Introduction
Ellis Cose, Writer
"And as Curry makes clear, the 2002 Newark mayoral race was nothing if not a descent into racial madness. For long stretches, it was not so much a substantive political campaign as a battle over blackness and who best embodied it. This is not to say it wasn't good politics." | Read more »
"I have always suspected that blacks would be as fascist, greedy, violent, criminal, and racist as whites if given the opportunity to be so and Sharpe James proves me right, sadly. We fought, march and died for our civil rights and all we want to do with them is become everything we fought, marched and died opposing." | Read more »
Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, Minister
"In most instances, by the time an African-American was elected mayor of a chocolate city there was a rapid decline in the both the fiscal and physical infrastructure. Yet, Black mayors have local mystics that emphasize the past in light of a tepid present and uncertain future. " | Read more »
Ellis Cose
Newark's Native Son
Baldwin was not writing about electoral politics, nor was he specifically writing about Newark. Still, in many ways that essay remains relevant, certainly to the situation of Cory Booker, who thought he was running against Mayor Sharpe James but discovered on the hard streets of Newark, New Jersey that he was also running against the power of prejudice -- and at the cruel mercy of reflexes, orchestrated by James, and triggered in part by the color of his skin.
Booker was not, in the manner of Baldwin, tossed out of restaurants, bars and bowling allies. His battle was not with Jim Crow and its precise rules of racial hierarchy. Instead, Booker was up against something in some ways more insidious -- or at least harder to effectively confront. How, after all, does one fight whispers suggesting a lack of racial bona fides; accusations that, skin color notwithstanding, one is not really black? Impressive as Booker's credentials might be, they could not insulate him against racial craziness. And as Curry makes clear, the 2002 Newark mayoral race was nothing if not a descent into racial madness. For long stretches, it was not so much a substantive political campaign as a battle over blackness and who best embodied it.
This is not to say it wasn't good politics. Faced with Booker's credentials and his support among the intelligentsia, the wily incumbent saw an irresistible opening for racial demagoguery. And voila, he conjured up the demons of racial distrust and tarnished the newcomers glittering resumé (brought to you courtesy of Stanford, Yale, Oxford) with racial suspicion. In so doing, he focused minds not on the future but on America's painful racial history. And he evoked resentment and anger over ancient, yet unforgotten, conflicts -- not just between blacks and whites, but between dark blacks and light blacks, educated blacks and street blacks, local blacks and outsider blacks.
That was battle, for which, Booker simply was not prepared. Bright and motivated as he was, he was no match, in the end, for the old warrior -- whose tactics were offensive but effective, and got James the fifth term in office he craved. In the tale no doubt are lessons not only about the virulence of racial memory, but also about the hubris of youth, the sagacity of age and the corrupting nature of power.
James's long tenure and ruthlessness inevitably invite comparisons with Richard J. Daley, the former mayor (some would say emperor) of Chicago, who first took office in 1955, the year Baldwin's article appeared in Harper's Magazine. That, of course, was well before Booker was born, and certainly before anyone could have predicted that Newark would one be run by a longtime black mayor who personified machine politics in Newark no less than Daley did in Chicago.
The good news, for Booker, is that time is on his side. Inevitably Sharp James's day will pass, just as the sun eventually set on Richard J. Daley. In the meantime, Curry done us the favor of reminding us that, some fifty years after Martin Luther King, Jr. appeared on the national scene, we on whose behalf the civil rights movement was waged still have much to overcome -- both in ourselves and in our nation.
Next: Debra Dickerson -- The revolution has finally been televised »
Ellis Cose is the author of several books, including The Envy of the World, The Rage of a Privileged Class and Bone to Pick. He is also a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine.
Debra Dickerson
The Revolution Has Finally Been Televised
The parallels are undeniable: Jim Crow said that blacks were happy the way things were and didn't need 'outside agitators' coming in and stirring things up. James says that Booker was a carpetbagger telling black Newark how bad everything was when there was so much new development in the business district and the suburbs. Jim Crow sent the police and civilian thugs to harass, beat, and 'disappear' journalists, movement workers and their sympathizers. James sent the police and civilian thugs to 'disappear' Booker's supporters' jobs, businesses, and reputations; both he, his handlers and his police officers roughed up sympathizers and journalists covering Booker. James' is as arrogant, amoral and corrupt in his power, the power conferred on him by the blood of the Movement dead, as Jim Crow ever was.
