The Problem with Race, Empathy, & Social Justice
In 1991, I wrote several opinion pieces to the Los Angeles Daily News that questioned then-Mayor Tom Bradley’s demands to prosecute officers involved in the arrest of Rodney King. Although I agreed that the officers had used excessive force, it was also apparent that the officers had followed policies required by Bradley and his civilian police commission since 1983. (Coincidentally, the accused officers were acquitted a year later not because they hadn’t used excessive force, but because they had followed Mayor Bradley’s brutal policies.)
Back then, I was an eleven-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department. Despite having spent more than 2200 days on the street with more than 30,000 citizen contacts, I had no significant history of excessive force. Back then, I was among the most productive officers on the LAPD and had already accumulated dozens of commendations. Although I was reluctant to get involved in the King dispute, I was dismayed that no LAPD staff officers had the courage to publicly defend the accused. When four LAPD officers needed backup from their agency, my fellow officers suddenly grew bashful.
No one had told me that, one hundred years earlier, US Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes opined that a policeman “may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” Nevertheless, my performance and record were above reproach. In 1991, I did not imagine that the LAPD or city prosecutors would file false criminal charges against me in retaliation of something I wrote in a newspaper.
I was wrong.
Weeks later, I was accused of assaulting a pedestrian. Although the LAPD cleared me of all charges, the deputy city attorney pursued them anyway, and I became one of more than 100 men who were maliciously charged for political reasons.
In February 1993, I found myself before Judge Veronica Simmons McBeth, a light-skinned black female appointee to the Los Angeles Municipal Court. It was apparently assumed that Judge McBeth’s experience as a black woman growing up and working in “a white man’s world” provided her with the judicial temperament to promote racial and social justice. Known as “The Princess,” McBeth was appointed to the bench after a period of unremarkable service at the City Attorney’s Office.
Although I probably should have noticed that my attorney and I were the only white men in the entire courtroom, I still refused to imagine that the prosecutor or judge’s sensibilities regarding social justice would interfere with their conduct during the trial.
Again, I was wrong.
McBeth refused to allow any part of my transcribed LAPD hearing into the record and warned that I would be held in contempt if I even mentioned that the LAPD had cleared me of all charges. And although my attorney impeached every witness against me, McBeth showed no interest to manage the prosecutor’s politically and racially-motivated attack against me.
Hours later, I was convicted of assaulting an uninjured suspect who the LAPD had determined a year before that I had not assaulted. I was fired the following December.
Fortunately for me, I returned to the LAPD in 1994 after Judge McBeth and Prosecutor David Sotelo were found guilty of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct. By then, however, the damage was done. My marriage was in a shambles and my financial stress had forced me into bankruptcy.
The problem with Judge McBeth was not her incompetence, but her willingness to suspend her duty as an impartial judge so that the jury would make “the correct social decision.”
While McBeth and prosecutors like Sotelo (now a judge), Mike Nifong and Alice Hand promoted what SCOTUS nominee Sonia Sotomayor and Barak Obama might call social justice, their actions chilled the willingness of anyone, particularly a white man, who might question the policies and morality of politicians or peers of questionable moral character.
It should also be noted that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes was on the bench when the US Supreme Court issued another significant opinion. In 1896, the Court would have agreed when Sotomayor declared that “The aspiration to impartiality is just that — it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others.”
They would have undoubtedly agreed when she said that “gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.”
Sotomayor’s joke about the federal appeals courts being a place “where policy is made” also rings hollow, especially in light of the 1896 SCOTUS decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, which led directly to segregated white and black schools, segregated drinking fountains, segregated bathrooms, buses, restaurants and sixty years of domestic terrorism. That Court’s racial and social sensitivites ignored the Constitution and reversed most the social gains that followed the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although more than a century has passed, the damage caused by those racially myopic justices still lingers today.
In contrast to Chief Justice John Roberts self-evident ruling that “The way to end racial discrimination is to stop discriminating by race,” President Obama and Judge Sotomayor seem to be as preoccupied by race as the Democrats who ruled in Plessy. The difference is that, today, the bigots are sporting different complexions.
While the Republican Party has never been preoccupied by equality more than race or gender, it appears that Obama and the nomination of the nation’s first Latina to the US Supreme Court is a celebration of race and affirmative action rather than an expectation that they will assume the duties required of them by the US Constitution.
Like Martin Luther King, I once had a dream that we would be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. Unfortunately for America, Democrats have elected a President who disagrees.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
The problem with race is that minorities complain too much. And just because I don’t like them doesn’t mean that they can’t get ahead. The big problem here isn’t racist white people; it’s minorities who play victims by thinking there’s such a thing as discrimination when those days are clearly over. Trust me, I’ve talked to a lot of white people.
May 28th, 2009 at 2:29 am
I gree with the main thread, which is why the conservative justice Alito should be compelled to resign from the bench for making flagrant use of his “hispanic” race and background during his own confirmation hearings.
May 28th, 2009 at 4:12 am
I disagree, Andy.
