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Monday, April 7, 2008
White judge, different reaction?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
E-mails and letters poured in after I praised an Atlanta judge for taking the time to privately talk to some black defendants about crime.
One recent Thursday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington asked the white people to leave his courtroom so he could address the defendants. He told them to turn their lives around, to stay out of his courtroom.
In Sunday’s column, I applauded Arrington’s 10-minute “fireside chat.” I explained that, even though it excluded whites who’d been in the courtroom, his intent was noble.
Most readers who contacted me appreciated Arrington’s efforts as well. One reader, a self-described “old white guy,” read the column online.
“Hooray for his showing common sense, concern and compassion,” wrote Ole Quiberg of Chico, Calif. “My grandson, who is white, is in prison. He deserves to be there for what he did. He never received a heartfelt talking to like Judge Arrington gave. For it to have the most effect, the judge needs to be of the same race as those he is talking to.
“Yes, race matters.”
For a minority of readers, race did indeed matter, just not for the reasons cited by Quiberg. They disliked the fact that Arrington had the whites leave before he addressed the black defendants. Unwise, they said, while wondering:
What if a white judge had done such a thing, and ordered all the black people out of the courtroom?
“It’s not what he did, but how he arranged for it,” wrote Margaret Gallagher of Norcross. “Can you imagine how people would react to a white judge asking the black people to leave the room so he could have a chat with Caucasian defendants?”
She continued: “Once out of the room, any ethnic group doesn’t know what’s being said, and generally assumes the worse. Happily, in this instance, the assumption was the opposite of the truth, but the racially charged request was bound to have felt like prejudice.”
James Newby of Dacula gave Arrington an attaboy for caring, but a “boo” for racial strategy.
“I don’t believe anyone would protest any louder than you if a white judge had dismissed all black people so that he could have a ‘fireside chat’ with white defendants and their family and friends,” he wrote in an e-mail. “If we are truly keepers of the dream, we must continue our efforts to erase that racial line that we have been fighting for so long to eliminate.”
LaVerne Zolkosky of Lilburn echoed Newby’s assumption: “I seriously doubt that you or any other columnist would support a white judge who did the same thing in a reverse situation,” she wrote.
“There would be marching chanters demanding his removal from the job, and that probably would be the end result.”
True, there might be marchers who’d chant and journalists who’d ridicule a white judge, question his intent.
Not me, if the scenarios were the same.
What about you?
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
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