Are Candidates a Reflection of the Voters?
Marion Barry, former Mayor of Washington D.C.
I can remember coming from the store each Sunday morning with the Daily News, my mother’s newspaper of choice.
And after breakfast she’d sit on her bed and get caught up with the “State of the Condition”, often quoting her mother’s wisdom about how…
You can’t believe half of what you read, and most of what you hear
Hearing this enough as a kid I decided to ask what she meant. Her answer, as direct as her previous statement, “It’s important to know the times you live in, because later they’ll be a test“.
Coming from a woman of humble and difficult beginnings in 1950′s Jim Crow Aiken, South Carolina, they continue to instruct me in my evaluation of the “State of the Condition”.
Other sayings from her COMMON SENSE manual….
Never be in anyone’s BACK POCKET for any reason
Avoid being chosen, always better to CHOOSE
Choose a person by what they can do AFTER knowing what must be done
The last of her truism’s can measure a community’s political sophistication, or lack thereof.
For instance, consider how other Brooklyn neighborhoods flourish in spite of where the City’s economy is in the boom-bust cycle.
What makes them different from where you live? Who are their civic/community leaders? What efforts do they bring to change/maintain/improve their surroundings?
If you live in Bedford Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Cypress Hill, East New York, Canarsie, Ocean Hill or Brownsville, you’ve inherited the legacy of anemic progress.
That legacy has its root in The Conspiracy Theory; the all purpose explanation for the disappointments, shortcomings, missed opportunities and squandered resources plaguing the neighborhoods mentioned.
And there are a few content in allowing you to believe in the religion of conspiracy. Why there are Sunday morning radio broadcasts devoted to the proposition airing weekly.
As for the social ills resulting from the anemic progress that make up the pathology in these communities, apathy is the end result.
And the politics of a few, well financed special interests count on your lack of interest or concern during election season.
In the HBO Documentary: The Nine Lives of Marion Barry, we witness the residents of Washington, D.C. begin to determine their destiny and take hold of their political stake in their communities. We also watch the ultimate decline of these communities and witness the residents continue to make the same choice in elected representation.
Expecting a change from a politician who may well be responsible for the very state of their condition.
- Are you responsible for your condition?
- Did you vote in the last local elections held?
- Do you think your choice in elected representation is the reason for the state of the condition where you live?
- Can you measure a candidate’s ability by anything other than your pastor/union leader/civil rights activist’s endorsement?
experience
Marion Barry:
Sometimes, genius is an unbearable burden. Most folks are raised to be “average”; there’s not parenting class for raising them; and because their viewpoint is sooooo different from the rest of us, they probably have a major challenge coping. NOW; that does NOT absolve him of his missteps but I cringe every time I hear his name and pray that THIS time, let it be that he’s re-grouped.
Local Candidates:
Our political potpourri, in my ‘umble opinion, includes “conspiracies” and the like. On the other hand, “To whom much is given; much is required.” Those who know better must do better and I refuse to believe there are so few of us who do not know better than to vote in the kinds of folks who simply are looking for a job. Some of the names listed are folks who either run for the nearest office available; have run since Jesus wept, or have bought into the belief that “our” salvation is political; rather than ECONOMIC!!
Lastly, when each of us who knows the “right path” on any issue, gathers the courage to place our faith in our values and NOT our boss, our mortgage; our car note; etc., I believe the others, slowly but surely, will follow our footsteps. Its our walk, not our talk, that will win the day.
Okay, sermon’s over. Go in Peace. :-)
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