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Craig Watkin’s picture dominated the front page of Sunday’s Fort Worth Star Telegram.  I doubt the Dallas County District Attorney was pleased with a story that presented him as a thin-skinned whiner with a penchant for playing the race card. 

“I’m consumed with anger all the time,” Watkins told the Star-Telegram. “I really have to think twice when I wake up in the morning not to be angry because of all the things that people have thrown at us.  . . . I could invent a cure for cancer and would be somewhat vilified because I’m black.”

You can’t blame Scott “Grits” Henson for concluding that Watkins needs to develop a thicker skin.

Henson doesn’t think the criticism Watkins has received from his fellow prosecutors, police officers and FOX news has anything to do with racism.  The Dallas DA is telling the truth about our broken system of criminal justice and his critics don’t like it.  Simple as that!

A Wall Street Journal article on Watkins gives equal time to Watkins’ detractors and champions, but you don’t hear the Dallas prosecutor fulminating against white racism in the WSJ.  Either the reporter didn’t ask the right questions or he didn’t think Watkins emotional life was relevant.

I would have to talk to Mr. Watkins personally before commenting on the fairness of the Star-Telegram piece or evaluating his visceral response to the criticism he has received.

One thing is clear; despite all the adulation his reforms have generated, the last two years have been a purgatorial experience for the rookie DA.  Part of the problem is simple inexperience.  Instead of moving up through the District Attorney’s office over a period of decades, Craig Watkins made an enormous leap from the office of a solo defense attorney to the big time.  The emotional adjustment was bound to be rough, especially for a reformer like Watkins.

In a brief companion piece in the Star-Telegram, Watkins discusses his personal opposition to the death penalty.  He isn’t just the only African American District Attorney in Texas; he’s probably the only prosecutor in the state who is philosophically opposed to the death penalty.

As a Baptist pastor who stands up for accused drug dealers, I may have a unique window into Watkins’ soul.  My views diverge sharply from most of my professional colleagues.  Not only am I intellectually aware of that distance; I feel it.  It’s personal.  Professional alienation is hard to handle.  When you are the only person in your profession who isn’t white, the social strain is multiplied. 

It is hard for white people like me to appreciate the travails of our black and brown counterparts.  Watkins feels the havoc the criminal justice system is wreaking in minority communities; his white colleagues generally don’t.  There is a racial element to all of this; just not the one Watkins has identified.

That said, Craig Watkins isn’t drawing fire because he’s black but because he’s a prophet.  The media has treated the Dallas DA very favorably for the most part.  FOX news, the only media outlet to take a serious run at embarrassing Watkins, is just being FOX news.  You can’t invite the Innocence Project to set up shop in the DA’s office without raising the ire of the legal establishment.

I hope Craig Watkins develops a thicker skin before the next election.  We need him, and we need a new generation of prosecutors inspired by his example.  If Watkins wasn’t so emotionally sensitive he probably wouldn’t be taking such courageous stands.  Prophets, by definition, are complicated people.