Almost surgical precision
By 
Republicans have finally found judicial conduct that they consider impeachable. THat is, acknowledging the existence of racism:
On Tuesday, it was reported that North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls could be ousted from her seat for judicial ethics violations. Did she fail to disclose gifts from a billionaire benefactor on whose cases she was ruling? No. Maybe she’d gone on luxury vacations across the globe paid for by some of the richest men in the country and neglected to mention them on disclosure forms? Nope. Perhaps one of these billionaires bought her mom a house? Not that either. Her true crime: Earls, the only Black woman on North Carolina’s high court, spoke out about racial bias in her courtroom. Her alleged misconduct was speaking to the media about how few clerks of color the court employed and how her colleagues treated certain attorneys, including a Black woman, who argued before them. For that, a Republican-stacked judicial “ethics” commission has gone after her. Its targeting of Earls could fulfill the wishes of the gerrymandered Republican Legislature by removing a tireless advocate of racial equality.
[…]
Judges must be able to speak out about the bias that plagues our justice system. Jurists at every level have an obligation to confront bias that they witness. It’s in the judiciary’s best interest to root out biases that cause people to doubt the fairness of the system.
Republicans disagree. Newby’s “race-blind” agenda forbids any acknowledgment of bias in the system. Though he’s been a prosecutor and judge for four decades in North Carolina, Newby claims that he’s never witnessed any racism.
Claiming to have witnessed no racism in a state that sent Jesse Helms to the Senate for decades speak for itself, but let’s walk down memory lane to the redistricting North Carolina did in the immediate wake of Shelby County:
After years of preclearance and expansion of voting access, by 2013 African American registration and turnout rates had finally reached near-parity with white registration and turnout rates. African Americans were poised to act as a major electoral force. But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans.
In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.
To be a judge in North Carolina, it is important to understand that when North Carolina Republicans ask for racial data so that they can make rules that make it harder for Black people to vote, they don’t see race.