Contempt of the court
Quote of note:
Fortunately, Robertson has resigned his judgeship and is no longer hearing cases. As of April 1, he’ll be toast. Still, it’s frightening to think that a man who had nearly unlimited power to affect peoples lives -- to bring the full weight of the law down on them -- is also a vile, ignorant, hateful bigot.
Commentary: Jaded Va. Judge Put his Racism in Writing
Date: Tuesday, March 09, 2004
By: David Person
Virginia General District Judge Ralph B. Robertson is the new poster boy for bigotry. But it's not necessarily because of what he did while sitting on the bench. It's more for what he did off the bench.
According to a report in the Richmond Free Press, the jaded judge went into an Internet chat room and wrote: "African-Americans are prone to crime and violence because it is in their genes." To justify his bigotry, Robertson gave this explanation: "I am not a racist. I am a racialist. The difference being I don't discriminate against an individual, but I do recognize the fact that there are a lot of differences between races which I assume from a biological standpoint is caused by difference in DNA.
"If DNA controls everything else, why shouldn't it cause a difference in ability to learn or play sports or a proclivity for violence?"
Excuse me? Black folks are genetically prone to violence, but whites who enslaved blacks, exterminated American Indians, and routinely lynched black people -- including women and children -- and were so callous that they would picnic and take pictures aren't genetically prone to be violent?
What an idiot.
In case there was any doubt about the depth of his racism and the shallowness of his intellect, Robertson decided to top off his bigotry with old-fashioned name-calling. He also wrote that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a plagiarist, that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was "a thief, a liar and a traitor to his own people" and that the Civil Rights Movement is a "scam."
Right -- Dr. King's entire legacy of sacrifice and commitment, along with a Nobel Peace Prize and other honors, means nothing and should be reduced to allegations of plagiarism.
Sure -- the Rev. Jackson, a man who has consistently encouraged black people to better themselves and been a voice for voiceless people of all races, is nothing more than a Judas.
And of course -- slavery, segregation, lynching, redlining, job and housing discrimination and all other forms of racism addressed by the Civil Rights Movement are simply a figment of our imagination. The past 400 years never happened.
We made it all up.
