For a variety of cultural reasons, WTMJ-4 is my favorite local station.
But I won’t be watching that station’s senatorial debate on July 27.
My decision is not related to my cynical disposition about politics. Nor is it because I’ve already committed to a candidate for next month’s primary elections.
It’s not because the movies ‘Rosewood’ or ‘Glory’ is on a competing channel, even though I’ll probably be watching the African Channel on cable.
Instead, my reasoning can be summed up by two concerns:
First, aside from presentation—the respective candidates’ ability to articulate the issues—I assume they will read from the same script Democrats have been reading from for the last 50 years.
In essence, I’ve heard it all before, which strongly indicates that nothing has changed but the tax rate and our tribal illusion of progress.
Different mouths— including two big lips—but the exact words.
A quick reading of the senatorial candidates’ campaign literature suggests their platforms and campaign issues are eerily similar to what Jimmy Carter espoused when I had black hair and could dance.
In fact, I would venture to guess their overlapping platforms were written by the same consultant—a left-of-center, eyeglass-wearing White college grad student who will someday run a poverty organization or a Las Vegas whore house.
Secondly, and equally importantly, based on the station’s participatory guidelines, one of the most exciting candidates has been excluded.
Without Darrell Williams’ unique perspective, the debate will be, at best, monotone and, at worse, deceptive.
You can learn more about TMJ’s rationale for excluding Williams in his letter to the editor in this publication (see below).
In a nutshell, the station management based its ‘eligibility’ requirement for participation on an artificial determination that all participants must show five percent support or 5,000 campaign contributors.
But first things first, second or third, depending on your point of reference and your political affiliation: card-carrying Democrat, party pawn, or independent pragmatist.
For all intents and purposes, the primary race is a contrast of personalities more than an examination of platforms and promises.
Aside from their respective resumes, I could write a press release for most of them without the benefit of an interview.
For all intents and purposes, the only variations are generally linked to the ‘hue,’ money, and name recognition.
Presentations are orchestrated based on circumstances, demographics, and news events.
The Supreme Court decision on abortion prompted each candidate to release the same press release, probably penned by the same consultant. The same applies to mass murders, inflation, and Critical Race Theory.
The African American candidates are expected to personalize issues like systemic racism. Still, they won’t criticize the church for its role, nor will they recite Frederick Douglass’ ‘what does your July 4 mean to me’ speech in rural Wisconsin.
All candidates will play to the Black community, knowing whoever wins will automatically receive the Black vote and liberal vote.
That’s how the game is played, and if you don’t believe me, look under the bed at the Watergate Hotel. There’s a red, white, and blue book there that explains the process.
Many years ago, I wrote a column about being pressured for an interview with a local political candidate as I was trying to rush out the office door en route to an assignment.
I told the candidate to write down a simple quote (don’t worry about spelling) and leave it with the receptionist, and I would finish a story within 10 minutes of my return to the newspaper office.
She thought I was being sarcastic, but I was being accommodating.
With few exceptions, most candidates for local office use the same campaign template—they are concerned about crime and inadequate housing pool, jobs, and poverty.
In a nutshell, I posited that we—naive Black political pawns—elect our politicians based on their ability to articulate the problems but rarely, if ever, to provide solutions.
The same is true of this senatorial election.
The exception may be Mandela Barnes, who is running a television commercial (paid for by an out-of-state special interest), declaring he will ‘make’ the rich pay their fair share.
The optimal word is ‘make.’
With that type of power—the ability to do something no other politician in American history has accomplished— I would be a fool not to vote for him.
In fact, I may have to worship him since he has power similar to Yeshua’s.
Innovative candidates today don’t make promises- unless they speak to Black people—because they realize few voters are gullible enough to believe they can bring them to fruition.
They can’t bring peace to the Middle East, have no power to provide ‘family supporting’ jobs for millions of Black Americans, and won’t remove guns from the streets.
President Joe Biden lost me when he ‘suggested’ he would end systemic racism. I guess he attends the same church as Mandela.
For me, the litmus test is not whether they will lie about dreaming the impossible dream, but whether once or twice a term they will buck the status quo and put their people before their party.