Where integrity and public safety are concerned, communities have a right to expect the best, and candidates should exploit every opportunity at least as much as the most mediocre candidate does. It this were not true, professional sports teams and philharmonic orchestras would also reflect American demographics. But because such blatant expositions would expose affirmative action as the social fraud it is, the Yankees and Boston Pops have never been compelled to endure quotas.
If a police agency or Congress can discriminate in its appointments, why haven’t the Lakers been compelled to hire Hispanic females and transvestites who have overcome racial or homophobic biases?
While the best candidate by any other name is still the best candidate (sorry Shakespeare), as long as Democrats continue to discriminate against anyone (as they have throughout their history), the best candidates should use whatever advantages they have to overcome that discrimination. If John Roberts had told the world that he was a black lesbian trapped in a white man’s body to get onto the Supreme Court, I’m okay with that. When liberal Democrats discontinue racial discrimination we can stop that nonsense.
One more thing - IF EVERY JOB APPLICANT IDENTIFIED THEMSELVES AS BLACK, HISPANIC, (or whatever the flavor of the day is) THE EMPLOYER CANNOT NOT COMPEL PROOF OF ETHNICY AND WOULD IMMEDIATELY ACHIEVE ANY QUOTAS HE/SHE WAS FORCED TO ACHIEVE AND MEET ALL IMPOSED DISCRIMINATORY QUOTAS.
Until the Lakers are forced to reflect LA’s demographics, Justice Alito can call himself whatever he wants to - just as Sotomayor does.
May 28th, 2009 at 9:25 am
Aside from the irrelavency of her ethnicity, this is no more different then Arlen Spector becoming a Democrat, he court would appear to remain as it is.
The real question of her competency as a justice meanwhile is lost in the bogus crap over race.
As far Herr Reichsfeurher Obama’s desire for “empathy”; that may be fine for domestic relations or family court, but the Constitution deserves more than touchy feely interpretation, or am I just being cold hearted to expect a judge to A) read and listen objectively and B) dispense justice instead of “fairness”.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:24 am
As an almost life-long Angelo, I want to thank you for your service to the community. It’s appalling what happened to you in the name of justice. I wonder if judges any more remember that Lady Justice is blindfolded?
I want to relate a story that happened to me, a white woman raised mostly in the Midwest who is proud to not see the color of her friend’s skin, only the content of their character.
I worked with a woman who was raised in affluence. Dysfunctional affluence but affluence all the same. A bit of background, not for sensationalism or to disprove my point above, but to put it into context she is mixed race, black and white. When the OJ Simpson ‘not guilty’ verdict she high-fived another black person in room saying that it was payback to the black community for years of discrimination and for all the black men in jail. Throwing aside all rational thought, this educated woman raised in affluence actually thought that while OJ was guilty, American society ‘owed’ it to OJ to set him free. The fact that she and OJ lived in the same world, knew the same people, and hated being identified solely by her appearance, was a victim of domestic violence and that OJ took the life of the mother of his children was not a factor for her.
What once was a friendship where we could talk about anything, or so I thought, became one of me walking on egg shells, afraid to say anything for being labeled a racist or insensitive. Needless to say, the friendship ended for many reasons despite this incident.
I still have friends of all races whom I admire for their accomplishments and how they live their lives. Never does the subject of race come up. They’ve worked hard, as have I. When minorities stop thinking that they are owed something in return for just being on the planet, then we’ll be able to move on.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Thank you Sara:
I no longer defend myself against allegations. Answering with something as lame as “but I have many friends who are black/gay/Mexican” (etc) is wholly unnecessary to intelligent people.
About one million white men, including my great-granduncles and grandfather, fought, bled (and one died) fighting, as Republicans, to end slavery. Democrats/lefties accuse Republicans of racism because racism makes up a huge chunk of the DNC’s DNA. By smearing Republicans, Democrats (especially union teachers) perpetuate a mythology that has never, as a party platform, existed.
So the next time someone acts that way, understand that it is based upon their character, not yours. They do not merit a response.
Strangely enough, ex-slaves (who overwhelmingly joined the Republican Party) coined the term “house Negro” to describe black apologists of slaveholding Democrats. As a political party, the DNC still enslaves the majority of blacks today by appointing morally weak black leaders. Free people KNOW they don’t need leaders, so why do Democrats and the media appoint them?
May 31st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
And please, please; Sotomayer did not “save baseball”, for God’s sake. Cal Rifkin did.
June 2nd, 2009 at 5:36 pm
Thanks Clark! Exactly what my parents have told me to say/do and I try to practice it daily, sometimes even minute by minute.
Funny story however is that I am part Native American. Small part, but still a decent part. I am blonde, green eyed with medium colored skin. When people start bitching about inequality or illegal immigrants or rights, I pipe in with the family history and jokingly tell them all to get in line. We were here first. After they get over their disbelief about our lineage, they get a bit more quiet. It gives me a quick giggle. Thanks Grandma!