Dear Justice Thomas:
Over the last quarter-century, I’ve seen you do a lot of things to disgrace the seat on the Supreme Court once occupied by Thurgood Marshall. But your dissent from yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to allow LGBT couples to legally marry has to stand as the worst. Your suggestion that neither blacks who were enslaved prior to the Civil War nor Japanese-Americans who were interned during World War II can charitably be described as a total breakdown of decency. It is enough of a breakdown that, in my view, you should seriously consider resigning from the Court.
I quote from your dissent:
“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.”
Any argument you were trying to make is overshadowed several times over by your appalling ignorance of history. Speaking as one black man to another, it is simply beyond believability to suggest that our ancestors did not suffer any loss of dignity during the slavery era. Even those who were treated relatively well were still denied their most basic right–their freedom. If you don’t consider that a loss of dignity, Justice Thomas, I have to wonder if you either fell asleep or cheated during history class at some point in your career at school or at Holy Cross. That’s about the only plausible way that anyone could conclude that this black eye on our history was anything other than a loss of dignity.
If that wasn’t bad enough, you compounded your breakdown of decency by suggesting that Japanese-Americans didn’t lose their dignity when they were hauled into internment camps. Detaining thousands of people for no other reason other than the suspicion that their ancestry made their loyalty to this country suspect is fundamentally un-American. For you to even suggest that this didn’t cost these people their dignity is beyond ignorant. I find wondering the same thing that I wondered earlier–did you fall asleep or cheat in history class somewhere?
You are entitled to your opposition to marriage equality. But did you have to express that opposition in such an ignorant manner? It is an indisputable fact that slavery was, by its very nature, a loss of dignity. And it is an indisputable fact that the internment of Japanese-Americans cost them their dignity. For a Supreme Court justice to even suggest otherwise brings shame and disgrace upon the Court and the nation. Your dissent deserves to be in the same place of legal infamy as the Dred Scott Decision and Plessy v. Ferguson. I suspect that many of my friends from outside the United States read this dissent and rolled their eyes in amazement that someone this ignorant could sit on the highest court of any nation.
Simply put, it is not acceptable for a federal judge, especially a Supreme Court justice, to exhibit such a total breakdown of basic decency and understanding of history. You, sir, may resign your post.
Sincerely,
Darrell Lucus
