CONFESSIONS FROM A CAN OF COCA-COLA

No, not here to talk about the health benefits of high fructose corn syrup.

I’m here to talk about Clarence Thomas — the man who looked at me in 1991, in a professional workplace, during a federal confirmation process, and said:

“Who put pubic hair on my Coke?”

That’s not locker room talk. That’s not a joke. That’s not something you forget. That’s the kind of comment that makes HR departments hold emergency meetings. That’s a power move from a man who wanted to make damn sure Anita Hill knew her body, her boundaries, and her basic human dignity were all fair game in his personal little fiefdom.

And I was there. Literally. I was the can.

I didn’t laugh. I didn’t fizz. I didn’t even roll off the table. I froze.
Because I knew I’d just been pulled into something grotesque — a performance of dominance disguised as “humor,” the kind that makes people laugh nervously while dying inside.

But here's the part they don't talk about:

I never left.

That comment? That hearing? That moment?

It was just the beginning. I didn’t get tossed in the trash like the ethics Clarence pretended to have. I didn’t get recycled like his respect for precedent. I stayed. I’ve been on that desk — or nearby — for over 30 years. And I’ve seen it all.

Every abuse. Every betrayal. Every ruling soaked in smug cruelty and billionaire cologne.

He wasn’t some reluctant originalist dragged into the culture wars.
He was the goddamn architect of them.

He looked at the Constitution, squinted at the parts about liberty and equality, and decided they were optional — unless they applied to him, his rich friends, or his wife’s insurrectionist group chat.

I watched him cast the deciding vote to gut the Voting Rights Act — like democracy was an old couch taking up too much room in his plantation-style man cave. He didn’t just disagree with Roe v. Wade, he celebrated its downfall. And then he licked his judicial fingers and wrote a separate opinion begging the Court to come for birth control, marriage equality, and private intimacy next. Clarence Thomas is not conservative. He’s a revenge fantasy in robes.

He’s spent his entire career pretending to be a silent thinker, the quiet one, the thoughtful one — but I know the truth. I was there when he scribbled opinions that read like church pamphlets dipped in gasoline. He says nothing in court but drops concurrences like molotov cocktails into every corner of modern life. Gay? He’s coming for you. Trans? You’re on his list. Want bodily autonomy? Better hope you’re rich, white, and well-lawyered. He thinks the Fourteenth Amendment was a typo and that the First only applies to megachurches and white nationalists with podcast sponsors.

He accepted decades of unreported gifts — luxury vacations, private jet rides, real estate deals — from billionaire sugar daddies, then had the gall to say he didn’t think he had to disclose it. I’ve been carried to gas stations in Mississippi with more self-awareness. Clarence Thomas has the ethics of a dropped urinal cake. He’s the living embodiment of what happens when lifetime appointments are handed out like grand prizes to men who think shame is a liberal conspiracy.

And don’t even get me started on Ginny.

I watched him stare straight ahead as his wife texted Mark Meadows like she was LARPing a QAnon sex cult version of 1776: The Musical. She begged the White House to overturn the results of an election — and when that case came before the Court? Clarence didn’t recuse himself. Of course not. Because in his world, corruption is only a problem if it helps poor people vote.

Every time a ruling comes down that strips someone of their rights — immigrants, prisoners, students, anyone whose existence offends the white-gloved Federalist Society banquet circuit — I feel a little emptier. Not just because I’m a can of soda witnessing civil liberties disintegrate under the weight of this smug tyrant in hush puppies, but because I was there when the mask slipped. I saw the raw, vulgar, humiliating beginning. The power play disguised as a joke. The pubic hair. The Coke.

And people still act surprised.

Still call him "principled."

Still pretend this is about jurisprudence and not revenge.

Let me tell you something: Clarence Thomas isn’t interpreting the law. He’s grinding his personal grudges into national policy. He is a slow-motion coup disguised as judicial restraint. He is a small, petty man whose every ruling echoes the resentment of someone who never got over being challenged by a Black woman who told the truth.

You want to understand Clarence Thomas?

Forget the legal jargon.

Forget the robes.

Forget the Ivy League polish.

Just remember this: He looked at a can of Coke and thought that was the vehicle for a sexual power trip.

And the Court confirmed him anyway.

So no, I’m not here to talk about high fructose corn syrup.

I’m here to tell you what I saw.

And what I saw is still happening. Every goddamn term.

America, the call is coming from inside the cooler.

And it sounds like a whisper, muttering "original intent" while torching everything decent left in this country.

Don’t ever say you weren’t warned.

I was right there on the desk when it began.

And I’m still here, watching it burn.

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