Gay activist and former “Star Trek” supporting actor George Takei doubled down on his “clown in blackface” attack on Supreme Court Clarence Thomas on Thursday night and implied that the jurist was a race traitor for not striking down state marriage laws last week.
In a Facebook post, Mr. Takei said that blackface is not racist and/or that it is acceptable for an outsider to tell a black man that he is a racist caricature. He also used an analogy that would imply that Justice Thomas is actually white.
“’Blackface’ is a lesser known theatrical term for a white actor who blackens his face to play a black buffoon,” Mr. Takei wrote on his Facebook page Thursday evening. “In traditional theater lingo, and in my view and intent, that is not racist. It is instead part of a racist history in this country.”
In addition to being used by white actors, blackface was also sometimes used by black actors on stage and film to look darker than they were and/or to play even-more-racist-than-usual caricatures.
Mr. Takei also continued his criticism of Justice Thomas’s dissent in Obergefell vs. Hodges, and added another racial angle to it.
In the dissent, Justice Thomas said “human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate … The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.” Mr. Takei last week, in calling the justice “a disgrace to America,” said that meant Justice Thomas must not think slavery and the World War II internment were offenses against the dignity of blacks and Japanese-Americans.
In his Thursday night Facebook post, Mr. Takei said this opinion also proved Justice Thomas was no longer really black.
“I feel Justice Thomas has abdicated and abandoned his African American heritage,” Mr. Takei wrote Thursday night on Facebook, “by claiming slavery did not strip dignity from human beings.”
The actor also seemed to say the issue was now closed, ending his Facebook post with the door-slamming sentence “I have expressed my full thoughts on the matter here.”
After the second round of Takei comments, black commentator Roland S. Martin took to Twitter to denounce both the “blackface” comments and the liberal silence about them.
“If @GeorgeTakei wants to blast Justice Thomas for his gay marriage dissent, fine. But you WILL NOT get a pass for ’blackface’ comment,” said Mr. Martin, who hosts an eponymous talk show on the TV One network.
“And yes, I’ve noticed the silence of so many Black commentators & pundits about @GeorgeTakei. I guess they give passes to liberals. SHAMEFUL,” he wrote, adding that “I don’t care” what one’s opinion of Justice Thomas jurisprudence.
Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Morehouse College and a commentator on CNN and BET, agreed with Mr. Martin that the actor was getting a pass from other liberals.
“I’m also not a fan of non-Black people calling Blacks ’Uncle Toms’ ’minstrels’ etc. It’s insensitive and unacceptable,” he wrote on Twitter, going on to add that “if @GeorgeTakei were Ted Nugent, and Clarence Thomas were Obama, we’d be having a whole different conversation about his ’blackface’ comment.”
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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