Book Review – Created Equal – Clarence Thomas in His Own Words by Michael Pack & Mark Paoletta

Created Equal – Clarence Thomas in His Own Words by Michael Pack & Mark Paoletta

Created Equal – Clarence Thomas in His Own Words by Michael Pack & Mark Paoletta

Synopsis:

Drawing on historical documents and exclusive interviews, authors tell the inspiring story of Clarence Thomas’s rise from a childhood of poverty and prejudice in the segregated South to Supreme Court Justice. Companion to blockbuster documentary Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, but a fascinating stand alone read, as well!

*The full story behind the wildly successful documentary film, Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words*

Born into dire poverty in the segregated South and abandoned by his father as a child, Justice Clarence Thomas triumphed over seemingly insurmountable odds to become one of the most influential justices on the Supreme Court. Yet after three decades of honorable service, few know him beyond his contentious confirmation and the surrounding media firestorm.

Who is Justice Clarence Thomas, in his own words?

In the follow-up to the wildly successful documentary by the same name, Created Equal builds on dozens of hours of groundbreaking, one-on-one interviews with Thomas to share a new, expanded account of his powerful story for the first time.

Producer Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta, a lawyer who worked alongside Thomas during his confirmation, dive deep into the Justice’s story. Drawing on a rich array of historical documents and unreleased conversations with Thomas, his wife, and those who knew him best, Created Equal is a timeless account of faith, race, power, and personal resilience.. (Taken from Goodreads page)

Review

Overview

Most biographies lay out a person’s life from birth to present while covering all the big points and lesser known events of a person’s life in order to give you a more complete version of a person. Autobiographies do the same thing but from that person’s perspective and you get a more focused and individual, singular perspective. This book blends the in an interview setting while allowing a person to skip around to areas of interest or read straight through. I read straight through in one sitting.

The style is done in interview-style Q&A but it doesn’t read like a stale response and doesn’t operate in a gotcha-style we’re used to seeing in journalism these days. It also doesn’t shy away from focusing on big events that might be embarrassing (like the Anita Hill scandal). But it’s also nice that it doesn’t linger on salacious moments that could have been part of Thomas’ life (if there were any).

Content

I was really impressed with Thomas’ upbringing and shows a different attitude of America and Americans than we see today. Thomas goes through his life from a poor and segregated early life to going to seminary to being a leftist radical to going to law school and being converted away from leftism by the great Thomas Sowell. It was a lot of information that I hadn’t heard about before as the attack on Thomas by the left since the early 90’s wouldn’t only bring him up as a race traitor which just meant he held right(ish) political beliefs. Of course, the book goes into his life in politics, his confirmation and the debacle that was, and his time on the bench. What we see in politics today in America is interesting to see that it’s been the same ol’ rhetoric with the same vying for power with no intention of doing the right thing.

There are a few downsides to this section of the book that the interviewer could have maybe helped along in some asides to his questions. There are some topics that are law or Constitution-specific that may not be of immediate recall to the reader. Now, those topics are easy enough to do a web search about and you get the gist of what they’re talking about. But the interviewer also doesn’t contrast Thomas’ views to those judges on the left or even politicians who are passing these laws (understandable why one wouldn’t want to talk about his 8 closest co-workers. In fact, there is little focus on Thomas’ bench rulings other than his relationship with the other judges including with his well-known friendship with Scalia. I guess one could say his written opinions talk about what he actually thinks but you only get a sense of what he believes concerning what comes before him. For example, he talks about Scalia and him differing on 4th amendment cases. The law nerds would love to read more about that conversation with the interviewer and Thomas. It’s too bad that section was so short.

While Thomas’ Catholic upbringing are clear throughout the book, digging deeper into his religious beliefs isn’t done enough. When he divorces his first wife or when he marries a non-Catholic second wife or what he actually believes about God isn’t really brought up. He talks about the structure the RCC gave to him and his brother (and his grandfather) and there are times when he mentions prayer and God but this would have also been an interesting compare and contrast with today’s world vs. even 50 years ago, especially in Catholic culture.

Conclusion

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and the style it was written in. Most of the biographies I read could stand to let their living subjects talk out their story of their life with an interviewer guide. Thomas’ ideas of libertarianism and Ayn Rand and Thomas Sowell were personal highlights and it’s interesting to see how a classical Republican like Thomas parallels with a radical freedom/liberty libertarian Republican like Ron Paul.

I don’t feel like Thomas was untrustworthy during the interviews but not really sure what that would look like. The author/interviewer does a good job of structuring the book as both a highlight thumb-through and/or a straightforward read. There are areas where he repeats or moves a section of Q&A to lend to that structure so a straight readthrough might have points of re-read but they’re not excessive. This was a really enjoyable book.

Final Grade