Clarence Thomas Urges Blacks To Bear Arms

Am I reading this right? Did Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas just tell black folks that we need to arm ourselves against the tyranny of white Militias?

But I'm not the only one that picked this one up, Courtland Milloy over at The Washington Post picked up on it too.

In-fact Courtland Milloy has a great piece in The Washington Post covering how Clarence Thomas's gun rights opinion, color/race played a major role in developing his opinion.

Courtland writes; He hardly ever speaks during oral arguments, often appearing asleep on the bench. 

 

But in his written opinion Monday supporting the right to bear arms, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas roared to life. 

Referring to the disarming of blacks during the post-Reconstruction era, Thomas wrote: "It was the 'duty' of white citizen 'patrols to search negro houses and other suspected places for firearms.' If they found any firearms, the patrols were to take the offending slave or free black 'to the nearest justice of the peace' whereupon he would be 'severely punished.' " Never again, Thomas says. 

In a scorcher of an opinion that reads like a mix of black history lesson and Black Panther Party manifesto, he goes on to say, "Militias such as the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, the White Brotherhood, the Pale Faces and the '76 Association spread terror among blacks. . . . The use of firearms for self-defense was often the only way black citizens could protect themselves from mob violence."

This was no muttering from an Uncle Tom, as many black people have accused him of being. His advocacy for black self-defense is straight from the heart of Malcolm X. He even cites the slave revolts led by Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner -- implying that white America has long wanted to take guns away from black people out of fear that they would seek revenge for centuries of racial oppression. 

Of course, Thomas's references to historic threats posed by white militias might have been dismissed if not for a resurgence of such groups in the year after Barack Obama's election as the nation's first black president. 

And if their behavior turns as violent as their racist rhetoric often threatens, then Thomas will almost certainly go down in history as the nation's foremost black radical legal scholar. Read More HERE

AAPP:  I cannot believe this but for the first time, I agree with Clarence Thomas. 

Courtland Milloy is right as well, Clarence Thomas's advocacy for black self-defense is straight from the heart of Malcolm X.



Maybe the national office of the NAACP and other "negro" groups should revisit their own lack of advocacy for black self-defense against these growing so-called Militia groups.