Nice of Clarence Thomas to try and publically humiliate his sister, especially when it isn't really true.
If there's anything America knows about Clarence Thomas's sister, it's that he once singled her out publicly as an illustration of what welfare dependence can foster. She is so dependent, Thomas told The Washington Post in 1980, "she gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check . . . What's worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check, too. They have no motivation for doing better or getting out of that situation."
[...]
She's asked whether her brother's characterization of her more than 20 years ago, as some kind of welfare queen, still bothers her. "People ask me that question--this, that and the other. I was off public assistance at the time he said this."
Martin seems to want to dismiss the slight as much ado about little, and yet she seems to relish the chance to talk about it, to explain herself.
When she was on welfare, she says, she was not only taking care of her kids but had responsibility for her elderly aunt, who raised her, and an uncle. "I had a choice of taking care of these old people or keeping a job."
Martin wishes her brother would come to Pin Point more often, speak to the kids, try to influence them to make something of their lives. "We have to catch him when he doesn't have a function or something like that," she says.
"But he comes through sometimes," she adds. "Sometimes he don't . . ."
