling that made same-sex marriage legal nationally. Takei was joined in the interview by his husband Brad.

And then, after explaining his decision to be more politically active, Takei said, “He is a clown in blackface sitting on the Supreme Court. He gets me that angry… He doesn’t belong there. For him to say slaves had dignity. I mean, doesn’t he know slaves were chained? That they were whipped on the back? If he saw the movie 12 Years as a Slave, they were raped, and he says they had dignity as slaves?”

Takei was referring to what Justice Thomas wrote in his dissenting opinion after the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality last week:

That vision is the foundation upon which this Nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.

Well. There you go. It’s dignified to be killed after being kidnapped from your home country, torn away from your family and loved ones, put to work as a slave, raped, whipped in public, unable to own property — this is just as dignified as say, internment camps, which are also apparently okay, and this is why it’s okay for Justice Thomas to stand against liberty for all. You see? It was okay in internment camps and for slaves, so it’s okay for gays. I mean, this totally works as an argument. This is totally sane.

Except that George Takei was in a Japanese-American internment camp as a young boy and thus his notion of the government not being able to take away dignity is tarnished by reality.

“My parents lost everything that they worked for in the middle of their lives in their thirties. My father’s business, our home, our freedom. And we’re supposed to call that dignified?” Takei asked.

“This man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America. I’ll say it on camera,” Takei declared, speaking for most of America.

Naturally, wingnuts would rather focus on this phrase than on the truth behind it, as they are outraged that a liberal is allowed to say things a wingnut can’t. Not sure where they’ve been, but they’ve been calling the first black President a muslim Nazi terrorist without a birth certificate for seven years, and much of that came from actual elected lawmakers and a Vice Presidential candidate on the Republican side. It’s also not exactly the same to whine that Rush Limbaugh, a white straight rich man, is the same as a person who lived in an internment camp and couldn’t get married legally and have it recognized around the country until last week.

At any rate, conservatives are angry that George Takei has free speech just like they do, and he used it to call out Thomas for his obscene whitewashing of history.

Blackface per Wiki: Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used by performers to represent a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the “happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation” or the “dandified coon”.

Thomas’ dissent contributed to the stereotype perpetuated by the right of “happy slaves”. It whitewashed history.

The truth is that it is outrageous for a sitting justice to say that slaves had dignity. Justice Thomas saying that only furthers the distortions of reality we have allowed in order to shield ourselves from the ugly truth of what we have done as a nation. These kinds of beliefs do not belong in the highest court of the land. That kind of attitude is why so many people in America are not enjoying the full rights to which they are entitled as human beings in one of the richest countries on the Earth.