The Strong Gravitational Pull of Ignorance

The Strong Gravitational Pull of Ignorance

I recently watched a documentary on PBS’s POV series called “Street Fight”. It detailed the all out brawl on the campaign trail in Newark between the incumbent mayor Sharpe James and the reform candidate Corey Booker. This was a classic battle against the entrenched incumbent who used his gift of personal relationship with the community to form a permanent bond with them versus the upstart, young politician who has a formal university education and who can see through the B.S. and tactics that the mayor uses to endear himself with the masses, tired of having his intelligence insulted.

What was amazing to me is the standard tactics that were brought onto the battlefield by the James supporters to suppress the challenge from the challenger. Amazingly enough even though the challenger was a Black male who is a Democrat the Sharpe James campaign realized that truth is no obstacle. They know the mentalities of their base of support and as a result they painted Booker as a White boy, a Republican, a Jew who has no experience and is a “carpetbagger” to the city.

The depressed state of much of the city was not a barrier to their choice to focus on the need to repulse this threat of new ideas from the upstart candidate.

The most disappointing part of the documentary was that the very tactics of voter suppression and voter intimidation and dirty tricks that is often complained about by traditional civil rights organizations, often with Whites or Republicans being accused of dirty tricks against Black voters who tend to vote for the Democrats. The NAACP, having seen this documentary must be recoiling in embarrassment that the people who they have fought for for so long have learned the tricks of the trade from their long time adversaries and are applying these tactics within their own domain. I have always said to many of the loudest decriers of racism who also show their own bit of corruption that “there is little difference between their mindset and the mindset of racist Whites except that they have never had power over another group of people to impose their ill-will against them. This documentary so perfectly showed this to be the case.

Amazingly enough the challenge for the James supporters was to keep the critical issues that Corey Booker was bringing up as to the problems that saturate the city off of the table and to keep the campaign down in the gutter. Sadly enough the campaign management for the James campaign, both Black and White, seemed to know the mentality of their base and they drove the standard of dialogue downward in order to connect to these people.

So much of the issue was couched on the rejection and repudiation of Corey Booker as a “White boy who has been educated at the finest schools and who are bringing his fancy ideas into Newark”. His “book knowledge” and methodical way of approaching problems disqualifies him to be their lead because he is out of touch with their level of comfort. The older Black supporters of the Booker campaign did a good job in pointing out how much of what was taking place in the campaign is a slap in the face to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and all of the other civil rights leaders who gave their lives for us to see the day in which a Black man can run for public office based on the strength of his qualifications rather than to have his education to be used against him as a negative and a disqualifier.

The key point is that there is a certain salient mentality that is present in this and other Black communities. This sentiment is open for the stroking of skilled politicians who know how to appeal to the emotions, bitterness and victimization streak that is within these people. These politicians in pursuit of their personal political power are willing to sell out the best interests of the masses.

I personally take a bottom line approach in the hopes to negate this phenomenon. We must allow all communities as much independence as possible to make their own choices as long as these choices are within the bounds of the greater US Constitution which binds us. With these choices comes the responsibility for them to be held accountable for the destination that these decisions have lead them. It is important to communicate ‘best practices’ to the masses to allow them to be aware of all of the choices and potential results. Ultimately, however, when an external force is brought in to rescue them from the blunt feel that their decisions have brought to bear we do nothing but extend this ignorance as they are made immune to the real consequences of their choices.

As a Black man who dares to challenge the popular political mandate that is within the Black community I am often subjected to these same tactics. Amazingly enough some of the very people who I have heard denounce the tactics used by Sharpe James are also inclined to use them against “thought minorities” within the Black community.

To counter act this gravitational pull where I suppress my criticism of the popular ideology and “Go Along To Get A Long” or “Get In Where I Fit In” I have come up with the concept of judging such policies NOT by their popularity but by their EFFECTIVENESS. This effectiveness is made in reference to the common goals that community has. This might be goals for education, economic development & self sufficiency, general health and the condition of the family unit within the community. Sadly the reason why the gravitational pull is required is because many of these policies FAIL to meet the standards of when measured against these common goals. In a strange twist of fate, however, it is these underhanded tactics of gravitational pull that have been proven to be EFFECTIVE at keeping themselves engrained into the community and the people who use them in power. Thus the community is standing in the location to which it has walked.