Bob Egelko interviewed Justice Martin Jenkins for the San Francisco Chronicle. The article begins: “When he was appointed to the California Supreme Court in November, Martin Jenkins became the court’s first openly gay justice, and its fifth African American. And maybe also the justice who was the most surprised to be there.”
In the interview, Justice Jenkins said that being a Black man “has helped me develop a kind of empathy, perhaps being more skeptical at times, not hardened. . . . Learning to filter for some of those slights that have occurred from time to time informs the way I look at law and the people it serves. . . . It’s what minorities end up having to do in this country.” Jenkins added, “I am a black gay man, all day, every day. . . . In the way I walk in the world, the way I judge, I bring those to bear.”
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