Bigotry on the bench

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

A federal judge in Montana recently sent out an email suggesting that President Barack Obama is black because his mother had sex with a dog.

A couple of weeks ago, I had heard through various media that somewhere out in the wild, white West a judge had sent a racist email concerning President Obama. That was not particularly surprising. The large pack of Obama haters have been carrying out racist attacks against Obama since long before his election, and most of these attacks have come from the Deep South and the mountain West, places where racism is more virulent than on the coasts and the big cities of the Midwest. But what was odd was that none of the television talking heads would mention the specific content of the offensive communication.

Now I understand why. The idea expressed in the judge’s email was so vile that the networks probably considered it indecent to repeat it. Thus it was not until I read a miniscule item in the latest issue of New York magazine that I found out the nature of the judge’s electronic missive.

The man who forwarded to “six old buddies” the email in question, which he received from his brother, is none other than Richard Cebull, chief district judge for Montana. Under the subject line “A Mom’s Story,” the email consists of a “joke” about a boy who asks his mother why he is black but she is white. "His mother replied: ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’"

The spirit in which the judge’s brother conveyed the supposed joke is clear from what he wrote before introducing it: "Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine."
  
Touching! Evidently, the joke resonated in some part of the judge’s being because instead of rebuking his brother he sent the email on to a half-dozen close friends for their enjoyment. Unfortunately for judge Cebull, the email worked its way through the digital grapevine to a reporter, who confronted the judge, who admitted forwarding the email and acknowledged that it was racist. Then he sent a letter of apology to Obama. The judge’s excuse: the alleged joke was not intended to be racist, merely anti-Obama.  

I had thought that the camp of Obama despisers had exhausted my capacity for shock and outrage. I was wrong. And I am writing this, despite the fact the event happened about two weeks ago, because the corporate media, after a few days of allusive coverage and very little real analysis, quickly moved on to other issues, especially the sudden, madcap Republican attack on contraception and women’s health, admittedly a very serious issue.
Yet I find the entire incident so symptomatic of the state of mind of many people in this country that it should not be allowed to pass without further comment.

His Honor’s repugnant comments reflect the license that Obamaphobes generally grant themselves to express unprecedented disrespect for the duly elected leader of the nation. And this incident is especially disturbing and frightening because it involves a high public official, an educated man, presumably rational, and not from a deranged individual, a member of Ku Klux Klan or a paranoid adherent of the militia movement.

If a federal judge is capable of harboring such sentiments and disseminating an affront of this magnitude against the president of the United States, what must be in the minds of the members of the myriad hate groups in this country, bloody murder? The matter is too serious to allow it to evaporate from public consciousness by dint of the shallow, frantic nature of the media’s twenty-four attention span.

The disgusting nature of the message and the reprehensible action of the judge in forwarding such filth is self-evident. Still, dissecting the content and context of the message is worthwhile if only because it offers a window into the mindset of the Obama hate squad, a mindset usually devoid of logic, truth, elementary human decency, or a trace of kindness.

To repeat what I wrote last week about Rush Limbaugh’s savage attack against a young woman, this is wrong from so many angles it’s a quandary where to start.

There is the denied but undeniable racism.

There is the sheer illogic; if people copulate with animals they do not produce human offspring – of any race.

There is the falsehood; no facts have ever been adduced remotely linking Obama’s mother with the wanton sexual behavior implied.

There is the breathtaking lack of ethics, decency, fairness, or kindness in slanderously besmirching the memory of a good and decent woman now in her grave by accusing her of engaging in bestiality.

There is the absolute stupidity and self-destructive implications in disseminating such a message; ask Rupert Murdoch and Anthony Weiner whether these kinds of transgressions can remain secret.

There is the requirement that judges exercise judgment, apply logic, assess facts; and judge Cebull’s conduct in this affair evidences he lacks these very faculties.

There is the famous statement by a Supreme Court Justice to the effect that you cannot define obscenity but you know it when you see it. This was obscenity of the kind a blind person could see.

There is the fact that freedom of speech meets a limit when it becomes fighting words, and those are fighting words if there ever were, the type of words which in most cultures of the world bring swift and violent retribution.

There is, last and least, nothing humorous or touching in this dastardly pseudo-joke.

Now there is a debate whether judge Cebull should keep his job. No, he should not, because he has shown a total lack of maturity, discernment, character, and judicial temperament. Indeed, judge Cebull should thank his lucky stars that he lives in a country of laws for under different circumstances the question would be whether he would keep his head.

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