Clarence meets and marries a woman named Kathy immediately after graduating from Holy Cross College. They have one son together, Jamal. He writes that his son probably saves his life. Clarence writes candidly about his near-alcoholism. It destroys his marriage — a marriage he felt would destroy him if he did not leave. So he leaves his first wife, causing him much pain. After all, his dad walks out on his mother and two small children. He did not want to repeat that history. She had no recourse but to send Clarence and his brother to live with her father in Savannah, Georgia. A man that Clarence would come to call “Daddy”: Myers Anderson. 

He is an interesting man on many levels. He is a devout Catholic when most southern blacks are Baptists or some other persuasion. His Catholicism will change Clarence’s life. Why? Because Catholic nuns and priests educate him. But for a short time he falls victim to that fever many Catholics feel: taking seminary vows, aspiring to a nunnery or seminary. He too wants to become a priest, so he writes. But what changes his mind: the blatant racism he sees up close and personal by the priests who educate him.

Clarence Thomas reiterates something that we both know: many jobs in corporate America or seats in professional schools are slated for whites who network or whose parents attend the school in question. In other words, mediocrity an entitlement for whites, is totally unacceptable for blacks, always. This is what young Clarence learns from Daddy's tough love.

Thomas therefore feels that because of affirmative action he is painted with the brush of mediocrity when he is in fact quite brilliant. To ensure his success he works hard and studies even harder. What I found sad about this memoir is that despite eventually earning an Ivy League law degree, he and his family struggle with finances for years. This bothers him too. Admirably, he determines to keep Jamal, his only child, in his life. Clarence pays for the best education he cannot afford; even when it means barely putting food on the table.

Clarence writes that he realizes his Yale law degree means something different than the one white students receive who also attend Yale. Thus he never hangs up or displays his degree. His experience at a near all-white college and university is even more painful when affirmative action becomes law. It does not mean that every black or brown student comes to a selective school through the door of affirmative action, but that the whites around him or her believe that this is the route by which they were admitted.