So, here we are.

2008 and most Americans marvel at our national enlightenment - the first black referee in the Super Bowl, a woman and a black man in serious contention for the presidency.

2008 and Monroe County employs armed deputies, metal detectors, and an egregious arrogance - or worse, ignorance - to divest its citizens of the democratic process.

There was no physical violence at last week's County Legislature meeting (see slideshow), where a new public defender was chosen, but violence was done to this community.

Former County Executive Lucien Morin once spoke of the Community of Monroe. One community. One people. A society where all voices are heard. What has happened to that?

The home of Anthony and Douglass is divided by race, by income, by where we live. We have constructed a barrier, and the farther apart we grow, the easier it becomes for stereotypes to take the place of real communication, of understanding, of the acknowledgment of a shared journey. The easier it becomes for any congregation of black people to be seen as a threat to be controlled.

That's how you end up with African-Americans penned down in the lobby while the white, Republican, suburban majority chooses a public defender upstairs. While that majority - who, chances are, will never need a public defender - picks the person who will represent the county's poorest people, many of them minorities, in their most desperate hours.

Yes, here we are. And aren't you proud?

Imagine if Republicans had just done the right thing.

The Monroe County Public Defender's Office, led for the past 30 years by Ed Nowak, has been considered one of New York's best. When Nowak announced his retirement late last year, the search for his replacement started off tenuously. But it quickly went downhill. To come up with candidates, County Legislature President Wayne Zyra proposed a committee that would have included judges, appointments by the Monroe County Bar Association, and appointments by politicians. Democratic leader Harry Bronson first endorsed Zyra's proposal, but backed off when critics began to complain. He didn't fully appreciate the difference between an independent committee and a bipartisan one until community leaders approached him, he said.

A coalition of not only African-American leaders, but members of the Monroe County Bar Association, white religious leaders - including the bishops of the Catholic and Episcopal Dioceses - and others complained that the process was being dominated by politicians and lacked representation from the community, particularly from minorities. A partisan process, they said, could result in the erosion of the quality of the county's public defender's office.

They called for a return to the merit-based, nonpartisan selection process used in the 1970's, which gave the community the highly respected Ed Nowak. That process ended years of what was considered an ineffective, patronage-driven defender's office.

When Republicans wouldn't budge, Democrats and the Bar Association refused to participate, and the selection was left solely to the Legislature, where the Republicans hold a one-vote majority.

Clearly, the Republicans were not going to change their minds about the process. But they still had an opportunity to let the public be heard as they prepared to vote. Instead, they threw fuel on the fire.

At a February 9 morning meeting of the Legislature's Public Safety Committee, held to interview the three applicants for the job, 200 people, many of them African- American, turned out to protest. State Assemblymember David Gantt and Ministers Franklin Florence and Raymond Scott were arrested after refusing deputies' commands to leave.

And on February 12, Republicans and sheriff's deputies prepared for the full meeting of the Legislature as if they feared an armed attack.

Though the meeting was to begin at 6 p.m., a crowd had packed the lobby of the County Office Building by 5 o'clock. Law-enforcement officers guarded stairways, doorways, and elevators, allowing small groups of people to ascend to the fourth floor, where the meeting was to be held, only by elevator. Deputies asked legislators for identification before permitting them to go up to the meeting. And the majority of the crowd was kept in the lobby on the first floor by sheriff's deputies, who, at 5:40 p.m., said the Legislature's meeting room was already filled to capacity. The crowd was instructed to go across the street to City Place, which was set up for a simulcast of the meeting.

Only about 50 members of the public were allowed in to the chambers. Their belongings were searched for weapons and they were scanned with a metal-detector wand. As the meeting began, Gantt was removed after yelling "Let our people in now!" Sister Grace Miller of the Sisters of Mercy was hustled out of the room by deputies. A man who stood up in her defense was thrown against the wall, handcuffed, and taken out of the room. Miller and the bystander were charged with disorderly conduct.

A deputy - one of roughly a dozen in the room - shouted at the crowd to sit down.

And Republicans fled to a back room.

