When you see something that is not right, not fair, find a way to get in the way and cause trouble. Congressman John Lewis
JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG
WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
The Judge Young Comment Examined
A reader wrote this about the comment on Judge Young:
You're right Rump. The accusation against Young was out of line and stupid. And, totally devoid of any kind of factual basis. That's why you should have censored it. For the life of me, I can't understand why you would censor a personal insult but allow an stupid, baseless accusation against a judge's professionalism to stand. Your censorship policy makes no sense.
Rumpole shouts:
For the 100th time, we DO NOT HAVE A CENSORSHIP POLICY.
A reader gives another opinion:
The accusation against Young should no more be censored than The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf or other such drivel should be banned from bookstores. This comment, and others like it, should be posted so the majority of us who actuall USE our brain and have the ability to formulate an intelligent thought can show our disgust. Sunlight is the best antibiotic.
Rumpole says: the comment on Judge Young was our hardest call. 1) We know Judge Young and like and respect him. 2) If as the first reader above wrote, that we should have removed the post because it was “stupid” then that creates the rule that we remove “stupid” posts. And who decides what’s stupid? We do. There is no way out of that box. The only solution we arrived at that we felt comfortable with was, as we said, to shine light on that moron’s dumb beliefs. Trust us, we did not feel at all comfortable about letting that post stay up. It was a stupid comment about a wonderful Judge. We are not editors of community standards. We have a few simple rules. As dumb as the post was, it did not violate those rules, so it stayed up. Nobody in their right mind believes Judge Young acts in the manner the post suggested.
How can so many people be so ignorant and yet have a license to practice law?
See You In Court.
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39 comments:
"Nobody in their right mind believes Judge Young acts in the manner the post suggested."
You forget that some potential voters who don't know anything about Young may stumble across this blog........as may an unscrupulous candidate who runs against him.
If you censor stupid posts there will be very lttle left on the blog!
I never knew Judge Young's sexuality. Which raises the more important issue... why hasn't he flirted with me? I mean, just because I'm totally straight and he's in a long-term relationship, doesn't make the hurt go away. Years of being ignored by chicks, and now I find I'm being ignored by the guys too? So was it my tie? My hair? What did I do wrong?
Sure I would have spurned any advances, but I would have let him down easy. Unlike him... who just...just...turned away.
RE: The Stupid comment: "Touche"
RE:Judge Young ignoring a reader- we, who almost never miss an opportunity to make a stupid joke, are hesitant to travel down this path and make jokes about a Judge's private life, when nothing about that life has impacted the Judge's public performance of his job. Leave it alone please.
Anybody seen how much weight Judge Jimenez has lost? He is looking good. Anyone know what diet he is on?
Here's a scoop-Robin Faber (Former PD) filed against "D'Arce's judge"-interesting....
do you all think judge young would be offended by any of this? please..
No way
Rumpole: To paraphrase, you previously wrote that the best way to deal with stupid, dumb, idiotic posts is to shine the cold hard glare of light on their stupid, dumb, idiotic beliefs.
In much the same way, I am a firm believer that the best way to minimize intolerant hack jobs is to make light of them. The bad joke, for which I am guilty, is pretty clearly tongue in cheek. It is also very serious. Read between the lines and you'll see it recognizes the existence of a long-term relationship. (Something which should be celebrated in this age.) It makes the point that this reader has never felt uneasy with Judge Young's judicial demeanor. Finally it makes a self-referential joke at the expense of the heterosexual writer. In no way can it be read as condemning or homophobic. The worst that can be said is that it's a bad attempt at satire.
The greater point is this... I would never raise, to begin with, a person's sexuality unless it was specifically apropos. But when someone ELSE maliciously raises it, do we do any favors by treating it as an untouchable subject? No. Because to do so falsely implies that there is a legitimacy to the original comment.
There is no need to lecture a person who posts homophobic accusations. Far more appropriate is to simply laugh the person from the room.
(And no... I don't think Judge Young would be offended by any of the non-insulting posts...which is not to say he would find them well-written or amusing.)
Regarding Robin Faber... is she being advised by Pericles Consulting?
