A sticky development in Allegheny County
Ah, another February, another Black History Month. This is the time of year when racking up intentional slights and unintentional indignities is easier than ever. There’s something about February that draws out the stupid in those trying their best not to look racist.
Are you itching to see a display of black historical figures being lynched in the window of a university gift shop? Check out what happened at Michigan State University’s Wharton Center earlier this month.
Of course we were told that civil rights figures being hung in effigy from a makeshift tree wasn’t meant to be intentionally offensive — it was just tonedeaf product arrangement intended to honor the theme of Black History Month.
Alas, no one in a position of responsibility at the store was morally astute enough to recognize it as a problem until its African American customers started pointing it out.
Closer to home, Carnegie Mellon University apologized this week for posting a map of Pittsburgh online for its prospective students that excluded all historically black neighborhoods in what felt like the ultimate act of community erasure.
Of course there was a backlash symbolized by a brilliant parody T-shirt rushed to market by Ebony Thomas of Swissvale, a local African American designer who highlighted black neighborhoods while erasing the richer, whiter neighborhoods CMU celebrated. Finally, a hilarious act of righteous gentrification that shamed CMU itself.
“Carnegie Mellon University should have never used this map, as it fails to uphold our values of inclusion, equity and diversity,” a university spokeswoman said. “We sincerely apologize for this mistake and the hurt it created.”
Apologies like this are increasingly common in an era when the unintentional snub has the same kick as premeditated snark because it is so difficult to tell one from the other. What is it about February that makes the usual “Most Livable City” indifference we’ve all become used to even more ridiculous and crueler than ever?
But when it comes to the most appalling act of racist doggerel in recent weeks, nothing local beats Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark
Tranquilli’s alleged reference to a black female juror as “Aunt Jemima” in his chambers in front of both a prosecutor and a defense attorney.
The judge was apparently mad that a defendant he was convinced was guilty of selling heroin was acquitted by a jury that included Juror No. 4, a young black woman he reportedly called “Aunt Jemima” because she wore a hair wrap to jury duty.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking: “Tony, why do you hate pancakes and pancake syrup? What’s so bad about being compared to the stereotypically polite spokeswoman for delicious pancake syrup?”
For the record: I love pancakes — especially the vegan pancakes at Regent Square Cafe and the unsweetened syrup that, upon request, comes with it. My beef is with Aunt Jemima’s name being used as shorthand for a racial slur.
Judge Tranquilli supposedly criticized prosecutor Ted Dutkowski for not exercising his option to strike the young black woman from the jury pool and for not adequately screening the jurors. He also apparently speculated that Juror No. 4 had a “presumed bias in favor of heroin dealers” because her “baby daddy” probably sells heroin, too.
Defense attorney Joe Otte, who was a witness to Mr. Dutkowski getting chewed out, wrote a detailed complaint about Judge Tranquilli’s comments to the Judicial Conduct Board.
That complaint led to President Judge Kim Berkeley Clark’s decision to reassign Judge Tranquilli to “administrative duties only” at the court, where he’s less likely to ruin anyone’s life with pseudo-scientific legal theorizing.
Tim Stevens, the chairman of the Black Political Empowerment Project isn’t satisfied that Judge Tranquilli has sufficiently faced the music and has called for him “to be immediately removed from any active service for the courts of Allegheny,” which would include shuffling papers.
Suspension while past cases are reviewed for evidence of racial bias on the judge’s part seems reasonable given his alleged assumptions about Juror No. 4’s fitness for jury duty based on her choice of headwear.
Judge Tranquilli used to be the deputy district attorney in charge of the homicide division before he was elected to the bench in 2013, so he has very strong views about drugs and the people accused of being a part of that world.
The problem is that up until this week, Judge Tranquilli was in a position to sentence those convicted of crimes to many years in prison despite what may turn out to be an obvious bias on his part. No person of color who would find him or herself standing before Judge Tranquilli could ever reasonably expect equal justice from him.
Do I know what’s in Judge Tranquilli’s heart about black people? Of course not. What’s in the heart of anyone who uses terms like “Aunt Jemima” to refer to a juror who probably did her duty as best as she could as far as he really knows.
So far, Judge Tranquilli hasn’t denied the charge, at least publicly. We have no idea whether he has any sense of remorse for stereotyping a juror as “Aunt Jemima.” He hasn’t apologized. Then again, he could always claim that his intentions were good and that his heart was pure at the time he insulted Juror No. 4 behind her back. There’s also a 1% chance that he meant the term affectionately because he’s such a big fan of buttery hot pancakes and Aunt Jemima syrup. Besides, no one is ever intentionally racist in February in Pittsburgh anymore. February is a very livable month.