Judge Marvin Arrington & His "Bill Cosby Moment"

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Fulton Superior Court Judge Marvin Arrington routinely uses his sentencing day - on Thursdays - as a time to speak his mind to offenders who come before him for sentencing. On last Thursday, he went one step further: he had about 50 defendants (all of whom were Black) and he asked all of the white people in the room to leave before he addressed them.

Arrington said that for him it was just a "Bill Cosby moment" in which he delivered a harsh indictment that bad behavior in poorer black neighborhoods was an albatross on black advancement. Unlike Cosby, who has received some criticism among blacks for delivering such messages, Arrington received a standing ovation from the defendants and their families after his 10-minute talk.

Judge Arrington is quoted as saying, "I wanted to have a fireside chat and my grandmother said years ago that if you're going to fuss at black people, you don't need to do it in front of white people." He continued, "I didn't know it was going to be so controversial[.] I probably made a bad judgment call and I probably won't do it again. It was not ill-intended. My heart was in the right place."

The judge has received some flak for asking the white attorneys to leave the courtroom.

Read the entire AJC article here.


plez sez: i know judge marvin arrington... he grew up in the same neighborhood and attends the same church as my wife's family in atlanta. i've met him at a few church gatherings and we are members of the same fraternity. i was even a guest speaker - on career day - in his younger sister's classroom at booker t. washington high school a few years ago.

i applaud him for reminding these young Black men that they are not only a strain on society, but they are also a cancer within the Black community. instead of heading to jail, all fifty of those guys should've been in a classroom or at a job! each one of those guys are exactly what's wrong with the Black community.

i do not applaud his methods. what he had to say - no matter how humiliating it may seem - needed to be heard by everyone: white, Black, asian, latino, etc. we can no longer let the worst examples of our community skate into the obscurity of our prison system. everyone needs to know that judge arrington and plezWorld does not condone or tolerate the behavior of our Black men that continues to keep our community down. i only hope that more of our Black leaders have "Bill Cosby moments" and tell the world what we think about those who continue to destroy our community.

do you feel that judge arrington was right or wrong to ask the white attorneys to leave?