Dear Justice Thomas,

I write to you in desperation. I need every possible Supreme Court vote to stand against the current racial reordering of American society along apartheid lines, and I have come to the admittedly wild conclusion that yours is the most gettable among my judicial enemies.

The court is considering a number of cases stemming from Donald Trump’s attempts to rewrite the Constitution by executive fiat: revoking birthright citizenship, firing federal employees, refusing to provide funds authorized by Congress, abducting documented immigrants and sending them to concentration camps, and detaining students who speak out on behalf of Palestine. I assume you believe that Trump has the authority to do all or most of this. I also assume that you are not an idiot and can therefore see that Trump’s actions largely target people whose primary infraction is their failure to be white. Your liberal colleagues on the court oppose this racism. If you could be moved to join them in some way, your vote and voice would be a powerful, and in some cases decisive, factor against Trump’s—and Elon Musk’s—white supremacist regime.

I write to you because you are the only black person the current ruling class of whites would even consider listening to. Your long-standing opposition to the civil rights movement, or really anything else that could wean this country off of its addiction to racial oppression, has made you uniquely positioned to speak truth to these particular powers. Trump himself won’t listen to you (or your court, or the Constitution, or the rule of law), but even a simple note from you admonishing this administration for its racial animus would be noticed by what passes as the intellectual elite in the MAGA firmament.

I know all too well that you do not believe that you have any special responsibility to protect racial equality in this country, and you’ve long abandoned any concern for the advancement of colored people. You’ll note that I did not even capitalize the “b” in the word black earlier, because I know you think it’s silly. No appeal to the history of the people whose shoulders you stand on will persuade you, and I make no such appeal.

But the very worst white people this country has to offer might listen to you now, because you have helped them so much. You have given them license. You have succeeded in reshaping the law, and much of American political discourse, in your ungenerous image. You have relentlessly argued against the extension of civil rights in this country. You’ve asserted that programs meant to help black Americans overcome this country’s history of racial oppression actually hobble us. You’ve provided key votes to gut the Voting Rights Act, thereby limiting black people’s access to the very means of democratic self-government. You’ve taken similarly harsh stances against women and the LGBTQ community, and now nearly all of your most nefarious ideas have been codified in case law. You’ve set out to destroy the progress made by our ancestors, and you have largely done just that.