Due to an increasingly hectic schedule and a variety of life challenges, it’s been quite a while since I’ve done a blog post, and during my hiatus I’ve missed out on a lot of post-worthy topics. I passed on Henry Louis “Skip” Gates getting a dose of the modern day racism that he has so often minimized. Consequently, I also passed on President Obama’s courage to call the event what it was, and then his audacity for backtracking from his comments. Here locally, I passed on the notorious
“Cracker Barrel Beating”, for which I hope Troy Dale West gets locked
under the jail. And up to this point, I’ve passed on the local Atlanta elections, which have received some national attention, in part, because of the possibility of Atlanta electing its first white mayor in more than 35 years. But after listening to a local radio morning show today, I couldn’t help but be reminded that, as Dr. King once said, "there comes a time where silence is betrayal". That time has come for me in relationship to this Mary Norwood foolishness.
A caller into the
Frank and Wanda Show this morning commented that his reasons for supporting Mary Norwood for Mayor were 1) it’s time for change at City Hall, and 2) she’s “been in the trenches” for communities in the city. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard these points over the past year, and surprisingly enough I’ve often heard it from community activists who I respect and who ought to know better. Every time that I hear it, I get flashbacks of Denzel Washington portraying Malcolm X, telling us "you’ve been hoodwinked!" Bamboozled. Run amuck. Led astray.
The caller this morning was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Let’s put aside for a moment the recent revelations that Norwood is a Republican. In spite of her misleading television ad that she’s voted for Democrats like Barack Obama, it seems pretty clear to me that if you’ve voted in the Republican Primary twelve times in recent elections, that pretty much makes you a Republican.
But I’m not crazy about either party, so let’s move on.
The claim that Norwood somehow represents change is about as legitimate as John McCain representing change in last year’s presidential election. Mary Norwood has been on the council for eight years. Whatever’s wrong with City Hall, guess what—she’s got something to do with it. As
Rachel Maddow would say, "Pot, meet Kettle". You cannot in one breath tell me that you’ve got the leadership and vision to lead this city, and in the next breath cry about how you were misled for eight years and how helpless and powerless you were to do anything about the city’s problems. It’s one thing for Nero to fiddle while Rome burns; it’s another for him to then come asking for a promotion.
As for this claim that Norwood has been in the trenches, I’ll admit this much; she does attend community and neighborhood meetings. But does that make you a community advocate? It seems to me that a community advocate would attend the meetings and then use information from those meetings to create policy. A community advocate would listen to community views on the closing of fire stations, recreation centers and swimming pools (particularly when those closing disproportionately affect Black communities) and DO something! A community advocate would attend the meetings and then request to chair certain City Council Committees, like Community Development or maybe Public Safety, so that they could steer policy solutions. Yet, in eight years, Mary Norwood has never made any such request and has shown absolutely no leadership in the City Council on these issues.
If all you’re doing is attending meetings and not following up in these ways, then that’s not “being in the trenches”. In fact, attending the meetings just becomes public relations and campaigning. Today, more than 40 years after the Voting Rights Act, Black folks ought to be more discerning than that.
Let me be clear. My position on Norwood is not just because she is White. Without hesitation, I’ll support Michael Moore if he ever decides to run for anything (and i'm still trying to find time to see his film "Capitalism: A Love Story"). More importantly, there are a good number of White folks in this country who are truly “in the trenches”—who fight everyday, in relative obscurity, for systemic change and true racial/economic justice—and I gladly call such folks "comrade". But again, let me be crystal clear; Mary Norwood is
NOT that kind of White person.
But with that said, I’m not going to go as far as to say that this has
nothing to do with race, because it does. For at least 15 years now, Atlanta’s political and business leaders have been implementing housing policies that have clearly reshaped the city’s demographics. For years community activists have warned that these policies were intended to shift political control back to Whites, but Black elected officials, and appointees such as those at the dreaded Atlanta Housing Authority, have played along. Lisa Borders has carried the water for developers such as Cousins Properties for years, and now she’s in a situation where she may not even make a run-off. The chickens
DO come home to roost.
It’s one thing if a righteous White candidate comes along and happens to be the best candidate. But it’s quite thing if such a candidate has questionable party affiliations, has failed to show leadership, and appears to be the result of a long term strategy that has used thousands and thousands of Black residents as pawns—pawns who’s unemployment and housing instability are simply viewed as collateral damage. Atlanta must decide which of these scenarios we are faced with, but as for me and
my house…
i'm Cliff, and on that "note", i'm outta here!
