White Judge Sharing Racist Meme Reassigned

If there was ever a serious, thorough probe into racism in the U.S. justice system, I imagine it would be like turning a seemingly immaculate rock upside down to reveal the infestation of insects on the bottom side. Of course, for Black people, there really is no revelation; we know how racist police officers and officers of the court can be. However, the “tough on crime” advocates in the U.S. at least pretend to be unaware of the numerous investigations that have been conducted into racist cops and judges sharing their racist thoughts via text, recorded conversation or social media posts, and even if they are aware of these stories, they don’t care because they don’t believe (or pretend not to believe) a person should be branded as a racist just because they share thoughts of demonstrable racism.

Anyway, another racist judge has been caught sharing her racist thoughts, but instead of being removed from the bench — and out of the position of power that could subject Black civilians to her racial bias — she was simply reassigned.

Meet Cook County Judge Caroline Glennon-Goodman.

According to WBEZ Chicago, Glennon-Goodman was reassigned and ordered by Chief Judge Timothy C. Evans to undergo bias training last Friday, and she will face a state disciplinary investigation all because she couldn’t keep her racist white nonsense off of social media.

From WBEZ:

In a screenshot obtained by WBEZ, Glennon-Goodman shared a meme that depicts a smiling young Black boy and a Black child’s leg with an electronic monitor on it. The meme is headlined “little tiks [sic] … My First Ankle Monitor.”

Glennon-Goodman wrote on the post, “My husband’s idea of Christmas humor,” according to the screenshot.

In its order, the Executive Committee wrote that Glennon-Goodman’s alleged actions “may violate the Code of Judicial Conduct” and they said they were temporarily reassigning her and referring the matter to the Illinois Judicial Inquiry Board “to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.”

So, Glennon-Goodman saw a meme featuring a Black child receiving an ankle monitor for Christmas, and she thought: Hey, that’s humorous, only offensive to Black people and completely appropriate for a white Chicago judge to share. I think I’ll hit “send.” She captioned her post, “My husband’s idea of Christmas humor,” which only suggests that her husband is just as racist as she is and does nothing to absolve her from sharing it under her own profile. (There’s got to be a better way to let the public know your Klanniversary is coming up.)

“It is our understanding that the photo was meant to be shared with a different audience and that the judge involved has apologized profusely. Nevertheless, such media is inappropriate to share regardless of the audience,” the Cook County Bar Association said in a statement last week.

“Any judge should be unbiased enough to not further circulate such a racist trope … The imagery recalls our nation’s history of inappropriate media images of Black people (such as blackface) and such imagery continues to shape the opinions of Black people, particularly Black men,” the statement went on to say.

Yeah — it really doesn’t matter which “audience” the judge “meant” to share her racism with. She’s not less racist because she meant to share the meme with fellow racists who would have received it well, but, instead, she shared it with an “audience” that was far less appreciative of it. And that’s only if you actually believe she unintentionally shared it with the wrong group as opposed to her simply thinking her racism was OK until she caught backlash for it, which is when she “apologized profusely.”

Anyway, the Executive Committee wrote in its filing that the Judicial Inquiry Board will determine “whether further sanction is warranted” in Glennon-Goodman’s case, and that the judge will have to receive “additional training including the topic of implicit bias.”

The American justice system keeps making the mistake of thinking it can train the racism out of its personnel. That’s not how you remove racism — you do that by weeding out the racists and being more discerning when it comes to who gets placed in legal positions of power in the future. Otherwise, you’re just betting the lives and safety of Black people and people of color on the idea that diversity training will change a racist’s heart. That’s a losing bet every time.  

SEE ALSO:

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