I took a brief timeout from watching football yesterday to catch Clarence Thomas consistently outclass and outsmart 60 Minutes interviewer Steve Kroft.
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From the interview:
Thomas did well at Yale, graduating somewhere in the middle of his class, but he says it was the first time anybody had tried to put him in a box because of his race, and whatever benefits he accrued from being there were tarnished when it came time to graduate.
“You know, I was in debt. I needed a job. And I couldn?t get a job,” Thomas says.
“Not even with a Yale law degree?” Kroft asks.
“I couldn?t get a job. And I just saw the discounting of my degree happen before my eyes,” Thomas says.
Asked why he thinks that is, Thomas says, “That degree meant one thing for whites and another thing for blacks?it was discounted.”
“You write in the book that your Yale degree was worth 15 cents,” Kroft remarks.
“Well, you know Steve, I have still a 15 cents sticker on the frame that my law degree is in,” Thomas says. “It’s tainted. So I just leave it in the basement.”
