Anne McC wrote:
The best thing about this race is that the African American community has
produced two viable and experienced candidates for this office.
Ms. McCandless, have you not heard what people in the fifth have been
saying? The subtext is that Mr. Samuels is Jamaican and Ms. Johnson Lee
is African American. Mr. Samuels, perhaps inadvertently, fuels that
resentment by talking about his life in Jamaica, an island culture under
British rule until 1962, a British rule that outlawed slavery in 1807,
though the Brits maintained an indentured servitude every bit as
inhumane as slavery well beyond that date.
... But again, nobody seems to care.
There is a distinction, in my mind, between those who do not care a whit
and those who cannot express their care in ways that are obvious to the
bystander. The only way to judge that is by looking at the public
records of each candidate and comparing them. So far, this particular
race seems mired in issues which do not encompass the concerns of the
ward as a whole, allowing for a great deal of blah-blah, but leaving no
space for examining the records of candidates unless the electorate
pushes the issue firmly and frequently.
While I wouldn't call Travis Lee's publication pornography, it is not going
to win a Pulitzer any time soon.
Here, you are indulging in the same blah-blah.
Don's reference to his ancestor's position on the plantation may have
politically incorrect, but certainly doesn't mean he thinks he's better that
most of his race or that he doesn't care for his African American constituents.
Not quite accurate. Mr. Samuels is positing the notion that his personal
solution is to open his home so that every kid in the neighborhood can
get a look at how his family lives, which he obviously thinks is
superior to how the families around him live. Statements like those Mr.
Samuels is making are guaranteed to get people's hackles to rise.
Insulting one's opponent's husband as a pornographer is also guaranteed
to turn away voters, unless, of course, Mr. Samuels is playing to a
portion of the constituency which agrees that his house is superior and
that Mr. Lee is a pornographer.
(I'll reiterate the caveat that I have never met Mr. Samuels. I have met
Ms. Johnson Lee, casually, but cannot say I have ever had a conversation
with her. I have never lived in the fifth ward, either.)
I wish, but do not see it happening, that the mud would stop and these two
candidates, and their supporters, would start having an honest, public
discussion about the real problems facing our community and ways to fix
them.
They are having a brutally honest discussion, but not a productive one.
It remains in your hands as a voter to bring up both records and compare
the two before November 8. It's the voters who must keep them on task
and on message.
WizardMarks, Central
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