Lawmaker Takes Racial Swipe at Justice Thomas
Washington D.C. Democratic Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton took a swipe at the lone African-American on the Supreme Court in predicting that President Obama will not pick a black judge to fill the seat of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens: “We’re not sure this president is ever going to nominate another African-American to the court. [Barack Obama]’s African-American. We’ve got someone who proposes to be African-American on the court.”
Holmes Norton was referring to Justice Clarence Thomas who is generally considered a conservative.
Horace Cooper of the black leadership network Project 21 responded: “Ms. Holmes Norton should be ashamed. This is precisely the type of offensive rhetoric that keeps us Americans divided along race lines. If David Duke had said that retiring Justice Stevens ‘proposes to be white’ because of his rulings — she would be the first to denounce him.”