There are many reasons that George H.W. Bush chose to nominate Thomas, but one of them is almost surely that Thomas is black. The seat Thomas was nominated to fill was the one left by Thurgood Marshall, who retired in declining health.
Justice Thurgood Marshall was a consistent liberal vote and a strong proponent of civil rights protections. Before becoming a Justice himself, Marshall argued dozens of civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Board of Education. Marshall’s “sliding-scale” situation-informed style would seem to be in direct conflict with Thomas’s unyielding “textual originalism.”
I was in my early 20s that summer when the Clarence Thomas confirmation, and Anita Hill’s testimony, were everywhere on the news. I even remember it in an episode of the sitcom Designing Women, albeit in a plausibly deniable “bothsides” kind of way. The story raged because of its high stakes and titillating content, but it also prompted some frank. worthwhile discussion about some uncomfortable topics.
And then Thomas publicly complained that the sexual harassment complaints against him amounted to a “high-tech lynching.” And then, slowly but surely, we all came to understand it was pretty much over.
“He played the race card,” his detractors complained. But his supporters answered, weren’t those detractors playing the race card too? What if the real racist is the person who automatically assumes the word “lynching” was intended to be taken in a race-related context in the first place?
It went back and forth like that for a while, as the public spotlight on the story faded out. But we weren’t talking about Anita Hill’s testimony anymore. We weren’t even talking about Thomas’s suitability as a Supreme Court Justice anymore. It was pretty much all “race card” stuff from there on out.
There are many, many reasons that GHWB nominated Thomas. At least one of them is that Thomas is black, and that it would have been a bad look (politically and otherwise) to nominate someone who was not black to replace Marshall.
Thomas is black. That gives him the right to “play the race card,” as far as I’m concerned. But fair play calls for laying your cards on the table, for everyone to see. Thomas has always cared more about the cards he keeps up his sleeve.