On Thursday, the former Star Trek actor responded to the backlash, saying his comment, which came during a critique of Thomas’ same-sex marriage dissent, was “not racist.”
Evan Agostini / AP
Rich Fury / AP
Two days after former Star Trek actor and LGBT activist George Takei referred to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as a "clown in blackface" in an interview, he took to Facebook to defend his comments, saying "in my view and intent, that is not racist."
Takei was interviewed Tuesday by a FOX affiliate in Phoenix, Arizona, about the Supreme Court's recent decision to legalize same-sex marriage, which Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion on. In the interview, Takei described why he disagreed with the Thomas, and in the process called him "a clown in blackface."
"I mean, this man does not belong in the Supreme Court," Takei added. "He is an embarrassment. He is a disgrace to America."
He questioned how Thomas could say that "slaves had dignity," saying "doesn't he know that slaves were in chains?" Takei added that if Thomas had seen the Oscar-winning film 12 Years A Slave, he would know slaves were also raped.
Takei then brought up how his Japanese-American family was placed in internment camps.
"We're supposed to call that dignified? Marching out of our homes at gun point?" he said.
In Thomas' dissent, he wrote that "human dignity cannot be taken away by the government." He went on to argue that slaves did not lose their dignity, nor did those held in internment camps, because the government allowed them to be confined.
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1C4xWSm
No comments:
Post a Comment