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On Friday evening [October 11, 1991], Clarence Thomas called the Judiciary Committee hearings inquiring into Anita Hill's charges of sexual harassment a" high-tech lynching of an uppity black man." On Saturday, he called himself the victim of bigoted" racial attitudes about black men and their views on sex." Is this another confirmation conversion? Has this man who has scolded fellow blacks for complaining about racism suddenly discovered that he is still black? Is this the same man who invoked the racist stereotype of the black welfare queen to wrongly accuse his own sister?

I would like to believe that Judge Thomas has finally learned that he will never be free of racist stereotypes until the least of us is free. I would like to believe that his invocation of the most vivid symbols of racial oppression is more than a desperate attempt to divert attention from the serious and credible charges that have been leveled against …