For being a black conservative, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been subjected to an entirely different set of standards in the criticism of his judicial leanings and his personal life, according to an upcoming documentary highlighting his career and path to the Supreme Court. 

“If you criticize a black person who’s more liberal, you’re a racist. Whereas you can do whatever to me, or to now [Housing and Urban Development Secretary] Ben Carson, and that’s fine, because you’re not really black because you’re not doing what we expect black people to do,” he added.'

The documentary, which dedicates a significant portion of coverage to his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, was the subject of a recent article in the Hill, and noted that:

Thomas also said he realized during the confirmation hearing that the type of person who held him back most in his life was not the "bigot, Klansman, and rural sheriff" as he had anticipated, but rather the "modern-day liberal."

The documentary will be released in 2020, and is scheduled to air on PBS next May:

[Director Michael Pack] interviewed Justice Thomas for more than 30 hours over a six-month period, which wrapped up just before Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2018, Time reported.

Notably, Clarence Thomas was also initially excluded from the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, which instead included the achievements of Anita Hill, who accused Thomas of sexual harassment during his Senate confirmation hearings.