I have always suspected that blacks would be as fascist, greedy, violent, criminal, and racist as whites if given the opportunity to be so and Sharpe James proves me right, sadly. We fought, march and died for our civil rights and all we want to do with them is become everything we fought, marched and died opposing. "Street Fight," much as it saddened and angered me, didn't make me want to cry until Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson showed up to march with the Rolls Royce-driving, double-dipping, overpaid and venal mayor of a city which ignores its black poor (between elections) and who refuses to shake the hand of his young, black opponent. It's perfectly fine for Sharpe James to fight hard to beat that young, black opponent. It's heinous that he did so by telling a beleaguered black community that to be an All American football hero, a Rhodes Scholar, a Yale Law grad who lives in the projects and doesn't drink, smoke or even eat meat is to be "white."
It's time for the Movement generation to retire. They're out of both ideas and moral capital. It's time to let the generations they claimed to be fighting for take the stage.
Next: Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou -- Beyond the generation gap »
Debra Dickerson has written for The New Republic, The Washington Post, Talk, Slate, Salon, Essence, and Vibe, and has been featured in "Best American Essays." She is the recipient of the New York Association of Black Journalists' first-place award for personal commentary.
Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou
Beyond the Generation Gap:
Reflections on the Crisis in Black Political Leadership
In contrast, the hip hop generation, which has typically regarded electoral politics with disdain, is coming of age politically. The middle-class members are the harvest of the fields sown by James' generation. Cory Booker's access to an Ivy League education was labored for by his opponent's generation. Despite this, James' generation is hostile to the idea of sharing power with Booker's. While the most thuggish elements of hip hop are the currency of popular culture, the real gangsterization of Newark's political life is on the part of the Sharpe campaign. A number of individuals suffer at the hands of the Sharpe political machine. Street Fight goes into great detail describing the unscrupulous activities of the Sharpe campaign. Name calling, race baiting, and downright intimidation are the hallmarks of the Sharpe political machine. Some would say that this is the nature of local politics and the fallout from the impending transfer of political power from one generation to the next. Street Fight leaves us with the sense that the Old Guard is outdated and there needs to be a change.
A wise man once noted that individuals who demonize a particular subject and individuals who romanticize it have one thing in common: neither has studied the subject deeply. Both Sharpe James and Cory Booker represent different sides of the same impoverished coin. Neither politician is offering the people of Newark a real alternative to the high levels of unemployment and the right wing assault on the poor. Both Booker and James are part of the political crisis in Black political leadership. Being young does not merit political sophistication and a serious political analysis, and harking back to past victory as the justification for holding political office in the present is equally immature.
In fact, one can posit that the crisis in African-American political leadership is not generational but directional. Given the conservative shift in the political climate over the last generation, a serious critique of African-American loyalty to the Democratic Party has been engaged.
The tendency of a new generation of African-American politicians, such as Cory Booker and Congressman Harold Ford, to embrace the conservative strategy of the Democratic Leadership Council, while completely abdicating the radical nature of Black politics -- which gave birth to civil rights legislation and other social and economic justice movements -- is deeply problematic. The fundamental challenge to the Black political leadership is, how it will adjust to the current political climate -- one in which right-wing political discourse shapes public policy.
What is the vision of African-American political leaders for these times? What will Sharpe James and Cory Booker offer to the people of Newark by way of vision in the 2006 election? How will they engage the everyday people of Newark? What are their plans to reduce school overcrowding? What is the plan for developing living wage opportunities in the city? Can they address crime without mandatory minimums? Can they be visionary in their public policy?
Their respective generations and those to come await their answers.
Next Feature: Clarence Page -- The great black hope »
Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou is the National Co-ordinator of the Clergy and Laity Concerned About Iraq. He is the author of the 2001 book, Urban Souls, and a professor of preaching at the Seminary Consortium of Urban Pastoral Education. He resides in the village of Harlem, New York.