Tuesday, June 30, 2020

“Fortunately for me, we have just a fabulous clerk of the court in Kiry Gray. She’s so street-smart and really knows her job."

That was then-Chief Judge of the Central District of California, Cormac J. Carney, about the clerk of court, Kiry K. Gray. He has since stepped down as Chief of that District.  From the LA Times:
The chief judge for the Central District of California, the nation’s largest federal court jurisdiction, which includes Los Angeles and its neighboring counties, has stepped down from that post, citing his racially insensitive comments regarding the court’s top administrative official, a Black woman.

U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney, who began a four-year term as chief district judge June 1, announced his decision to step down from the top post but remain a judge in an email Friday to court staff and fellow judges, and offered a public apology to Kiry K. Gray.

A federal court employee for 35 years, Gray in 2015 became the first Black woman appointed to be the Central District’s executive and clerk of court, a job that entails working closely with the chief judge to oversee court operations.

“I have apologized to Ms. Gray, but I have concluded that a simple apology will not put this matter to rest. There will be division in the Court, unnecessary, negative and hurtful publicity, and a diversion from the Court’s essential mission of administering justice if I were to continue serving as the Chief District Judge,” Carney wrote in the email, which The Times reviewed. “I cannot allow the Court to become politicized and embroiled in controversy.”
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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:04 PM

    I just don't quite get that one. White male here, been called street smart, street fighter, etc. I just am not convinced that every comment that can be perceived as racist, as the judge's clearly could have been, must be considered to have been racist.

    What if he had said practical, a people's person, able to get along with everybody, easily relateable? I suppose they all carry the same connotation.

    Help educate me on this please.

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  2. Anonymous1:05 PM

    1204

    He is a white male appointed by a Republican president. That alone will cause 75% of libs to say you are racist. And honest libs will admit that. So while they give Biden a pass for essentially the same comment about obama, no passes are given to those perceived as Republican.

    In the end there is no real explanation anyone can provide you. Only dogma. By even allowing for the possibility this judge might not be a white supremacist, you are being racist. Lucky your post was anonymous, or you would need to apologize and enter reeducation.

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  3. Anonymous2:05 PM

    We are living in a brave, new world. This has nothing to do with racism, etc and everything to do with thought control. Once the principle is established that any public comment about anyone who might be of a different race must first pass through a censoring filter, the table has been set for creeping totalitarianism. The initial effect of this dangerous nonsense is to instill fear in those people who wish to speak freely and if they cross the line, there is the obligatory public confession and begging for forgiveness before the Gods of conformity. For you millenials who think this is all fine and dandy, download a copy of Orwell's 1984 and Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. Scary.

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  4. Anonymous2:24 PM

    @ 2:05. Exhibit A is Drew Brees

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  5. Rumpole10:15 PM

    I do not get it either. Where I grew up, the ultimate compliment was being called street smart. I have had clients hire me and tell me they thought I was street smart. I do not see that term as racially divisive or racially insensitive in any manner. It might...might relate to an individual's socio economic status. Kids growing up in Southie become street smart- JFK and RFK and Teddy were never street smart.

    Mike Tyson became street smart growing up in Brooklyn. President Obama's daughters growing up in the White House were most likely not.
    Street smarts are obtained by spending time as a kid in the streets. Away from home and the protections of home. Where I grew up there were gangs. Walk down one block on the way home, and do not wear a particular colored hat and do not walk directly past a "clubhouse" without permission.
    Walk into a store and show the owner respect by acting a certain way. Disrespecting a store or a street by acting a certain way and you got a tag on you- and that means you're going to be jumped. These are not issues kids growing up in Palm Beach or Bal Harbor encounter. But kids in Homestead and Florida City do. So to me its an economic issue and not a racial one.

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