Another Charge of Insensitivity for Judge Sanctioned for Wearing Blackface
A Louisiana judge sanctioned for wearing blackface at a Halloween party could face discipline in another case, this time over comments he made to a woman seeking a restraining order against her husband.
Five years ago, Judge Timothy Ellender of Houma was suspended for six months and ordered to take a sociology course because he dressed as an inmate for Halloween while wearing an Afro-type wig and black makeup, the Associated Press reports.
In the latest incident, recorded on audiotape, Ellender refused a restraining order sought by Eula Smith Warren, calling her petition “crap,” the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports. In the March 2007 hearing, Ellender said Warren’s husband had not abused her or his children. “Heat, big smoke, but no fire,” Ellender said. “Dismissed. You want a divorce, get a divorce. You’re not getting a TRO. See y’all later.”
He also congratulated Warren’s husband, Charles Warren, for threatening to make his 2-year-old daughter’s “booty bleed” if she didn’t behave herself at a Subway restaurant. “Can’t you find a better place to eat than that?” Ellender asked.
The state Judicial Commission has recommended a public censure for the remarks.
Ellender’s son, Timothy Ellender Jr., represented his father at a hearing last week before the Louisiana Supreme Court. He said his father had a bad day and was not wearing his hearing aids. “He was rude, hurried, nothing to be proud of. But he was not out of control,” Ellender Jr. said.
Ellender Jr. contended his father’s remarks were different from the blackface incident, which was about “racial insensitivity.”
Justice Greg Guidry said he disagreed. “And this is insensitivity to women,” he said.
