Rock Hackshaw has published a lament, a tale of failed promise. It’s about Charles Rangel, war hero, political leader. good guy. Rock’s essay, I suspect, is going to be reprinted often, and I excerpt it here with some reservation, because I urge readers – whatever district they live in – to read Rock’s entire piece, Oh Charlie! Charlie! So here are excerpts – but read the whole article on Rock Hackshaw’s Blog on Room Eight.
As personalities go, Charlie is as warm a politician as they come. I loved to hear and see him laugh -even when he was squirming. I loved to hear him tell his jokes. There was a time when I found him to be inspiring: so too his sidekicks David Dinkins, Basil Paterson and Percy Sutton. But you cannot analyze these guys, their accomplishments and contributions, without looking at where we are as a community (black) compared to when these guys came along and picked up the reins.
When only 1 in every 40 black males alive graduated from college last year; when one in four black male students graduated from high school in NYC last year; when joblessness in the black community was at record highs last year; when blacks made up nearly half of all murder victims nationwide last year; when black victims of gun violence runs way over the natural demographic; when blacks made up a little more than half of all those incarcerated nationwide last year; when black wealth diminished when compared to whites (since 1980 BTW); when last year it was commonplace to find everyday discrimination in banking, housing, employment, insurance, education, business opportunity, etcetera, etcetera; we as a race (negroes) must step back and evaluate the job being done for us in the legislative and administrative corridors of justice, government, business and power, by our so-called leaders and our elected officials. It is that simple. And it is not about blame: it is about the reality. We have to look at all three levels of government and all three branches too, and evaluate how well certain people are performing in our interest: especially the ones we elect to high positions.
Unfortunately in the politics of most black communities, we throw up personalities more so than true leaders. We create a political class which does quite well for certain individuals, their relatives, friends, cronies, backers and enablers; but not so well for the black masses at large: the people they purport to represent at the highest levels of power. What saves the day for all of us in US society, is that the black masses haven’t been recently mobilized, agitated, politically educated and organized for rebellion and social unrest.
A lot of these black politicians are now wealthy beyond their wildest beliefs (pre-election). Politics in the black community has evolved into a self-aggrandizement exercise. And as the power of the black voting base erodes it will be even harder to address the myriad issues facing our community as we elect less and less blacks to office in the future.
Disclosure: my I worked on Rock’s last campaign, and will do so again.
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