From the sublime to the absurd…
Yesterday, RealClearPolitics published an open letter from Brown University professor Glenn Loury and the founder of The Woodson Center, Robert Woodson Sr., denouncing the attacks aimed at Justice Clarence Thomas following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling and Thomas’ provocative concurring opinion. It’s a nicely direct and necessary condemnation:
White progressives do not have the moral authority to excommunicate a black man from his race because they disagree with him. And those – regardless of background – who join in the charade or remain silent are guilty of enabling this abuse.
We, the undersigned, condemn the barrage of racist, vicious, and ugly personal attacks that we are witnessing on Clarence Thomas – a sitting Supreme Court justice. Whether it is calling him a racist slur, an “Uncle Tom” or questioning his “blackness” over his jurisprudence, the disparagement of this man, of his faith and of his character, is abominable.
Regardless of where one stands on Justice Thomas’ personal or legal opinions, he is among the pantheon of black trailblazers throughout American history and is a model of integrity, scholarship, steadfastness, resilience, and commitment to the Constitution of the United States of America.
For three decades Justice Thomas has served as a model for our children. He has long been honored and celebrated by black people in this country and his attackers do not speak for the majority of blacks.He is entirely undeserving of the vitriol directed at him.
Character assassination has become too convenient a tool for eviscerating those who dare dissent from the prevailing agenda, especially when it is a black man who is dissenting.This is not about the content of the court’s decisions or Justice Thomas’ personal views; some of the undersigned agree with his judicial decisions and some do not.
We speak out – as black people and Americans – to condemn these attacks and support Justice Thomas, because to remain silent would be to implicitly endorse these poisonous schemes as well as his destruction.
In the interests of intellectual integrity and fostering mutual understanding, I must raise the strongest argument I can think of for tardiness. Not tardiness within a culture of punctuality, of course, but tardiness as a culturally accepted habit. Breaking commitments on a whim is never going to be a good idea in a society, because all society relies on trust on some level.
However, a society can exist where everyone knows and accepts that meeting times are suggestions by default and that people will prioritize socialization and relationship-building, however long it takes, over concrete business decisions. By necessity, this would mean that all business decisions would be done more slowly, and logistics would be delayed in responding to any changes. All materials and products would arrive later than in a society with punctual meetings and decisions, so people would wait longer for things they requested. However, they may also have more time to share with those around them. They are not spending that time participating in the proverbial “rat race”.
It’s a tradeoff between swift gratification of material wants and needs versus having more time to spend relaxing with one’s community.
Are there ways of avoiding having to make this tradeoff, to have both more personal time and also more material convenience, and to let people further customize the ratio based on their own individual preferences? Most likely. And yes, those approaches will require committing to mutual expectations, whether those expectations are exacting or flexible.
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