Alright, greetings friends. It's Chappau Monday June 5th, and today we are going to be

discussing the life and career of the longest serving and probably most influential judge

on the Supreme Court. That's right, we're talking Clarence Thomas with the man who literally

wrote the book on him. Joining us today is the author of the Enigma of Clarence Thomas

and the reactionary mind, Professor Cordy Robin, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me.

So, Cordy, we wanted to talk to you about Clarence Thomas because obviously in light of the

DOBS decision and then his long-term relationship with historical artifact, the Fishing and

Auto, Harlan Crow, is certainly put the Supreme Court in the forefront of everyone's minds.

And I guess I'd like to begin with something we've discussed on the show that was very

indebted to your work and your book on Clarence Thomas. I think it's most likely to up

in the conventional wisdom on Clarence Thomas, like who he is and his ideology. And that

is the fact that basically, Clarence Thomas' ideology begins with the fact that he is,

or was, I don't know, I mean, I didn't know you were taking on this, but with black nationalism

and radical politics. That defined his early political awakening and his early career,

but like, let's begin there. Clarence Thomas' politics, in terms of black nationalism

and black separatism and how that sort of upends, the liberal conventional wisdom about who

Clarence Thomas is and what his career represents.

Sure. So Thomas, it was born in Georgia in 1948 into great poverty. And when he's 19, he

comes to the north. A lot of things had happened to him along the way, but one could say when

he comes to the north and enrolls at Holy Cross, he's part of a very small cohort of black

male students, fairly illustrious cohort, people who go on to be illustrious. And he is

radicalized by the experience of coming north. He had been obviously used to Jim Crow and

...