Saturday, June 16, 2007

Orlando Patterson on Supreme Discomfort: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas

Orlando Patterson weighs in on SUPREME DISCOMFORT: The Divided Soul of Clarence Thomas by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher in the New York Times this weekend. Patterson finds the book "invaluable for any understanding of the court’s most controversial figure. It persuasively makes the case that 'the problem of color is a mantle' Thomas 'yearns to shed, even as he clings to it.' In doing so, it brilliantly illuminates not only Thomas but his turbulent times, the burden of race in 20th-century America, and one man’s painful and unsettling struggle, along with his changing nation’s, to be relieved of it."

Links to earlier reviews by Kenji Yoshino and David Garrow are here.