THE LIFE BEHIND A RACIAL MISTAKE

Stanley Goodfarb is an imperfect man, but that is all he is. The judge's career is one of decency and integrity.

I disagree with Janice Moore and Christopher Payne and Bruce Meyerson; a slip of the tongue is not a lynching offense.

No white person can toe that line.
And I'll tell you something else: No black person can, either.
We have no right to demand perfection of each other.
I have been down that road before, and it is bitter terrain.

In Arizona, those who twice defeated a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance told us we should not celebrate this exemplary life because his civil rights record was not immaculate. By this, King's enemies meant that the minister had been less than perfect in his marriage vows.

We see the same reckless standard in Schindler's List, in which author Thomas Keneally only expresses one personal emotion: He is amazed that Oskar saved Jews because Oskar, after all, lived a life of the flesh; as if heroism was only found in those with perfect piety.

I wonder what the keepers of the torch of political correctness can be thinking?

If you run off a Jesse Jackson when he stumbles, he will not be there later on to repudiate Khallid Muhammad. And if you can run off Khallid Muhammad, will you then turn on Janice Moore because her passion is just as molten, if less threatening, than the Muslim's?

Are you going to haul off every white person who is not the epitome of racial grace? Do you think they'll go quietly?

It denies all of us, black and white, our potential for goodness if we are to be crucified for moments of weakness.

The fate of Judge Stanley Goodfarb is in the hands of the Arizona Supreme Court, where Justice Robert Corcoran has earned a reputation for being a hard-nosed enforcer of judicial ethics.

He must feel some conflict, a certain inner turmoil.
Better than most, Corcoran knows that this particular judge is not a bigot. Corcoran is the man who introduced Cecil Patterson to Goodfarb.

If you have read this far, you must feel like you've read too much. But, you see, I wanted to paint a truer picture of who this judge is, because if he is pushed off the bench, Stanley Goodfarb will leave stigmatized as a racist.

That ain't right, and that ain't the way it was.