Black leaders simply out of touch - Chicago Sun-Times

Black leaders simply out of touch

LAURA WASHINGTON LauraSWashington@aol.com

' + first_letter + ' Feb 28, 2011 02:54AM

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The black consensus candidate debacle was the most controversial chapter in the story of the race to replace Mayor Richard M. Daley.

My post-mortem: The consensus effort to elect a black mayor was doomed from the start. It was founded on the flawed and antiquated argument that only an African American can address what ails black Chicago. The consensus search also revealed that many of the city’s black elders are out of sync with today’s electorate.

The ghost of Harold Washington hovered over the consensus scramble. For months, activists, business honchos and politicians tediously invoked Chicago’s iconic first black mayor as a model of winning City Hall “back.” In the end, there was no resemblance to the historic grassroots movement that jettisoned Washington into the mayoralty.

Today’s black voters knew the score. Here’s what Patricia Mosley, a 53-year-old African American who voted for Rahm Emanuel, told the Associated Press: “It’s pretty naïve, and frankly a little insulting, that they think our intelligence is so low that they say the name ‘Harold Washington’ and people will vote for you.”

Naive, insulting and embarrassing.

Yes, in 1983, Washington was drafted by black movers and shakers. But his campaign’s reform agenda grew up from the grassroots. The 2011 consensus effort was a politically expedient shell game dictated by a handful of African-American elders. On New Year’s Eve, after weeks of squabbling, posturing and microphone grabbing, the reverends and the congressmen engineered the backroom deal that selected Carol Moseley Braun.

Harold Washington’s political base was African American, but he was elected by a combine of white and Latino progressives, union activists and disaffected Democratic Party regulars. From the beginning, the 2011 consensus process was narrowly focused on black interests, alienating many of the voters any consensus candidate needed to win: whites, Asians and the city’s burgeoning Latino population.

Those guys sure could pick ‘em. Braun ran a pathetic campaign. Forget about the lip service. It was Braun’s acid tongue that got her into the most trouble.

I hate to say this (well, not really), but I told you so. After Braun emerged as the consensus candidate, I wrote that, while she has the most alluring smile in politics, voters should “watch out for those razor-sharp ivories.” She proceeded to excoriate her competitors and other political bystanders, culminating in her now-infamous “strung out on crack” attack on another black woman — in the sanctuary of a black church, no less.

Braun, a former ambassador and senator, did not win one single black ward in Chicago.

The black consensus brain trust never understood ongoing generational and demographic shifts in the black community. Chicago has lost more than 200,000 residents in the last decade. Most were African American. Black voters are getting younger and are sophisticated enough to understand that voting in their own self interest means reaching beyond race.

Rather than pandering and race-baiting, Emanuel hit the ‘hoods and argued credibly for jobs, economic development and efficiency, personal responsibility and public safety. We’ll know soon enough if he intends to deliver.

We have come a long way, and that’s a good thing. Hosea Martin, a longtime political observer, sent me his post-election take: “African Americans objected to being delivered by a ‘consensus candidate,’ ” he wrote Wednesday. “It reminded them too much of plantation owners deciding what was best for slaves.”

via suntimes.com

Posted via email from Brian's posterous