Race

Comment of the Day: “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring,” Big Law Firm Edition”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The question of why good people do unethical things is always ripe for consideration. Often, and perhaps even usually, the answer is that nobody was think about ethics at all, or thinking at all. The tale about how a cheerful piece of artwork depicting a lynching ended up on the walls of a large law firm’s office is a cautionary tale, and in his Comment of the Day on the post, “When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring,” Big Law Firm Edition,” johnburger2013 neatly explains how such gaffes occur. The one feature that John left out was the subsequent publicity, including on ethics websites.

The lesson: Be careful out there….

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I suspect the art was selected to coincide with Black History Month and the powers who made the decision (“First Decider”) simply said, “Hey, we have a ton of art from renowned African American Artists. We should display that during February.” To which someone else (“Second Decider”) said, “Awesome. Let’s get the staff to put the paintings on the wall.” Then, First Decider said, “Cool, I’ll email my people and get them on it.” Second Decider: “Great. What’s for lunch?”

Then, First Decider emailed maintenance: “Good morning. We are honoring Black History Month in February. We have a number of really interesting paintings in our storage room. Would you be awesome and hang them on the walls?” Maintenance Engineer responded, “Sure. We will get it done this evening.” Maintenance Engineer told the staff who merely displayed the art on the walls without really thinking about it.

Then, somebody walked by and looked at that particular painting and blood ran cold in the veins, with an audible, “Oh, crap! That’s gonna hurt!” The problem took on a life of its own after that. Rather than simply state, “Really? You are pissed/hurt by a painting depicting something terrible? Have you seen ‘Schindler’s List’? How about stuff painted by Frida Kahlo? Or Picasso? And you call yourself lawyers? What kind of intestinal fortitude do you lack that you can’t look at a painting – which, frankly, I find juvenile and simplistic in quality and style – and realize, ‘yeah, we had some really awful times in our history. Hopefully we have moved beyond that.’” But, no, they have a Chief DIE officer whose job it is to make mountains out of anthills and recommend sensitivity training for all involved.

If I were a client, I’d pull my cases from that firm. Immediately.

“When Ethics Alarms Don’t Ring,” Big Law Firm Edition

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

One morning, lawyers and other employees at the mega-firm Duane Morris‘s Philadelphia headquarters arrived to see the artwork above hung on a hallway wall. It was not appreciated. What was going on? Apparently it was time to switch out some of the firm’s publicly displayed artwork. One of the firm’s non-legal staff picked something out from the inventory of originals in storage, and efficiently hung one of 20th century African American artist Herbert Singleton’s painting depicting events he says he experienced growing up in the southern U.S. before anyone was troubled by a blank space. A placard explaining the work might have helped, but for some reason none was posted.

This prompted a long, long mea culpa by the firm’s senior partners and management after the painting was removed, presumably with the speed of light. I’ve bolded and numbered appropriate sections.

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Comment of the Day: “Fani Willis Is Toast and Those Arguing That She Isn’t Are Revealing Their Own Ethics Problems”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The second Comment of the Day of the day emerges from the fertile mind of Humble Talent, who discusses the still popular use of the race card by diversity hires who have been in reality the beneficiary of racial bias, not victims of it. Here is his COTD on the post, “Fani Willis Is Toast and Those Arguing That She Isn’t Are Revealing Their Own Ethics Problems”:

***

There’s a Gordian knot here, and it’s one we’re going to continue fighting with for a very long time.

Fani Willis said in her statement: “First thing they say. Oh, she going to play the race card now? But no. God, isn’t it them who’s playing the race card when they only question one?”

There are competent black people in existence. This is so obvious that it shouldn’t need typing, but Democrats have been so interested in getting in representation regardless of the mediocrity of the candidates that it feels like every time a scandal like this asserts itself, we’re almost invariably criticizing a black person. More, because of the attention of the media, a disproportionate amount of attention gets placed on these cases.

It’s almost impossible not to label these people DEI hires. They tend to have light resumes, their conduct speaks for itself, and the moment they catch whiff of criticism, they reference their melanin and/or their sexual organs.

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Fani Willis’s Sermon

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

It is beginning to look like Fani Willis, Georgia’s African-American Democrat Fulton County prosecutor who pledged to “get” Donald Trump, really is involved in a serious conflict of interest involving the case and even criminal conduct. The mainstream media is taking notice, it is no longer a “right wing conspiracy theory,” and most interestingly, Willis has not denied the allegations, which appeared in a court filing.

