Judge Cebull
To those who say that all racism is in the South (and that all those in the South are racist), I give you Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull from the state of Montana.
His honor, appointed to the bench by Pres. George W. Bush, thought this email was appropriate to circulate among six “old buddies:”
The forwarded text reads:
“Normally I don’t send or forward a lot of these, but even by my standards, it was a bit touching. I want all of my friends to feel what I felt when I read this. Hope it touches your heart like it did mine.
“A little boy said to his mother; ‘Mommy, how come I’m black and you’re white?’” the e-mail joke reads. “His mother replied, ‘Don’t even go there Barack! From what I can remember about that party, you’re lucky you don’t bark!’”
The judge, upon being ratted out by one of those buds, quickly apologized, saying it’s not that he’s racist, it’s just that he hates Pres. Obama.
A recipient of the email forwarded it to another person, who then forwarded it until it eventually reached the inbox of a Great Falls Tribune reporter. Cebull said he was surprised the people he sent the email to would pass it along with his name still on it.
“This is a private thing that was, to say the least, very poor judgment on my part,” Cebull said. “I did not forward it because of the racist nature of it. Although it is racist, I’m not that way, never have been.”
Cebull is like so many people who live in places where there are few opportunities to interact with real, live people of other ethnic groups. They believe they aren’t racist, but when you live in a state like Montana, where, according to the last census, less than one-half of one percent of the humans are African-American, it’s basically just a theory.
While Cebull has also offered himself up for an investigation (he sent the email from his judge’s chambers), one can only hope that if he is not removed from the bench, he is at least forbidden to hear cases involving the 0.4 percent of Montanans who are black.
Travis McAdam, executive director for the Montana Human Rights Network, said the email’s content was unbecoming of a federal judge.
“It’s one thing if the judge is not a fan of President Barack Obama, but you would think someone in his position would articulate that in a way that criticizes his policy decisions or his position on issues,” McAdam said. “We have a hard time believing that a legitimate criticism of the president involves distributing a joke that basically compares African Americans with animals.”
