by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret KimberleyThe first Black president, having just smacked down New York state's first Black governor, refuses to endorse the Democrat who would be New York City's second Black mayor. Is there a pattern here? And where is that “newly energized, enlightened and involved citizenry” that Barack Obama had called forth. Black voters appear to have returned to the apathy from whence they came.
Freedom Rider: Obama Disses Black Politicians
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Obama won’t even go through the motions of making a formulaic endorsement on Thompson’s behalf.”
The marketing machine that brought Barack Obama to the White House foisted many insidiously phony claims onto the body politic. Chief among them were the canards that Obama’s ascension would not only lift all black political boats, but also begin a process of politicizing the previously uninvolved masses.
Obama’s very public and very mean spirited smack down of New York Governor David Paterson was bad enough, but it turned out to be part of a pattern of mistreatment directed at other black politicians, too. William Thompson, New York City comptroller and Democratic candidate for New York City mayor, has received only slightly less appalling treatment from the Great Black Hope. Obama won’t even go through the motions of making a formulaic endorsement on Thompson’s behalf. One observer describes the situation this way: "The first black President who tells the first black governor to get out, and he won't help the guy who wants to be the second black mayor? The irony is thick."
The disaffected were moved by the possibility of seeing a black man sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office and by nothing more. Current political activity, or rather lack thereof, proves that predictions of a newly energized, enlightened and involved citizenry are just more foolish Obama-based mythology.
“He won't help the guy who wants to be the second black mayor.”
The New York City primary elections held just one month ago attracted a dismal number of voters to the polls. Only 10% of eligible Democrats, an historic low number, voted in the primaries which determined nominees for city council seats and city wide offices. The throngs who rushed to the polls last November in an effort to make Obama president couldn’t be bothered to make it back to their polling place less than one year later. So much for new energy.
Thompson handily won the low turnout Democratic primary, but he now faces an uphill battle against the Republican incumbent, multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg is only able to run again because he and the city council engineered an end run around the term limits legislation approved by New York City voters in two separate referendums.
Bloomberg made a complete about face on the issue, first calling any efforts to end term limits a “disgrace.” He then spearheaded the effort to insure that he could run for a third term in office and hopefully become mayor for life. The blatant undoing of the will of the voters has made Bloomberg unpopular, even among many of his past supporters.
“Predictions of a newly energized, enlightened and involved citizenry are just more foolish Obama-based mythology.”
Despite the billionaire’s bottomless pit of campaign dollars, voter anger at Bloomberg’s arrogance and the purported new political involvement of voters ought to make Thompson a more credible challenger. Yet Thompson’s unwillingness or inability to boldly speak to issues of particular concern to people of color means that he will go down in history as yet another Democrat who couldn’t beat a Republican mayor in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
New Yorkers, particularly black New Yorkers, are suffering from unemployment rates well in excess of official figures. New York’s police policy of stopping and frisking thousands of black and Latino youth without cause is a campaign issue ready made to energize voters. They silently seethe about the practice but have no political power or political allies who will stop it. Bloomberg’s endless bragging about rising test scores comes at the expense of true educational achievement, and turns children of color into mindless drones who know nothing more than how to take tests. It isn’t Bloomberg’s billions that will keep Thompson out of City Hall, but Thompson’s timidity and refusal to attack his opponent in a way that meaningfully addresses voters’ concerns.
Giddy excitement caused by Barack and Michelle’s encounters with popes and monarchs won’t translate into political activity. The adulation and idol worship of Obama generates nothing but more idol worship. The formula for political success is unchanged. It is politics that generates political activity and its absence generates apathy, even if a black man is president.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.com.
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This week, BAR's poet-in-residence discusses his work, we learn why Bill Clinton, the CIA director and Tony Blair recently visited Guyana. First, the Black vote and election year politics in Michigan.
