October 2023 - Prosecuting Justice in the Face of Racism
At the heart of the inappropriately maligned Critical Race Theory is the valid observation that racism runs deep through our legal system. This has been true throughout history as it is today. Few know this better than Black public servants upholding the law. Eric Holder, the first African American to be U.S. Attorney General, understood why 68% of Black people consider the justice system biased against them. He empathized with Ferguson protestors saying,“I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.” Holder was sharply criticized for daring to point out racial animus in our nation.
In the wake of Ferguson, Trump whipped up this animus to seize the White House. Today he is doing the same to malign three Black prosecutors investigating him. PBS criticized Trump for using “relentless attacks, often infused with language that is either overtly racist or is coded in ways that appeal to racists.” He called New York Attorney General Letitia James a “political animal” and Manhattan DC Alvin Bragg a “degenerate psychopath” and “Soros-backed animal.” Dehumanizing people by calling them animals has long been central to racist propaganda. The Jewish-Black conspiracy trope, part of the attack on Soros, has fueled right-wing extremism for over a century.
Trump attacks Fulton County DA Fani T. Willis, saying that she comes from a “family steeped in hate.” He alludes to her father’s Black Panther past and that her first name is from the Swahili language. Though these are sources of pride for Willis, they’ve provoked racist backlash. So do the lies that Trump spreads about her having a relationship with a gang member she is prosecuting.
Lawyer Paul Butler summarizes how racism impacts our legal system in his October 24, 2023, Washington Post article. He experienced this when repeatedly being mistaken for a Black defendant and having his competency challenged when prosecuting elite white people. He got the message that some wanted him to focus on “real criminals,” implying that these were Black and Brown youth engaged in street crime. Butler pointed out a common racial double-standard, saying that if a Black defendant “spewed Trump’s violent rhetoric about judges, witnesses and prosecutors,” that person “would have been locked up by now.”
Black prosecutors are pressured to deconstruct racism in our criminal justice system while also being tough on crime. They are also judged as representatives of their entire race. It’s a hard tightrope to walk. They’re often in a no-win situation. When she was the first Black and first woman serving as California Attorney General, Kamala Harris was criticized from both the right and left.
As Trump’s rhetoric gets more extreme, it endangers Black legal officials. This month a woman in Texas threatened to kill Black U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. Alvin Bragg and Letitia James were threatened by another extremist. Bragg’s office also received an envelope containing powder and a letter saying, “Alvin, I am going to kill you .”
Fani Willis has been targeted by online racist slurs since she filed the Georgia indictment. She now requires constant protection from an enhanced security detail. The woman known as Madam DA says she’s not frightened. Her strength, along with that of Bragg and James, inspires Butler’s battle against racism and for justice. He concludes, “I’m proud that Black prosecutors are leading the fight.”
Further actions:
1) Help get more folks of color to enter the legal profession by supporting groups like the Institute for Inclusion in the Legal Profession, Lawyers of Color, and HBCU Law Schools such as Howard, North Carolina Central, or Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law.
2) Point out the absurdity of Trump spokesman Steven Cheung declaring that Trump “doesn’t have a racist bone in his body and anyone saying otherwise is a racist and bigot themselves.” This tactic of blaming the victim has long been used to obfuscate the reality of racism.
3) Share Paul Butler’s October 24 Washington Post article with your friends and associates: The Black prosecutors taking on Trump know what they’re up against. You can find it here. As Butler points out, “These are historic cases, and the race of the people bringing them shouldn’t matter — except it clearly matters to Donald Trump, who has lambasted them all using racist dog whistles. Trump reserves a particularly race-infected venom for the Black government lawyers who threaten his liberty and wealth.”
4) Appreciate how recently Black prosecutors rose to the top of their professions and defend them against unjust and racist attacks. It wasn’t until 1962 that a Black American was elected as a state’s attorney general. In 1967, after Edward Brooke served in that capacity in Massachusetts, he was elected to the U. S. Senate. (Even there this Congressional Gold Medal recipient was the first to integrate the Senate barbershop when he had his first haircut.) In my own state of Maryland, Maryland’s first Black attorney general Anthony Brown needs public support when seeking statutory authority and necessary resources to enforce federal and state civil rights laws.
5) Challenge assumptions that all Black prosecutors are cut from the same cloth. Being only five percent of all elected district attorneys, they find it hard to be appreciated for their uniqueness. Butler points out that while “the African Americans who do this work are no monolith,” they are often lumped together. Read Butler’s article to appreciate how “Bragg and Willis, in particular, are a study in contrasts.”
6) Teach about the historic linkage between racism and antisemitism by sharing my talk
“Resisting American Antisemitism.”