The New York Times published a story headlined “Atlanta D.A. Defends Qualifications of Outside Lawyer She Hired for Trump Case/At a historic Black church, Fani T. Willis pushed back against an accusation that Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she brought on, was unqualified for the job” in which we learn that Willis spoke yesterday before the congregation of one of the oldest Black churches in Atlanta, which had invited her to be the keynote speaker for a service dedicated to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. She did not mention the details of allegations that she is in an intimate relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired in 2021 for the Trump-getting, and has earned more than $650,000 in the job to date with some of the lucre benefiting her directly. Instead, she said in part,

“Wait a minute, God! You did not tell me,” she added, “as a woman of color it would not matter what I did — my motive, my talent, my ability and my character would be constantly attacked….A divorced single mom who doesn’t belong to the right social groups, who doesn’t necessarily come from the right family, doesn’t have the right pedigree — the assignment was just too high for lowly me. All I brought to the table, God, is my mind, my heart, my work ethic, my undying love for people and the community.”

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Playing “Good Racial Discrimination” Whack-A-Mole

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Campus Reform and College Fix are two generally excellent sleuth sites from the Right that focus on progressive misconduct and indoctrination in higher education. There are no equivalent sites on the Left, because such sites would have material to report about once a week, if that. Since the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down affirmative action, which was always unfair and illegal, all manner of anti-white discrimination in academia, government, the corporate world and the professions are being exposed, attacked in court, and being reversed. The sheer number of these is staggering, however, and eternal vigilance is the price of an ethical culture. How many of these prejudicial and discriminatory programs are there? After careful research and statistics gathering, I can safely say “A lot.” Also: “Too many.”

Campus Reform threw its metaphorical flag on USC and Compton College, which announced that they have created a “Faculty Prep Academy” for “students of color” only. You could stop right there: that’s illegal, and the schools must know it’s illegal. Never mind: apparently the theory behind such efforts is that they can get away with it.

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Racial Bias and Prejudice at the Golden Globes Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

The Golden Globes audience of the Hollywood woke laughed and applauded at the lame and insulting recitation of white stereotypes by a black and an Asian presenter over the weekend. In fact, I don’t object to racial and ethnic stereotypes used for humor, as long as there is a single standard for all. However, it is not news that at this point in our increasingly unethical culture, there isn’t any taboo on making racially denigrating jokes about whites while the same kinds of jokes about any other group will lead to shunning, unemployment, and career disruption. If you want to ensure that racial disharmony gets worse instead of better, that’s a brilliant strategy. Yes, it is hypocrisy exemplified, but those who benefit from this double standard rationalize its appropriateness in a number of ways, or just don’t care.

The Golden Globes were back on prime time after a couple of years’ exile for, among other problems, complaints about their dearth of “diversity,” so you know what the new regime’s priorities were. Signalling their sincerity, the choice of host for the evening was ‘historic”: we are told that Jo Kay was the first Filipino American comedian to serve as MC for the broadcast, and only the second Asian. He was also, if not the first embarrassingly incompetent host, a reminder that choosing a comedian because of his ethnicity rather than his comedy skills is a dubious strategy. Even the reliably woke audience in the seats couldn’t manage to make themselves laugh at him, historic Filipino or not, and Jo Kay bombed. Good.

Watch him be asked back…

In such a warped and rigged environment, how proud of her award could Lily Gladstone be when she became became the “historic” first indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress, for her turn in “Killers of the Flower Moon”? Naturally, she basked in a standing ovation, which at this Golden Globes ceremony, was probably recognition for not being white.

Its Post-Harvard President Firing Tantrum Shows That The Left Is Even More Corrupt Than We Thought! Part III: The News Media and the Race-Baiters [Expanded]

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

In a recent essay, Victor David Hanson concisely summarizes why the Left’s angry narrative that Claudine Gay was forced out as Harvard’s president because of racial discrimination is untenable and self-damning. He wrote in part,

…In the respective press releases from both Gay and the Harvard Corporation, racial animus was cited as a reason for her removal. Gay did not even refer to her failure to stop antisemitism on her campus or her own record of blatant plagiarism. Yet playing the race card reflects poorly on both and for a variety of reasons. One, Gay’s meager publication record — a mere eleven articles without a single published book of her own — had somehow earned her a prior Harvard full professorship and presidency. Such a thin resume leading to academic stardom is unprecedented.

Two, the University of Pennsylvania forced the resignation of its president, Liz Magill. She sat next to Gay during that now-infamous congressional hearing in which they both claimed they were unable to discipline blatant antisemitism on their campuses. Instead, both pleaded “free speech” and “context” considerations.

