Well, if you had
any doubt that he would run a credible race for governor of Massachusetts, you
can discard it. Deval Patrick is at
war. He outperformed Reilly in
fundraising in the last half of 2005 and, in October, he received more
individual contributions than Reilly has ever received in any campaign in a
single month and he soundly whipped Reilly in the delegate caucuses. Patrick is on the move but he might want to
pay a little more attention to his Black base.
TOM REILLY
FOR GOVERNOR
One of the reasons
Deval Patrick needs to shore up his Black base is that his competitor, Tom
Reilly, has the backing of two of the most prominent Blacks in the state, former U.S. Attorney, Wayne
Budd, and former Suffolk County District Attorney, Ralph Martin. But Reilly’s gigantic stumbles may have
relegated his candidacy to the “garbage bin,” especially his selection of Rep.
Marie St. Fleur as a running mate after unceremoniously dumping millionaire
Chris Gabrieli.
A strong move is
on to draft Chris Gabrieli for Governor by those who believe neither Deval
Patrick nor Tom Reilly has enough political capital to beat the Republican
candidate in the final election. With
Patrick far to the left and Reilly on the defensive, many believe that Gabrieli
will be the dark horse winner if he can be enticed into the race.
WHAT’S THE
SURPRISE?!
Brown University
professor John R. Logan released a study that shows that New Orleans may lose
up to 80% of its Black population.
What’s the surprise? I’ll bet he
was paid to report the obvious. When I
saw those Black folks wading through the flood waters and suffering at the New
Orleans Astrodome and Convention Center, I knew it was over for Black New
Orleans. It was a no brainer. It’s a rare Black family that doesn’t have a
story about their families being stripped of their Southern property by hook or
crook. New Orleans, as one of its
prominent White politicians confirmed, is a slam dunk for such a rip off. All they have to do to turn New Orleans into
a White city is to do nothing for awhile, which is apparently what has been
done since Katrina. (See related poem, “Still Waiting” on page 8.)
CHOCOLATE
CITY BLUES: “THOU DOTH PROTESTETH TOO MUCH”
Didn’t you get a
kick out of the news folks’ apparent outrage over Black New Orleans Mayor
Nagin’s comment that New Orleans will be a chocolate city again? Fox News, as well as traditionally more
balanced CNN commentators and pseudo sanctimonious print journalists, joined in
condemning Mayor Nagin’s comments as racist as though New Orleans had not
always been a “chocolate” city. And,
wasn’t it funny how they capped their indignation with rhetoric against his
references to God, even as White folks in politics – Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals alike – are
falling all over themselves competing for the perception of having the closest
proximity to God? Mayor Nagin’s apology
may have been politically correct but it certainly was not owed.
SOME THINGS
NEVER CHANGE!
Let’s not kid
ourselves. Things haven’t changed that
much. A Massachusetts state law that,
at best, allows minimal affordable housing in mostly White suburbs is about to
be gutted by White politicians whose constituents want no affordable
housing. As reported in the Boston
Globe (January 27, 2006), no fewer than “50 proposals to amend or scrap the
state’s main affordable housing law have flooded” the state house. The current law is about as weak as a law
can be and has minimal impact on the affordable housing crisis that is driving
even moderate income people — Black and White — out of the state in search of
more affordable housing.
WELL, HE WAS
PROBABLY RIGHT!
Former Pittsburg
receiver great, Lynn Swann, is running for governor of Pennsylvania. His White opponent fired his campaign
manager for saying on television that, “The rich White guy in this campaign is
Lynn Swann.” To her credit, Swann’s
campaign manager refused to comment. I
mean, what could she say? The fired
campaign manager was probably right! He
just worded it wrong.
OF COURSE
PROFILING IS NOT GOOD FOR BLACK FOLKS!
Massachusetts is
to be commended for its new, no nonsense seat belt law that allows police to
stop drivers who do not buckle up regardless of whether they are violating any
other law. But we’re not dumb. A lot of Black folks, who would otherwise be
immune to random stops and searches, will be stopped for seat belt violations
and some of them will actually not be wearing their seat belts. Thanks to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial
Court, police officers’ names will be recorded for every stop they make to
determine if profiling is taking place.
The issue was put in court, by the way, by the police union, which
opposed police names being attached to the stops. Some things never change!
FRANCE, WE STILL
LOVE YOU!
France, a country
that once was so open and so sensitive to issues of race that it would not even
keep statistics on ethnic or religious groups, is changing as its Black
citizens demand change. As reported in
the Wall Street Journal (January 9, 2006), “French Civil Rights
activists Patrick Lozes and Louis-Georges…considered some politically correct
names (to call their new civil rights group) …(and) decided to stop tiptoeing
around the issue of race. “We must say
the reality: When you have problems renting an apartment, it isn’t because you
are Antillean or Sub-Saharan African French,” Mr. Lozes says. “It’s because you’re Black.” So they settled on the “Representative
Council of Black Associations.” Good
for them!
SCANDAL IS
SYSTEMIC
Of course Jay
Ambrose is right when he wrote: “This other style of corruption is not the sort
that has the flashbulbs popping as someone like Abramoff races from his car to
the courthouse. It does not send pols
to prison, and will seldom flatten a career.
It may, in fact, boost careers, for this is the corruption of putting
the day’s political advantage over the nation’s long-term good. It is the corruption of thinking there is
nothing of larger significance than your own good, of backing down from what
you believe because of popular prejudice, of compromising to the point of
abandoning principle, of going along to get along. It is an insidious corruption of cowardice and self-serving
demagoguery, and it is confined to no particular party or branch of government.” Boston Herald, January 7, 2006
THEY MUST
THINK WE’RE DUMB!
As for those Fox
News type White folks who are upset at the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to
throw out Florida’s school voucher program, they must think we’re dumb! They focus their arguments, of course, on
the fact that Black students benefited from the programs. Actually, very few Black students benefited
from the program. And Florida Governor
Jeb Bush was quoted as saying, “School choice is as American as apple pie in my
opinion…The world is made richer and fuller and more vibrant when you have
choice.” Of course, he didn’t mention
two things. The money to pay for
vouchers is taken out of the budgets of the public school systems and given to
private schools. And, if he and others
are really so big on the business of choice, why not simply merge suburban and
urban systems in a universal choice program.
And, while you’re at it, why not legislate snob zoning away and allow
affordable housing construction in the suburbs so that rich and poor can live
together and share suburban benefits.
They take a few of our students and leave us with increasingly under-
funded schools and expect us to feel good about it! We’re not that dumb!
BLACK CHURCH
HONORS MICHAEL JACKSON’S LAWYER
Thomas Mesereau, the lawyer who engineered Michael Jackson’s acquittal in the child molestation case, was honored in Los Angeles at the Brookings Community African Methodist Church as a “champion of justice.” The Hispanic mayor of Los Angeles, a guest speaker, said, “Mesereau is a White man who has for many years now marched with the mothers of Watts against gang violence.” Mesereau co-founded a legal clinic for the indigent. But Reverend Cecil Murray went right to the heart of the matter when he described Mesereau as “an attorney not afraid of the lion’s den.” And he raised the crowd to cheers when he said, “You saw him with Michael Jackson doing the impossible.” (As reported in the Boston Herald, November 11, 2005) n