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Lawyer Complains That 'White Race' Attorneys Shouldn't Have To Hear About 'White Privilege'

This bar association meeting certainly took a turn.

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During last week’s installment of the Maine State Bar Association’s “Bar Talk” series, attorney Leah Baldacci chimed in to share her “concerns” about anti-racism efforts in the state. “I would like to note that many of the attorneys in Maine… despite having white skin have had their struggles in order to achieve all of the academic achievements they have made and become attorneys and I am certainly one of them,” Baldacci said on the video chat with the Acting Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court.

Baldacci is the daughter-in-law of the former governor of Maine. It is, truly, a hard knock life.

As the legal community begins… an introspective process about racism, I would like to caution attorneys… [that] telling attorneys that are of the white race that they have ‘White Privilege’ is antithetical to the goals of searching for a way to make race a non-issue in our community…

I was very surprised during some of the discrimination training that I’ve received through the State of Maine that ‘White Privilege’ was a topic that was raised many times. and felt as though there was no other purpose but to shame the individuals who were white in the room…”.

Whenever you hear language like “the white race” you know you’re buckling in for a wild ride.

Oh, and if you’re skeptical that her critics are playing “Gotcha” games and cutting her remarks out of context, that was a passage that she put on her own LinkedIn page so she, mind-bogglingly, thinks this makes her look sympathetic.

Let’s break down where she careens off the rails here. First of all, when she describes the goal of making race “a non-issue” she’s beginning from a flawed premise that dooms all of her conclusions. The vision of universal color-blindness misses the point of struggles against racism just as surely as universal androgyny would miss the point of sexism. The problem in both cases isn’t that there aren’t differences but that those differences shouldn’t be the basis of discrimination. To that end, understanding the ways in which white people have advantages is pretty important to understanding how discrimination works.

Second, she interprets “white privilege” as meaning that every white person lives an easy life, a conclusion that requires a wicked persecution complex. White privilege means I don’t assume every interaction with a cop will kill me, not that I wasn’t born in a trailer park. It also, to make this relevant to the legal profession, means I can do my job without people dismissing me as an affirmative action hire or something. White people can face all sorts of struggles… but they don’t face any of these struggles that uniquely impact people of color and that’s why they’re indicative of systematic discrimination.

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This is all the more tragic because Baldacci’s remarks suggest that she does grasp the existence of sexism in the legal profession. Unfortunately this sort of uncritical self-absorption at the heart of Karenism isn’t uncommon. It’s as if being victims of a form of discrimination they basically shut down and refuse to accept the possibility that they’re doling out discrimination themselves, consciously or unconsciously.

As people tried to convince Baldacci to step back from embarrassing herself publicly she went back to LinkedIn and… made things worse:

I have recently received messages, privately and publicly, insinuating or calling me “racist” because of my position on the phrase “White Privilege.”

When you accuse a group of people of “White privilege” you create no oxygen in the room for a discussion on haw we can help make the world a better place.

The phrase “White Privilege” is also, by definition, a racist comment – as it states that ALL white people are privileged and categorizes a whole race as guilty of bad faith.

She then posts a Jordan Peterson video in an unparalleled act of unintentional comedy before deleting and blocking her critics and threatening to raise ethical violations against those characterizing her rhetoric as racist.

The president of the bar association thanked her for her comments at the time, but later issued a statement apologizing for not appropriately dunking on her at the time:

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“Recognizing bias isn’t racist against white people,” he said. “Saying Black lives matter isn’t saying that other lives don’t matter. I’m sorry that I didn’t address these issues on Monday. I understand my silence was a lost opportunity, and it appeared complicit. My response, or lack thereof, is not a reflection of my believes or the beliefs of the Maine State Bar Association.”

A partner at her firm, Lipman & Katz, resigned from the Board of Governors in protest over the president’s statement, but named partner Roger Katz took a different route:

“Although the associate has every right to exercise her First Amendment rights and express her opinions, I see things quite differently,” Katz wrote. “As a white man living in Maine, I see it as my duty to listen, learn and speak up on issues of racial justice. We have a national problem.”…

I am a lucky man. I was born in the greatest country in the world at one of the great times in history. Lucky. Two loving parents. Lucky. But I was also born white. Lucky there too,” he wrote. “Call it white privilege. Call it starting the Race of Life a little ahead of others because of the color of my skin. Whatever. But let’s recognize it. Let’s own it. And let’s change it.

Indeed. The video cued up to her comments at the 23 minute mark is here:

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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