Politics - News Analysis

Colorado MAGA Judge Forced to Resign After Repeated Use of the ‘N-Word’ … Repeated!

There is a pretty well-kept secret in the United States. Most judges at the “lower end” of the spectrum, the ones that are less political and just want to deliver justice in cases, the ones interested in the law, more than the news or politics? They are generally pretty good people. We realize we’ll get thirty emails about how this or that and we couldn’t be more wrong…. Yes, there are exceptions, but over 24 years, in three different states, pound for pound, judges are some of the better people around. Ironically, the higher one gets, the more political things become, and then the wheels come off a bit.

When one has a significant interest at stake, whether civil or criminal, as a victim or accused, or someone cheated, one wants someone who cares enough to listen and dispassionate enough to just do their jobs. In your local court, you’re likely to find him or her, or at least there’s a good chance.

It is rare that one hears a story like the one below, so rare that it should embarrass Colorado that this woman ever got on the bench to begin with. Rawstory pointed us to an article first appearing in the Denver Post. It is jaw-dropping and gut-wrenching. We bring you the story of 18th Judicial District Court Judge Natalie Chase:

A judge in Colorado’s largest judicial district will resign after using a racial slur, employing derogatory language to speak about another judge, espousing opinions about racial justice from the bench and directing court employees to work on her personal business.

Chase in late January or early February of 2020 drove two lower-level court employees to a training in Pueblo. During the drive, Chase asked one of the other employees, who is Black, why Black people can use the N-word and white people cannot along with other questions about the slur, according to the Supreme Court’s order. Chase, who is white, used the full word several times during the conversation and made the employee, who was trapped in the car and couldn’t leave, feel uncomfortable, hurt and angry.

First, why is this white person complaining about the fact that white people cannot use the word? Does she feel deprived? In case she wants her question answered, it is quite easy. In every culture throughout time, if a race or culture has been repressed with a slur, that culture often takes it on itself, to rob the dominating culture of its power. The word’s power derives from its racist heritage. If black people choose to use the word, it’s from outside that heritage and not based on racism. The only reason a white person would use the word is to perpetuate racism. That is why. And, again, it’s not confined to black people, ask the “Micks” and the “Fredos” and Mackeral snappers, plenty of other slurs get adopted by the targeted culture. It is an understandable defense.

More from the Judge? Sadly, yes:

“(The employee) has explained that Judge Chase’s use of the full N-word was ‘like a stab through my heart each time,’” the order states. “The (employee) did not feel free to express her discomfort or emotions due to fear of retaliation by Judge Chase.”

Yes, that will happen when one person happens to be the judge and the other is a “lower-level court employee.”

In February 2020, Chase told other court employees that she would boycott the 2020 Super Bowl “because she objected to the NFL players who were kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of police brutality against Black people,” according to the order. Chase was sitting on the bench in her judicial robes as she spoke. Two of the employees in the room were Black.

Unless that case involved some kind of lawsuit against… no – there was no excuse for bringing it up except to express her feelings in a context in which she could not be challenged, where she automatically had the upper hand. She didn’t just relay political/racial opinions when out of place, she misused her position of authority to announce her personal beliefs in a setting where she knew no one would challenge her.

Knowing this judge is willing to say and do such things around others, imagine how “dispassionate and neutral she would be in handling a crime that involves a lot of racial animosities. It is terrifying and she can’t be gone fast enough.

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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak

meet the author

Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He now enjoys life as a single dad raising a ridiculously-loved young girl on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He is very much the dreamy mystic, a day without learning is a day not lived. He is passionate about his flower pots and studies philosophical science, religion, and non-mathematical principles of theoretical physics. Dogs, pizza, and love are proof that God exists. "Above all else, love one another."

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