Minority Complex aka Bougie

Judge Clarence Thomas is at it again. Drawing up more controversy with his decision in the Supreme Court’s latest case. A 13 year old female student in Arizona was strip searched for prescription drugs. Many schools limit their search to a child’s backpack or locker, but this school felt it necessary to search her undergarments. No drugs were found, but the bigger issue became- Can a school official strip search a child?

The Supreme Court ruled today, 8-1, that the strip search violated the young student’s constitutional rights. Which judge voted against this ruling…our dear friend Clarence Thomas. Oh Clarence. You never cease to amaze us. His reason behind his decision was that by ruling in favor of the student, the Supreme Court “second-guesses the measures that educators take to maintain discipline and ensure the health and safety of the students in charge.” Really. So, making a pre adolescent girl expose and humiliate herself assists the school in its fight to maintain order?

If you aren’t familiar with Clarence and his desicions, allow me to give you a brief synopsis. He is the second African-American judge to serve on the Supreme Court. At the time he was being considered, back in 1991, African-American and Civil Rights committees opposed his appointment including the NAACP, Urban League and National Organization for Women. Many felt his ultra conservative views would undermine the efforts and progress made by civil rights activists. He vehemently opposed affirmative action and some felt he would try to reverse the Roe V. Wade decision.

Just before his appointment, Anita Hill accused him of inappropriate sexual advances. Clarence referred to his hearings as "a high tech lynching for uppity blacks." Ain’t that funny? From a man who chides African-Americans for using their race as a “crutch.” He also believes that affirmative action in higher education should be removed because it gives “average” minority students the false sense that they can compete with their white counterparts. “These overmatched students take the bait,” he wrote in 2003, “only to find they cannot succeed in the cauldron of competition.” We won’t get into the fact that this is how HE got into Yale Law School. But, okay we’ll look at it from his view.

So, lets fight to integrate schools so that these “overmatched” students can be privy to same the educational opportunities from a early age. But no! In June of 2007, he shot down the idea to integrate schools in Louisville and Seattle. Suggesting that “the concept of integration was inherently demeaning to black children because it implied they needed to mix with whites to achieve excellence”. Is that really what integration suggests? White schools have more funding and better qualified teachers because they can pay them more and you’re saying that blacks should still be kept separate?

An acquaintance of mine suggested that he suffers from minority complex, which is derived from the inferiority complex. “In such situations, the patient tends to heed of all things he or she would be unexpected to do or say. Through this action, the subject feels as if this strategem of 'you thought you knew what I was going to do...but I didn't do that...HAHA!' is a reflection of their intelligence, when in reality it just foreshadows a mental break down and a trip to the 'minority complex' therapist.' Seems to me like this a scientific term for bougie. The black friend from the block that forgot all about you once they moved to white surburbia, put their kids in private school, joined the country club and became a chief justice on the Supreme Court.

Check out the NY Times article- http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/us/politics/26scotus.html