George Takei, Clarence Thomas Feud: Takei Calls Thomas ‘A Clown In Blackface’ [Video]
Actor and gay rights activist George Takei disagrees with a few people, and Justice Clarence Thomas is one of them. When Thomas, who doesn’t support the new legalization of gay marriage in the United States, issued a dissent, Takei, who’s openly gay, called Thomas, who is African American, “a clown in blackface sitting there on the Supreme Court.”
George Takei: Justice Clarence Thomas is "a clown in blackface" http://t.co/9BOLKwUTGG pic.twitter.com/mrTBF9DTOu
— The Hill (@thehill) July 2, 2015
Clarence Thomas released a dissent of the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage, and in that statement, Clarence Thomas wrote “human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. 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.”
Thomas was trying to point out that the government can’t deprive people of their human dignity, regardless of the laws. As previously reported by the Inquisitr, Clarence Thomas isn’t the first person Takei has publicly spoken out against — George Takei also feuds with long time friend William Shatner, who believes Takei is a “lunatic.”
In his dissent, however, Thomas also pointed out, “Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them.”
George Takei: Justice Clarence Thomas Is a "Clown in Blackface" http://t.co/Sb2m0zz9C4 pic.twitter.com/Q9GWaRq40i
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) July 2, 2015
George asserts, according to the Hill, when it comes to the subject of human dignity, internment camps, and whether a government can deprive a person of dignity, he understands it better than Thomas. During World War II, Takei, along with his family, was forced into an internment camp during World War II.
George Takei is a popular figure in Unites States pop culture, in part because he is willing to take a stand on controversial issues. According to the Hollywood Reporter, in an interview with Fox 10 Phoenix, Takei said he believes Justice Thomas “doesn’t belong” on the United States Supreme Court because of the dissent, and the following remarks.
“He gets me that angry. And for him to say, slaves have dignity, I mean, doesn’t he know that slaves were in chains? That they were whipped on the back?”
“I was only a child when soldiers with bayonetted rifles marched up our driveway in Los Angeles, banged on our door, and ordered us out,” Takei wrote about the experience. “I remember my mothers’ tears as we gathered what little we could carry, and then were sent to live for many weeks in a single cramped horse stall at the Santa Anita racetracks.”
Takei, referring to a time when he was forced into the internment camp with his family, said in response to the dissent published by Thomas: “My parents lost everything that they worked for, in the middle of their lives, in their 30’s. His business, my father’s business, our home, our freedom and we’re supposed to call that dignified? Marched out of our homes at gun point. I mean, this man does not belong on the Supreme Court. He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWwHqvTEFaM
[Image credit: Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images]
