“Vote for Me Because I’m Black” Judicial Candidate Is Appointed to the Bench by Governor Brown
Remember Songhai “Sunny” Armstead? I told you about her in this post. She ran for office telling black audiences things like this:
And you guys have seen who — I’m sure we all know who’s in our jails and who comes before our judges in court, right? It’s people who look a lot like the people in this room. People who look a lot like me. . . . There are 15 open seats right now. I am the only African American running. There’s only one Chicana running. Can you guess who else is running? Are there people who care about the people in this room? Probably not. I can’t speak before them, but probably not. . . . I’m a judge for you. . . . We have black legislators, we have a black president. We don’t have black judges.
and this:
I walk around in an environment that’s mostly white males and they’re looking for me to fall every single day.
She will now be a judge. She was appointed to the bench yesterday by Governor Jerry Brown.
Brown appointed eight new judges in Los Angeles: Supervising Deputy City Attorney Songhai Miguda-Armstead; private practitioner Timothy Dillon; Burke, Williams and Sorensen partner Ronald Frank; Deputy District Attorney Julian Recana; Steptoe and Johnson LLP partner Lawrence Riff; Irell & Manella partner Laura Seigle; Second District appellate court attorney Natalie Stone; and Farmers Insurance Group attorney Lisa Sepe-Wiesenfeld.
Usually, judges pledge to be a judge for everyone, not just for one racial group. Usually, judges don’t tarnish entire groups of people (like white males) by saying they are “looking for me to fall every single day.”
But Songhai “Sunny” Armstead was not the usual judicial candidate.
Let’s hope she develops a sense of judicial fairness on the bench.
I am not optimistic.
On a positive note, congratulations to my friend Julian Recana. He’ll be great.