by Ryan McKeen
This is the final part of my interview with State Representative Gary Holder-Winfield. I thank him many times over for agreeing to do this and I deeply respect his candor.
In the coming weeks, I’ll have some more interviews with people running for office who I find interesting. Stay tuned.
RM: You sit on the judiciary committee and voiced concerns about the lack of diversity with the most recent crop of judicial nominees. What, if any reforms, do you believe are necessary with the judicial selection process?
GHW: This is a question that is difficult to answer. I could speak purely about what should be done in terms of process – that would be safe. I don’t play safe.
What is disturbing to me about the whole fiasco that took place during the session is that the conversation never really dealt with the issue at the center of everything…race.
During the back and forth there was an underlying sentiment that while race was a part of this it simply was that those being chosen happened to be white and that if race were involved at all it was that people of color had not done what they needed to make it through the process.
In effect the problem becomes the very individuals who the system acts upon and not the system itself. Now I know people will say that the discussion did touch on making changes to the system but you have to be careful in distinguishing what you hear from what is said. That discussion about reform of the system was about better preparing the minority candidates, fixing issues with their bar associations and so forth which is really nothing more than a clever way of saying again that the problem is with the candidates and not really the process. I don’t buy it.
Our hands are not as tied as we suggest in our public discourse. When the Governor wanted her one budget director to be nominated for a judgeship he made it through the selection committee in record time was approved selected by her passed a background check and moved on to the Judiciary Committee.
When a single public safety commissioner is desired it happens. When we want something to happen it happens.
Yet when we publically say that we want a person of color and there are more than one on the list of qualified candidates we seem unable to make it happen. Before I was a legislator years ago I was in engineering, I know math, and this does not add up.
I won’t accuse anyone of anything other than to say that it appears to me that our rhetoric is not reflective of our internal truth. To say that though invites people to talk about racism which is why others stay away from statements like that. So, let me be very clear: I am not suggesting that anyone is racist.
What I am suggesting is that we can very much be accepting of others and still operate within a frame that results in the same policies being created or opportunities being denied as if we were racist. The difference is when called on our behavior we become defensive because we do not want to be accused of being that which we are not.
Those who become defensive are often backed up by others who see themselves as potentially being placed in the same box (which is not really where he or she that is being defended is being put) when in reality the pushback is against those things systemic as opposed to individual racism or bigotry.
What are we going to do? We will work on the candidates. We will discuss these issues with the bar associations. We will do all that we have done before and more in attempt to fix this situation and in a few years we will find ourselves talking about this again. We will find ourselves talking about it because we refused to really look at it now. That’s what we will do.