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Dec
16
Why Black Attorneys Don’t Stand Up - Part 2 of 3
Filed Under • Stand Up!
After I submitted my “Jim Crow” essay to The Huffington Post, I found out it had been posted when a barrage of angry emails started filling up my screen. Interestingly enough, they weren’t coming from the HuffPo but from one of my favorite blawgs, Above The Law. The website’s founder, David Lat is a member of The Federalist Society and admits to fanning “the flames of racial tension.” [See Correction] More than being a conservative, he is honest, ironic and in the know—he has an eye in every corner of BigLaw. Though a regular ATL reader, I’d never bothered with the comments, so I was shocked (and more than a little hurt) to be assaulted with irrelevant rants about the injustices of Affirmative Action.
For the most part their remarks defied logic and even ignored facts eventually verified by Covington. They did, however, get in one good lick. My essay contained a few misspelled words. In one instance, I had meant to type General “Counsel,” which I’d spelled correctly throughout the piece, but mistakenly typed “Council.” I was troubled by the mistake for quite some time (even though my HuffPo editor, who is now with the Wall Street Journal, missed the error as well). A friend tried to offer perspective by pointing out this NYTimes article that explains to its readers that misspellings are an occupational hazard to writing.
But what really opened my eyes to the true workings of this world was another ATL post.This time, Lat turned his attention to the sloppily written missive, he gently said included “a handful of minor typos,” emailed by Paul Hastings Associate, Shinyung Oh, on her way out the door. The post received over a thousand comments, and I could find not a single quip about the flaws in her writing.
Only a few months ago, I came upon the ATL story of two Cleary associates, who, lacking sleep and excel spreadsheet acumen, made a gross error:
According to the various affidavits (posted below) the Cleary first-year did not notice that the 179 contracts were marked as “hidden” in Excel, and certainly didn’t notice that those entries became “un-hidden” when he globally reformatted the document.
Cleary had to file a motion before the bankruptcy court asking for relief from the final sale order due to mistake or excusable neglect. After reading the comments and finding not a single suggestion that the two were “incompetent” or “unqualified,” I knew, even before identifying them on Cleary’s website, that the two were not black.
Apparently, making a mistake is only a problem when you’re black! Since everyone makes mistakes, black attorneys know that if they stand up, they are vulnerable to attacks. We don’t get the benefit of the doubt or even the opportunity to tell the whole story. At no time was this more apparent than when ATL revealed that the anonymous contestant readers had selected as the next editor-in-chief of ATL was, SURPRISE, a brother.
Part 1 of 3 - Should Eric Holder Stand Up For Black Attorneys At Covington?
Part 3 of 3 - Why I Decided To Stand Up
Elie’s saga after the jump.
Under the pseudonym, SOPHIST, Elie Mystal had received accolades from the contest judges and readers throughout the process:
“This was a pretty well-done post. Probably [the] best of the contest so far.”
“[T]his is just going to be a blowout.”
“This is a pretty solid (and humorous) thread.”
“I am cautiously optimistic. He was the only contestant who looked like he could handle the job. I’m glad the process worked.”
“I gotta say: I really loved a couple of his posts. The Lat-Sophist tag team might work out nicely. The guy is funny. Let’s just see if he can handle the rigors of the job.”
“Looking forward to finding out who you really are, Sophist. Keep up the good work or, you know, we’ll kill you.”
But when Elie’s café mocha mug was posted, there was shock and awe. Some tried to remain upbeat, pointing out Elie’s credentials, but the true colors of others bled through.
Wow. Now I know Lat was no hottie, but c’mon…
Harvard College, Harvard Law School, Debevoise — not too shabby.
Cautiously optimistic about where ATL will go from here.
I kind of love that the contestant accused of racism was black, and the one accused of anti-semitism was jewish. Welcome!
Please don’t make this more political than it already is. We’re not all liberal in these parts.
Shit, Shit, Shit. I have been duped into voting for the enemy. Damn you!!!!! Bring back Exley!!!!!
From Maverick’s commander in Top Gun: “One more screw up and you’ll being flying rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong!”
Another minority writer for a majority white/wealthy readership.
As the weeks wore on, the tone and frequency of the criticism increased. People pointed out typos, spelling and grammatical errors and suggested they were proof that Elie wasn’t qualified. This comment is a good example:
Little did we know when this was posted that you would turn out to be an utterly forgettable writer whose bland posts would ultimately drive ATL into the ground and result in your firing no more than a few months after winning the contest to replace Lat. You suck, Elie.
