The XX Factor: Slate women blog about politics, etc...

RE: Eerie Echo of Obama's Speech In "In Treatment"

Judith your In Treatment post calls to mind another dim cultural memory—of Clarence Thomas’ stunning autobiography (I reviewed it here) and the ways in which Justice Thomas both worships the grandfather who raised him and is scarred by him. Thomas painstakingly catalogues the man’s endless cruelties, from throwing him out when Thomas dropped out of the seminary to skipping his weddings and graduations. But despite all this, and despite his grandfather’s paradoxical message—work harder than whites and you will succeed/success on “white” terms is not true success—Thomas reveres the man as the "one hero in my life.” The book is titled My Grandfather’s Son, after all. He believes his grandfather’s cruelty shaped and tempered him.

Thomas’ grandfather, like Wright, and like your Glynn Turman character, Judith, suffered horribly and survived. But what they passed on to the next generation was this double-edged wish: I want you to have it better than me, but I know you never will.

I often feel that’s what Gloria Steinem and Co. feel about us: We’re kidding ourselves if we think life is any better now, and we're insulting them or in denial if we disagree.

One other insight from My Grandfather’s Son? Thomas writes that when he met his second wife, Virginia, he was astonished to encounter anybody who still "thought it was possible to make the world a better place.” Thomas’ sense that repairing the world is impossible echoes Obama’s criticism yesterday of Jeremiah Wright. If Thomas teaches us anything, it’s that if you glorify your father's cynicism and hopelessness along with his heroism, you will never get "past" race.