Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas made a rare public appearance Thursday, speaking at the Library of Congress. His remarks yielded some noteworthy fruit. He opined, “At some point, we’re going to be fatigued with everybody being the victim.” Thomas went on to describe a recent encounter he had with a young black woman in Kansas who exclaimed to him that she was “really tired of having to play the role of being black.” She added that she “just want[ed] to go to school.”

Thomas then relayed the wisdom he received from the most influential person in his life — his grandfather, who took in Thomas and his brother when his single mother was unable to care for him. Thomas described his grandfather as a “hero” and “the single greatest human being I’ve ever met.” From him Thomas learned to “always … play the hand you’re dealt. If you’re dealt a bad hand, you still have to play it.” The future justice learned that there was no room for complaining, epitomized by one of his grandfather’s most regularly voiced refrains — “Old Man Can’t is dead. I helped bury him.”

Reflecting on his own experience, Thomas worried that the over-politicization of the judicial confirmation process will dissuade good people from serving. “This is not the Roman Colosseum. We’re not gladiators,” he observed. “And I think we’re going to lose some of our best people who choose not to go through the ordeal. They don’t want to have to fight the lion in order to be a judge or to be in government. And I think it’s our own fault for allowing this to happen.”

On the Supreme Court since surviving Ted Kennedy’s despicable character assassination attempt and winning confirmation in 1991, Thomas has been a principled and constitutionally committed justice and thus has served as a lightening rod for leftist criticism even to this day. Case in point is an article written by Jill Abramson and released in New York magazine just yesterday advocating for Justice Thomas to be impeached over — what else? — Anita Hill’s accusations as part of the #MeToo movement. There are no new accusations against Thomas; rather this is merely another attempt by leftists to demonize and libel the conservative justice as they seek to further their radical extremist agenda. Yes, we certainly are fatigued with everybody being the victim.