That all happened in about 10 minutes. Afterward, deputies hovered over the crowd. During the public-speaking period of the meeting, speakers, including Brighton Town Supervisor Sandra Frankel, Sister Beth LaValley of the Sisters of St. Joseph, former Brighton Town Justice Rick Dollinger, and the Rev. Gordon Webster of Downtown Presbyterian Church - were escorted to the podium by armed deputies.

Ultimately, the Legislature approved Tim Donaher as the new public defender. His appointment was rumored all along - Donaher is a Republican donor - and the vote was split along party lines, 15 Republicans and 14 Democrats.

Republican legislators have justified the tight security and the crowd control by saying that deputies had heard reports that protestors were threatening violence at the meeting. Neither Republicans nor deputies have offered proof of any threats. Early in the Tuesday night meeting, a frustrated Gantt referenced a shooting that occurred at a City Council meeting in Missouri. Republicans would use the Gantt comment to retroactively justify the extra security. At a press conference two days after the Lej meeting, Gantt apologized for the comment. That could not, however, have been the cause of the security measures, which were put in place long before Gantt arrived at the County Office Building.

Gantt, Scott, and others say the coalition that formed to advocate for a nonpartisan defender screening committee won't go away. "We intend to make sure we never go through this again," Gantt said at the press conference. The Bar Association now plans to focus on the public defender's office itself, to make sure the quality of services provided to clients remains high, says T. Andrew Brown, the organization's president-elect.

As Republicans were wrapping up their selection of a new public defender, concern was already building about the selection of a new president of Monroe Community College. Earlier this month, the chair of MCC's board of trustees unexpectedly resigned her post, but not her seat. Richard Guon, who also serves on the Monroe County Water Authority board, was appointed as the MCC board's chair. Some critics suggested that the leadership change might be paving the way for a politically motivated presidential selection. Late last week, it was reported that the board had narrowed the finalists for the president position down to seven: five recommended by the search committee, and two others added by the board itself.

As with the selection of a public defender, rumors have been circulating for months that Monroe Republicans have a favored candidate for the MCC presidency: former County Legislature President Bill Smith.

There are other key issues coming up in which political influence - and the Republicans' partisan, strong-arm tactics - could work against the public interest. Among them: the building of a new eastside water plant, negotiations over the city-county water authorities' agreement, the resolution of Renaissance Square, and the sharing of the county's sales-tax revenue with the city and other municipalities.

The public-defender controversy also did major damage to the slim hopes for bipartisan cooperation among county legislators, and between Democratic legislators and the Brooks administration.

Still more troubling is what the Republicans' show of force may say about the community itself.

Either the Republicans used that show of force simply to be arrogant, or they were really afraid. If they were afraid, it's an indication that the divisions in this geographically and racially divided community are far deeper than we have recognized.

Raymond Scott, who helped lead civil-rights demonstrations in Rochester's tumultuous 1960's and 1970's, calls the show of force at last week's County Legislature meeting "the most blatant racism" he has seen in 40 years.

Coalition members tried to meet with Republican legislators, but were rebuffed. It was "a step back in community relations," says James Norman, president and CEO of Action for a Better Community and a member of the public defender coalition.

Since the 1960's, there has been "undeniable" progress for civil rights in the Rochester community. Blacks have held high political offices across the community, Norman says. But issues still remain: unemployment, housing, city graduation rates, and poverty, not to mention high incarceration rates among minorities.

At the press conference two days after the Legislature meeting, Scott said the attention to the defender issue presents an excellent opportunity. The Legislature has to appoint or reappoint a public defender every two years. That provides an opportunity for people to come together, he said, not just to build a better process, but to ease new tensions in the community.

To resolve those tensions, Republicans have to extend an olive branch, Scott said.

Monroe County Republicans may be in no mood for extending olive branches, and indeed may feel there's no reason for reaching out.

In that case, it may be time for a return to some bridge work of the past. At the height of Rochester's racial tension following the 1964 riots, members of Rochester's religious community were able to explain to corporate and political leaders what was at the roots of the unrest, and the importance of addressing that.

After all, says Norman, there are still people going down to the defender's office who need competent legal representation. Both sides should now be focused on making sure they get it.

"Reconciliation always has to be on the table, regardless of the battle," Norman says.