Actually, Elie is rocking and rolling. In his first month, he delivered record numbers. He is every bit as funny as Lat and posts a lot more than the founder did. (Is it possible the black man is working harder than his Asian counterpart—wink to Lat). From ATL:
The U.S. economy may be going down, down, down — but traffic on ATL is up, up, up. When it comes to your new editor, Elie Mystal, it seems that you like him, you really like him (which is not surprising, since you picked him, through the ATL Idol contest).
In September, Elie’s first full month on the job, the site received a record number of unique visitors (over 325,000) and pageviews (almost 4 million).
Yolanda Young
Come back in a few hours for my Q & A with Mr. Mystal, who offers insight and optimism regarding race relations over at ATL.
Above the Law founder, David Lat, wrote in to make the following correction: First, I wouldn’t call myself a “conservative”; I am not registered with any political party. Second, I am not currently a member of the Federalist Society; I have not been a member for a number of years (although I do support their goal of fostering debate within the legal academy by bringing speakers of different viewpoints to campuses).
Comments
5 Responses to “Why Black Attorneys Don’t Stand Up - Part 2 of 3”
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This is an interesting topic as I am a (relatively)young, black partner at a majority firm. I tend to think that you might be confusing the cost of affirmative action with race. I am a firm supporter of most forms of affirmative action, but I am also aware that a cost of it is that our qualifications are questioned more so than others. I don’t think that is racism per se. Rather, I think there is, at least, an aspect of truth.
If we gain entrance into places as a result of affirmative action, while others do not, is it not reasonable for others to attach a pre-determined view to those of us who might have gained? Is the issue really your own view of race as opposed to the views of your critics?
I’ve read ATL occassionally and think that the brother is very good. I also think that many of his petty critics are trying to get him off his game. However, he appears to be comfortable with himself and doesn’t let the small stuff get to him. That type of confidence is critical. In the end, it looks as if his readership is up. He’s winning and the assholes are slowly losing.
In the end, I do believe that race is playing a role, but I don’t think race is anywhere near the dominant role your piece, at times, infers.
By the way, I like your writings and your blog. Keep it up.
I completely agree with this post and when I made similar observations in the comments to a post by Elie I thought was particularly good, let’s just say I was slammed. I find it amusing that people loved this guy when he was anonymous, and can now only focus on typos. I for one think he’s clever, witty and hilarious. And by the way, no one complained as much about grammar when Lat was the editor as they do now. Thanks for this!!
I am not sure how the Holder and Elie Mystal things are connected. But let me say this.
I like ATL, and read it daily. It offers good content on the daily large law firm gossip circuit. And it’s hard to get that information.
But I noticed all these harsh angry nitpicking comments concerning Elie’s posts. And they are often of the type, you misspelled this, you misused this idiom, you should take more time to proofread, you are an idiot.
(Initially, I didn’t think he was an African American.) But something occurred to me, these are some very personal attacks about his qualifications in connection with having gone to Harvard. And then it hit me, “He’s Black.”
So I googled him and my fears were confirmed.
First, Elie’s detractors are almost always correct about the spelling errors. But here’s the thing that got me thinking he was Black, the posters were obsessed with proving him to be stupid. If you have been Black, and someone else said that you were very intelligent in a group of people, there is a good chance that sometime in your life, someone, maybe white, maybe an African American, tried to make you look stupid and incompetent.
They are helping Elie by improving his work. So he should take the comments to make him better. But there is another undercurrent that I have seen, this angry obsessive like behavior to make him look stupid.
When I was in Law School (one of those nice Ivies that I was told was key to getting a big firm partnership, only to find out that my peers at that level were much more likely to have gone to a local school), there was an African American female professor. She was into Law & Policy, not blackletter law, but she taught a first year course. Every year, students would go to the dean to complain that she did not teach blackletter law.
To be clear, in my mind, they were correct. She did not teach blackletter law. And they would scorch her reviews.
However, there was a con law professor at that same school. He did teach, albeit extremely poorly, black letter law. Sometimes he added racial innuendo. Sometimes gender. Sometimes sexual orientation. Sometimes he was incomprehensible. Many believed he could have been drunk.
No marches to the Dean’s office. No scathing reviews.
That’s the issue with Elie. Not that it’s OK for him to misspell words. But since the blogosphere is filled with posters who type quickly and occasionally misspell words, why the anger.
Hopefully, we will get to a point in American life, where perceived Black incompetence gets the same treatment as perceived White incompetence.
Great work OBABL. This blog is going to the top!
I am loving this.. at first when you sent me the link I was like..um, this isn’t my cup of tea but I love what you have done with the place… and I will send you that promised email; even though now it doesn’t seem like you need my imput.