This is the most selfish story I've heard in a long time.
A judge in Washington, D.C. has filed suit against his Korean dry-cleaners for $65 million for a lost pair of pants - a pair of pants that was found and returned a week late.
Judge Roy Pearson is on all kinds of civic groups - a regular good citizen and neighbor, right? Here's where he has been a volunteer:
- Columbia Heights Youth Club, the nation's first racially integrated youth club.
- Fort Lincoln Civic Association, Inc. Fort Lincoln is a leafy enclave in Washington DC - a community planned as racially integrated in the 1960s.
- Black Seeds, Inc -- a nonprofit that has sponsored the "African Heritage Family Festival".
- the DC chapter of the National Council of Black Lawyers. This is an outfit whose mission is
"to serve as the legal arm of the movement for Black Liberation, to protect human rights, to achieve self-determination of Africa and African Communities in the Diaspora and to work in coalition to assist in ending oppression of all peoples."
See a pattern here? Judge Pearson is a man of great power (as a judge). He is also a community leader for civil rights, racial justice, and ending oppression.
But compassion for the people who wash his dirty clothes? Out of the question. I really don't want to make this a racial thing, because the power dynamic seems to be the main issue here, but I have to wonder if the corrupt judge would be suing if the cleaners were, say, black.
