"He really hated the light-skinned leaders like Benjamin Hooks and [former HEW secretary] Patricia Harris," recalled Michael Middleton, Thomas's trusted, liberal colleague in Washington. "He thought they were 'bourgeois Negroes' who thought they were white."
At the same time, a number of EEOC colleagues believed that once in power, Thomas treated light-skinned women in particular with more deference than those with darker skin, showing a kind of contempt toward those more like himself. "He had more respect for light women, and he was definitely different around white people," asserted a former employee at the EEOC whom he eventually fired, Angela Wright. Wright, who was willing to testify that Thomas had made crude and unwanted sexual comments to her in the office, thought it unlikely that he would have behaved so disrespectfully had she had lighter skin.
When Anita Hill surfaced with her allegations, Thomas offhandedly confirmed this prejudice by telling his mother that there was no way he could have been seriously interested in Hill, because she was too dark for his taste. As his mother recalled the conversation, Thomas asked her, "Mamma, what kind of women do I like?"
Leola Williams, who is as dark as her son, said she hadn't thought much about it.
"Well, what color was Kathy?" he persisted, referring to his first wife, Kathy Ambush, who was three quarters black and one quarter Japanese.
"She was brown," Leola said she answered.
"And the others?" inquired Thomas.
"They've all been light-skinned too," his mother said.
"Right," she says Thomas answered. "So what would I want with a woman as black as Anita Hill?"
Jane Mayer "Strange Justice: The Selling of Clarence Thomas" (1994)