FYI, Robin's a guy...
a guy??? are you sure?
who is this guy running against?
Ivan Hernandez. And Robin is a guy.
he is gonna get CRUSHED. Robin, what are you thinking baby? pick a none hispanic like say, judge miller or judge shapiro. your a democrat running against a republican during election cycle when reps. come out in force. do you want to win? i guess not. hernandez 57% faber 43%.
You really want Faber as a judge?
Is it true that Pando was running a State Rep. race out of chambers for 5 months for her Bailiff Arnold? Calling in favors in her old City of Miami area. Interesting news. No wonder why she was all over the ASAs in her division. Rump, is this legal?
Robin=Funny
Election=Slaughter at the Polls
History=Lesson
Conclusion=How to waste your monies
Does anyone know the status of Michael Spivack (former ASA and all around great guy)? I heard he was having heart surgery today.
As of yesterday, Former ASA and current Fed PD Michael Spivack was ok and still in the hospital. No word on if he had surgery today. Godspeed friend.
As to the anonymous reader who commented on Judge Young, we read your well written post, it all makes sense, we just want to change the topic as that topic should never be a topic, for this blog anyway.
And we think Judge Young would be offended by the post. Much like any female Judge would be offended by comments about her sex life, or any african-american or hispanic judge would be offended about posts saying they were good judges considering their minority status. This topic in the context of judicial ability is offensive and there is no way to get around it.
As a black man, I am so sick of people saying African-American. Look at the above post...is that ridiculous? Female, hispanic, black. Or, Genetically different from a man, Latino-American, African-American. Does anyone realize how racist it sounds that you use a completely non-descriptive artificial term like African-American. What if I renounce my US citizenship? Then am I African-Formerely American? What is my sister who lives in England? African-British, and if she comes here on vacation is she African-British-temporarily American? Stop the BS and call me black. You sound ridiculous when you say African-American.
STATE YOUR NAME SOLDIER. I WANT YOU IN MY CAMP.
The term "African American" has been in common usage in the United States since the late 1980s, when greater numbers of African Americans began to adopt the term self-referentially. A civil rights activist and former Nation of Islam leader named Malcolm X favored the term "African American" over "Negro" and used the term at an OAAU (Organization of Afro American Unity) meeting in the early 1960s, saying, "Twenty-two million African-Americans - that's what we are - Africans who are in America." U. S. President Kennedy had initiated the re-naming of Negroes in 1961 by speaking of "blacks" while he was the President Beginning in the 1980s, many blacks began to abandon the term "Afro-American", which had become popular in the 1960s and '70s, for "African-American," because they desired an unabbreviated expression of their African heritage that could not be mistaken or derided as an allusion to the afro hairstyle. The term became increasingly popular, and by the 1980s, Jesse Jackson and others pressed for its adoption and acceptance. Users of the term argued that "African-American" was more in keeping with the nation's immigrant tradition of so-called "hyphenated Americans", who were known by terms like "Irish-American", or "Chinese-American", "Polish-American"), which link people with their, or their ancestors', geographic points of origin.
it's time to settle the SCORE
Score is a cool bar on Lincoln.
Obama bio from HIS website:
Barack Obama was born on August 4th, 1961, in Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. and Ann Dunham. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983, and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group seeking to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and high unemployment. In 1991, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Score is a gay club, the best club in Miami, So watch yourself. STraight guy
PROFESSIONAL BEHAVIOR, HAVE ANYONE KNOW ABOUT HOW UN-PROFESSIONAL CRIMINAL LAW PRACTICE HAS BECOME? I HAVE BEEN IN SEVERAL COURTROOM AND HAVE SEEN JUDGES TALK TO PD, ASA, DEFENSE COUNSEL LIKE THEY ARE TALKING TO CHILDREN, BUT THESE SAME JUDGES FORGET THAT SAME INDIVIDUAL ARE VOTERS. I DO NOT KNOW ABOUT OTHER READERS, BUT I CAN NOT WAIT TELL THE NEXT JUDICIAL ELECTIONS,TO SEE ALL THESE MANNY OF THE JUDGES WHO ARE UN-PROFESSIONAL START TRYING TO KISS ASS, TO MAKE UP FOR THERE PAST MISTAKES. I WANTED TO BE AN ATTORNEY BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS A NOBLE PROFESSIONAL, BUT WHAT I HAVE COME TO RELIZE IS THAT CRIMINAL PRACTICE IS FULL OF ATTORNIES AND MANY JUDGES THAT UN-HAPPY WITH THEM SELVES, SO THEY TRY TO MAKE EVERYONE ELSE AROUND THEM UN-HAPPY..
