Kissing Counsellors

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Do you care if Fani let Nathan touch her fanny? According to the Oxford Dictionary, fanny is vulgar slang for a woman's genitals in British English. In North America, fanny is an informal term for butt.

Before you start to question my choice of vocabulary, remember I grew up in the US. Fanny is synonymous with butt. After you judge my home country and home training, continue reading this post.

However you define fanny, the recent questions directed at District Attorney Fani Willis were less about her qualifications to lead Georgia’s case against Trump and more about her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade. The other concern is whether Willis profited from hiring Wade as a prosecutor. Evaluating her character is an attempt to disqualify her from the criminal case and get the electoral fraud charges dismissed. 

Please see the intrusive inquiries for evidence of this claim. I don’t need to provide additional details. From the wine Wade and Willis drank to their vacation spots, countless articles and videos with commentaries exist in cyberspace.

Why add to the digital noise of online articles?    

I usually avoid writing blog posts about trends and trivial political matters, but the idea came to me after I received a text message, and it wouldn’t disappear. The text came through IMessage, not as part of WhatsApp's disappearing features. One of my sisters asked for the family’s opinions about Willis's responses.

A couple of my sisters replied while I went to do some research.  

Willis and Wade claim they started dating in 2022.  One source says it began in 2021, and another article reports a different date indicating an extramarital affair. Regardless of the timeline, collegiality became intimacy between the two attorneys.

They dated. Chances are he paid for some things. Chances are she paid for some things. Did the money come from their work or private practices?

Probably.

The allegations are not about their involvement in illegal business transactions related to their profession. That's a different story.

Receipts indicate cash purchases for trips and wine from legitimate income sources. Does the relationship constitute a lapse in judgment? Sure.

Workplace romances often produce a conflict of interest. This holds true when a supervisor dates a member of their team. However, kissing in a cubicle or court chamber doesn’t always translate to a lack of credentials, competency, or experience to do your job.

Would we have this conversation if a man served as the District Attorney? I don't know.

Let’s add race to the hypothetical scenario. If the DA was a white man, would his private life be an issue?

Well... I still don't know. Perhaps.

These two what-ifs give us something to contemplate. When multiple identities overlap, i.e., race, class, gender, sexuality, and age, it's difficult to establish clarity. 

With almost anything, cause and effect are difficult to prove. Correlation is something else. For example, race, class, and gender correspond with privileges and injustices in legal spheres.

Put yourself in the judge’s seat. Take off your shoes and sit back. You may be there for a while to answer the following question.

How does Fani Willis’s relationship with Nathan Wade interfere with her ability to act as the District Attorney in the Trump case? Drop your opinion below this post.

Yesterday, I led a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) workshop for faculty members at the university where I teach. We discussed our professional roles in an institution with a mission geared toward underserved populations. The Fani Willis hearing did not come up during our session, but other court cases sparked controversial opinions.

Subscribe to this blog today and learn more next Friday about DEIA. In addition to sharing observations from the workshop, I will explain how you can create equity and work with others to produce social, economic, criminal, and other forms of justice.