Though I am usually uncomfortable using such terse language for a blog post title upon the occasion of the resignation of a public official as I have done here, in this case I am going to make an exception and simply say "goodbye and good riddance" to Justice Keith Bardwell upon learning the news that he has resigned.
Louisiana does not need to find itself immersed in a divisive debate on race such as the one I saw getting underway following Justice Bardwell's decision not to marry an interracial couple a few weeks back. By "divisive" I refer to one founded at least in part upon animosity of a nature I do not regard as conducive to achieving progress in race relations in Louisiana, which Bardwell's conduct unfortunately makes clear is a goal we must still pursue today, in 2009.
Justice Bardwell offended all who care about the equality of the races in his decision to ignore the law as it has existed for over forty years, which ever since the U.S. Supreme Court's Loving v. Virginia decision of 1967 has guaranteed the right of interracial couples to marry under the fourteenth amendment's equal protection clause. And if I may add, he has also offended love, which may not strike many as a significant matter for public discussion, but which I include as a matter of civil decency. Love between a man and a woman cannot be viewed as bound or restricted by race. I was offended.
Be in no doubt, Louisiana still must confront troubling issues of race and the Bardwell affair is not the only one from recent memory which makes this clear. We also must deal with that big ugly skeleton sitting in our closet; the abandonment of the displaced New Orleanians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, whose fate cannot be explained outside the context of race. The controversy surrounding Bardwell will pale into insignificance when compared with what happened after Katrina. But we must face both of these issues, as well as so many others.
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| The Convention Center in New Orleans, September 2005 A black mark on the conscience of Louisiana that still must be confronted |
If Louisiana is going to have a productive discussion on race it must entail a comprehensive and courageous review of all matters which impact race relations on the part of all parties involved. This would of necessity require an examination of the root causes of the economic impoverishment of the African-American community within our state, which naturally will entail a broader discussion of economic policies developed for the entirety of Louisiana. We must address education, citing both its failures and successes and develop workable solutions to improving the advancement of African-Americans in a manner which does not promote alienation between the races as its consequence. Economic reform and improving education must go hand-in-hand, because the only workable solution will be one which produces both an economic revitalization of our state so as to offer real opportunities in employment to those who are prepared to take advantage of them along with the necessary job skills which constitute that preparation.
And then there will be the confrontation with the many myths which do so much to define and aggravate antagonism between the races in Louisiana, such as the one regarding the future of children of interracial marriage which surfaces with Bardwell. Those myths are numerous and I am tempted to write they exist on all sides, but I would prefer to state simply that they exist. We must leave behind the notion that there are "sides" in this process. If we ever are to become one we must stop thinking that we are two.
I will be addressing many of the issues which relate to economic and educational reforms in this blog over time. I am only just getting started, but I fully intend to cover a wide range of topics which I think may be integrated within a discussion on race. I cannot get to them all, at least not within any reasonable amount of time, but I will remain open to discussing any topic which might be suggested to me by readers who comment here, provided of course that it is raised fairly, by which I mean outside the boundaries of polemical discourse.
And I definitely will discuss what happened after Katrina. I remain quite angry about the way in which the facts of that story, such as they are available to us at this point, have been suppressed to this point in time. This will require an investment of effort on my part, but I am committed to getting it done.
As a closing note here, I would like to go back and refer to my earlier post on the Vitter-Melancon campaign and a final comment I made about how I saw the Bardwell affair as a matter which would be introduced into the campaign by some who intended to promote racial animosity on behalf of Melancon. Based upon what I have seen in the immediate aftermath of Bardwell's resignation, I have hopes that this may not come to pass in the way in which I feared at first. With that in mind, I will change course and skip that topic since I might find myself only aggravating a situation which hopefully might be cooling at this moment. Let us hope that is what develops now that Justice Bardwell has resigned his office.
Jacob Sulzbach