LET ME BE THE FRIST TO SAY THAT I WILL WELCOME THE FBI WHEN THEY DO ANOTHER STING IN THE COURTHOUSE TO FIND JUDGES ON THE TAKE.
I agree, we are becoming very unprofessional when we can't spell "attorneys" or otherwise write like we're older than 9
Ditto, last post.
As an African-American, I am tired of the complaints about what we are called. One day its Nigger and its progeny Coon and Sambo. Then its Colored People. Then its Negro. Which is merely just a latin/romance language term meaning Black. Then its Black (guess we decided to use the vernacular). Then its Afro-American. Then people don't like that because they don't want to be known as Americans with Afros. Then its People of Color but that takes too long to say and sounds like Colored People making a comeback. Then its African-American. Then African-American is not good enough, people want to go back to Black.
Does it really matter? Must we keep changing it every few years based on whim? Most interesting thing I'd ever heard was, I was visiting a psychiatric institution volunteering time (it was a few of us out there from a Gospel choir) and a white gentleman approached me (or should I say Euro-American? who knows). He was talking and then he was about to say a comment which inevitably was going to have to reference our racial identity. Nothing offensive. He looked at me and said:
"Um, you know I've been committed in this place over 20 years and don't get out obviously. I know that what you're called as a race, changes, I don't want to offend you by using an outdated term. What's the current term now? I almost went to call you brown people, I wasn't sure."
In the movie Cry Freedom, when a South African Court asked Stephen Biko why he called himself Black when he was brown, Biko retorted, "Why do you call yourself white, you're pink."
But I had to admit, that old man sure got me thinking. Maybe I shouldn't call him an old man, perhaps Geriatric-American might be politically correct.
Of course labels are unavoidable in this world. But after a while, it just seems silly.
Great post
i know score is a gay club. i noticed when i went in and all the guys were gay. why do i need to "watch out" because i am straight. i can still enjoy the club, right? quit hatin on us str8 guys; i just like the place. sheesh
im a whitey and i think african american sounds ridiculous. africa is a pretty big continent, with a lot of countries. should we now call me euro-american, or narrow it down to italian and irish american. sounds lame. just call me bill, and i'll call you your name. i dont see the need to address anyone by their racial heritage. i prefer to group people by height. i like short americans (euro, afro, polynesian, etc), but i admit i hate on tall-americans).
Bill
ps - the fact that we, as busy attorneys, are discussing such a stupid question with such passion only divides us and shows how shallow we are when it comes to race. when will people realize that we are one human family, nothing more, nothing less.
i've definitely wasted too much time on this already. later
ignoring race altogether is impossible. sweet words, but impossible. people by nature, discriminate by appearance. we discriminate by height, weight, thickness, narrowness, straight hair, curly hair, long hair, green eyes, brown eyes, blue eyes, etc, etc, etc.
doesn't matter if you're a child who hasn't been indoctrinated by your parents. you will NOTICE the differences and point them out.
thus when you need to describe the suspect that just snatched a purse, you would want to point out its a asian man so that the police aren't out looking for a white man... ;-)
i knew i should have left my purse at home
Bill, by your use of the iambic pentameter, I can only conclude that you are from Uganda. Thereby making you a Ugandan-American
I am a visitor to the blog. However, I consider myself a friend of Judge Youngs and now am wildly curious- inappropriately so - in what this censored comment was about- whatever it was about- i dont think the Judge would or should care
- but great blog- well done- gotta go back to shooting baby chickens- cya
The Miami Herald refuses to publishs the race of wanted suspects b/c of fear of being labeled racially insensitive.
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