In the swampy, air-conditioned nightmare of New Jersey politics, where principle goes to die a slow death by a thousand compromises, Gov. Phil Murphy has staged a masterclass in selective righteousness.
Murphy’s choice to refer to Assata Shakur exclusively by her birth name, “Joanne Chesimard,” is a profound act of disrespect that deliberately strips her of her chosen identity, a name she adopted as a symbol of her political awakening and reclaimed African heritage after she rejected “Joanne Chesimard” as a “slave name.”
The governor, a Democrat with a fortune built on Wall Street who served on the National Board of the NAACP from June 2015 until March 2017, has chosen his moment to stand on the principle of appealing to voters.
And he has chosen to do so not by confronting the rot within his own State Police force, but by chasing the ghost of a woman who had been a fugitive for decades, a woman he insists on calling by a name she discarded a lifetime ago, even on the occasion of her death.
Shakur lived in Cuba for decades, and died in Havana last month. She was made accountable for slaying Trooper Werner Foerster, who was murdered in a 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike, but she escaped from prison.
Murphy’s statement on Shakur’s death, issued jointly with State Police Superintendent Col. Patrick Callahan, is a jarring juxtaposition that elevates a political statement over the principles of identity and justice his administration often claimed to champion.
It was disrespectful to call Shakur by her birth name of “Joanne Chesimard”—but she was never captured to face her sentence, so the language was crafted for the political impact of being disrespectful rather than a voice of moral clarity.
Shakur was attached to Black nationalist movements, including the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, which called for armed resistance against systemic racism.
By denying her this self-definition, the governor reduces a complex historical figure to a one-dimensional villain and dismisses the core of her personal and political transformation
But in the context of his administration’s record on justice, the one that rings hollow, disrespect is what we expect.
Callahan presides over a State Police agency that multiple independent investigations have described as a pit of systemic racism, sexism and retaliatory corruption.
This is not a matter of partisan attacks; it is the documented conclusion of the state’s own Attorney General, Matt Platkin.
In September 2024, Platkin released reports eviscerating the State Police, finding that internal disciplinary investigations had been “weaponized” against troopers and that the force was rife with a culture of tolerance for misconduct.
The Attorney General’s reports show the police force has been marred by racist practices, and systemic discrimination and prejudice, for decades. The office documented these practices while pushing for reforms.
The reports painted a picture of a fraternity where an “inner circle” of white men operated with impunity, where anonymous complaints were met with DNA-hunting witch hunts, and where a senior lieutenant could joke about wanting to “see a pic” of a 14-year-old girl who was the victim of a trooper’s sexual assault.
The rot is not new.
Just months earlier, the State Comptroller revealed that for years, the State Police had been aware of data showing persistent adverse treatment of Black and Latino motorists, yet did nothing to combat it.
The oversight mechanisms created to prevent a return to the days of racial profiling were found to be “largely performative.”
This is the legacy Callahan has overseen, so toxic that the NAACP has repeatedly called for his resignation, declaring that real change is impossible as long as he remains at the helm.
Yet Murphy’s commitment to Callahan remains unshaken. He stands by his man, even as his own attorney general has seized control of the State Police’s human resources and internal affairs functions to impose basic accountability.
So we are left to wonder: What brand of justice is the governor truly serving?
His is a justice that meticulously dissects the identity of a 1970s radical—denying Assata Shakur her chosen name, which means “she who struggles” and “thankful to God,” and insisting on the birth name she shed—while turning a blind eye to the denial of justice and dignity for the Black and brown troopers within his own chain of command and the citizens they are sworn to serve.
It is a calculated justice. It is easier to condemn a decades-old symbol than to clean up a present-day cesspool.
It is safer to rally the base with calls to capture a fugitive than to confront the bigots and enablers in the ranks of the State Police. By aligning himself with Callahan in this pursuit, Murphy isn’t just being hypocritical; he is endorsing the very culture he claims to abhor.
He is telling every trooper of color passed over for promotion, every female trooper forced to walk across a parking lot in a towel to change, and every citizen subjected to racially biased policing that their reality is less important than a political narrative.
Making sense of the complex combination of violent choices made in response to government sanctioned oppression and injustice would require courage and real leadership. The public is more inclined to respond to ‘good guys’ condemning the ‘bad guys’ but this is exactly the kind of situation where there are no heroes and no villains.
Murphy squandered the opportunity to examines issues of race, class, and the justice system, and question simplistic labels of “hero” and “villain,” recognizing the complexity and tragedy of the situation.
The truth is that historically and in many cases today, no African American could be certain of getting a fair trial. During the Jim Crow era and for much of the 20th century, the idea of a fair trial for an African American was often a facade.
There are glaring discrepancies in the case that convicted Shakur, such as gunshot wounds that would have made it impossible for her to pull the trigger that killed Foerster, but there’s no way a Black American accused of killing a cop could have gotten a fair trial in those days.
Murphy knows that, and his actions contradict all the nonsense BS he has preached about racial justice. He is proving the NAACP’s accusation correct: the millionaire governor shares the blame for the State Police’s racist culture.
In the twisted theater of New Jersey politics, the pursuit of one ghost has given license to the monsters still in the room.