Such excuses were blatantly amoral and untrue. In truth, ivy-league campuses routinely sanction, punish, or remove staff, faculty, or students deemed culpable for speech or behavior deemed hurtful to protected minorities — except apparently white males and Jews. Yet Magill was immediately forced to resign, and Gay was not. Also noteworthy was Magill’s far more impressive and extensive administrative experience, along with a more prestigious scholarship that was free of even a suggestion of plagiarism.

Academia’s immediate firing of a white woman while trying desperately to save the career of a less qualified and ethically challenged Black woman will be seen not as a case of racial bias but more likely of racial preference.

And yet one after another of the prominent pundits, journalists and commentators immediately worked hard to spread the “Gay was a victim of systemic racism” narrative. In so doing, they discredited themselves and the ideology that warps their judgment and ethics.

Presidential candidate Cornel West, a former Harvard professor, wrote, “How sad but predictable that the same figures and forces enabling the ethnic cleansing and genocidal attacks on Palestinians in Gaza – Ackman, Blum, Summers and others – push out the first Black woman president of Harvard! This racism against both Palestinians and Black people is undeniable and despicable! I have experienced similar attacks from the same forces in academia with too many of my colleagues remaining silent! When big money dictates university policy and raw power dictates foreign policy, the moral bankruptcy of American education and democracy looms large! But we shall remain strong in our fight for Truth Justice Love!”

Al Sharpton told his MSNBC audience that the Harvard president’s resignation is an “attack” on “every Black woman” in US.

Mara Gay, one of several NYT’s race-baiters, told MSNBC that”This is really an attack on academic freedom … This is an attack on diversity. This is an attack on multiculturalism, & … I don’t have to say that they’re racist, because you can hear and see the racism in the attacks”

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Ethics Observations on Vivek Ramaswamy’s “Rant”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Quixotic GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is an entertaining and occasionally thought-provoking feature of the primary season because, whatever you may think of his positions, he’s unusually articulate and adept at spontaneous responses. His outburst in Scott County, Iowa, when a Washington Post reporter asked him to “condemn white supremacy and white nationalism” is a classic.

He was asked the “gotcha!” question following the endorsement of his candidacy by former Iowa GOP Rep. Steve King, who was punished by the party after repeatedly appearing to embrace white supremacists and their rhetoric. Ramaswamy took off like Harold Hill telling the crowd about the dangers of a pool table in River City:

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The Campus Race-Baiters’ Favorite Things

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

College Fix, which has been the source of several EA posts this year, has provided an amusing (or depressing) compendium of 71 people, places and things that “were declared racist or in need of ‘anti-racist’ action” by academics or on college campuses. The list is, shall we say, provocative and revealing. Here are 25 of my favorites and their links; Ethics Alarms covered some of them:

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Why Hasn’t Everybody Already Learned About Bass Reeves?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Nothing says Christmas like a late 19th century black Deputy Federal Marshal in the Indian Territory. As I watched the Paramount+ video series “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.” I was struck by what an inspiring and unifying this remarkable man’s story would be for school children, and wondered not only why it isn’t taught today, but why it wasn’t taught while I was in school. Not only hadn’t I heard of Reeves before last night, I assumed the film was just another race- or gender-flipped Western, like “Django Unchained or The Hateful Eight.” It’s an amazing story, and a true one.

Bass Reeves (1838–1910) was born as a slave in Arkansas, then lived in Lamar and Grayson counties, Texas, where he belonged to Col. George R. Reeves, who later become the Speaker of the House in the Texas legislature. Reeves escaped north into the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where he had dealings with the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes, learning enough of their languages to be useful to him later. He fought with the Union Indian Home Guard Regiments during the Civil War, then settled in Arkansas as a farmer. To make extra money, Reeves served as a guide, scout and tracker for the deputy U.S. marshals who worked in the Indian Territory (like Rooster Cogburn in “True Grit”!) out of “Hanging Judge” Parker’s federal court at Fort Smith. Judge Parker commissioned Reeves as the first black deputy U.S. marshal west of the Mississippi River.

He worked for thirty-two years as a deputy marshal in the Indian Territory, arresting an estimated 3,000 lawbreakers and shooting 14 of them dead in self defense. (It helped considerably that he was 6’2,” remarkably strong, and a dead shot with pistol or rifle.) Reeves was never wounded himself, though his hat was shot off a few times (they show this in the series). Reeves demonstrated his integrity when he brought his own son in for murder once a warrant was issued.

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