Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Grover Jackson, Carlton Easton, and the intricacies of racism

When Courthouse News Service runs articles such as this one, they are usually told by one side of the dispute. This obviously leads to an incomplete or possibly skewed version of the legal issues involved.

Grover Jackson sued Policemen's Benevolent Association Local No. 105 on Nov. 10 in Essex County Superior Court.

The complaint comes in the wake of a June 2013 grievance that Jackson filed against Newark's Northern State Prison while he was working as a senior corrections officer there.

That October, Jackson allegedly met to discuss the status of that grievance with Carlton Easton, PBA 105's institutional vice president. Easton is not a party to the action.

Jackson says that Easton "responded in an unnecessarily aggressive and demeaning manner to plaintiff's comments about his grievance" during the meeting.


I won't explicitly identify the demeaning manner that Courthouse News Service documented, but suffice it to say that a word that rhymes with "trigger" was reportedly used about 15 times.

Courthouse News Service then identifies the lawyer representing Grover Jackson and concludes its piece.

Wanting to hear the other side, I went to the Policemen's Benevolent Association Local No. 105 web site. It had no statement on the controversy, but it did identify the union leadership, including Carlton Easton (one of several institutional vice presidents).

If you look at his page, you'll notice something that was not stated in the Courthouse News Service piece.


Is Easton's race a relevant part of this story?

Or is it not a relevant part of this story?
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