Sweet Vindication, sort of

That big smile on Ms. Anucha Browne Sanders face was photographed this morning before the verdict came down in her sexual harassment suit against Isiah Thomas and MSG. She's surely popping the champagne now, since the jury found that MSG will have to pay her $11.6 million in damages. Unfortunately, Isiah Thomas escaped personal liability, but I guess you can't win them all. At the very least, Thomas has been exposed for the classless pig that he is (in his book it's ok for black men to call a black woman a bitch, but is totally wrong for his white counterpart to do the same). Living in NYC, the sordid details of the case of have been in the tabloids and on local TV regularly, and while my lady's intuition told me that Sanders claims were more likely true than not, I was concerned that the boys would circle the wagons and that would be that. I'm glad that I was wrong.

Unfortunately, I was not wrong about Clarence Thomas (you may recall what he termed a "high-tech lynching" during the confirmation hearings leading to his appointment to the Supreme Court) . He's got a book out (titled My Grandfather's Son), and he was on 60 Minutes this Sunday past for what can only be described as a fawning infomercial for his book. He used the opportunity to make more unflattering comments about Anita Hill. My personal favourite was his assertion that she "wasn't as demure and conservative as she seemed, and could take care of herself". Weak characterizations like this switch the focus to her, instead of him. If she was an alcoholic slut she still wouldn't find his pubic hair joke amusing. He simply struck me as an angry person - the wounds of the very real injustices he has suffered in his life are so raw and open. 16 years or 16 minutes have not tempered him. Should you care to hear more from him, click here.

I was pleased however, to read this oped by Anita Hill in today's Times. It is well-written, surprisingly even-handed and refrained from characterizing the perpetual victim Justice Thomas, as an unmitigated prig. She's a bigger person than I.