And while that sinks in, allow me to clue you in on a lesson they don’t teach in civics class if they offer that subject in government schools these days:
Partisan politicians of all hues and sexes are responsible—and responsive to—their party, not their people or tribe.
And in the case of Democrats, we only get an audience when we scream, threaten, or riot. And even then, little happens other than their respective city is flooded with federal money, which ends up in the hands of poverty pimps.
The bottom line is that we are pawns in the political prostitution process. Unless you hold membership (dues-paying) in the ‘corporation,’ you have virtually no say in the party platform and probably won’t get a return call.
Let me put that in Ebonics if you don’t’ understand English.
Ninety-seven percent of the Black voters who pencil in a Democratic Party candidate at the polls have no input in the policies of that party.
Another point for clarification: The corporate money contributed to a campaign speaks much louder than your vote.
And that fact transcends the wealth of the candidate.
Access to media is also a major contributing factor, but money buys media.
For example, while Alex Lasry has wealth behind him, it is negated by Barnes’ outside contributors, which include the Democratic Party’s left-wing status quo and his position as lieutenant governor, which provides him with free media.
In Wisconsin, the lieutenant governor is a ceremonial post, wielding little actual power.
What the position does allow, however, is the opportunity to campaign full time, at government expense, complete with travel reimbursement and armed security.
Several candidates have noted that factor puts them at a severe disadvantage. To them, I say, ‘blame the game, not the player.’
Only Lasry, who has closed the enormous name recognition gap between himself and Barnes in the last few months, could sway the Black vote if any of the starting five of the Milwaukee Bucks endorse his campaign or the Black mayor and county executive aggressively campaign for him in the next couple of weeks.
Both Mayor Chevy Johnson and County Executive David Crowley endorsed Lasry months ago.
Barnes has been able to neutralize that impressive advantage somewhat because of his ethnicity in a minority-majority city and name recognition as the state’s highest-ranking public official. But that advantage is tenuous unless he uses his race to convince Black voters he’s one of us.
He can and has used that strategy recently when he read off a script and spoke about how America is built on a platform of White supremacy and legalized apartheid.
Of course, rubbing White faces in 500 years of racist dirt can also backfire.
Some Whites don’t want to be blamed for the conduct of their bigoted ancestors, even if they have benefitted from apartheid.
Even though Barnes is a classic ‘liberal’ Democrat, as illustrated by his opposition to school choice despite overwhelming Black support for the initiative, he is following in Barack Obama’s footsteps advocating that he is a candidate for all the people and not just us.
This takes me to the dichotomy inherent in the campaign of Williams, the other Black candidate.
Unlike his peer, Williams is a strong supporter of the Black Media. He is also the only candidate to publicly announce he is willing to buck the status quo when it benefits our tribe.
In a nutshell, not only does he possess the most diverse resume, he would prioritize out-of-the-box solutions to our myriad issues, starting with tearing down the walls of educational apartheid. That makes him an unacceptable candidate to special interests— teachers’ unions and poverty pimps—who want to maintain the failing status quo.
But you won’t know the extent of Williams’ independence—willingness to put the people before the party—if you tune into WTMJ’s debate because he has been excluded from participation.
And you can’t call the station’s decision racist since another person of color is included.
But without Williams pressing his opponents to offer solutions instead of promises, I can only assume the debate will be more, so a beauty contest than a no-holds-barred kumite.
Indeed, I can promise the invited candidates will spend two hours pimp slapping incumbent Senator Ron Johnson instead of offering concrete solutions to the myriad issues stagnating Black empowerment.
Then again, maybe the station is predicting its decision to exclude Williams out of fear that he could upset the political apple cart.
Imagine what would happen if he raised questions about why the feds continue to lie about the unemployment rate or why Wisconsin has the lowest percentage of African American students proficient in fourth and eighth grade reading in the North, West, and Southern Hemispheres.
And that latter point is despite a governor who previously served as superintendent of Public Instruction and has commercials in which he is described as overseeing the best school system in Wyoming. Oops, excuse me, Wisconsin.
Lord help the other candidates if Williams is allowed to ask why Wisconsin is cast as the worse place for African Americans in the United States, hosts the highest Black male incarceration rate and the lowest homeownership rate, despite a half-century of political promises and Black folks running every local branch of government, save for truant officer.
In fact, I would be surprised if they ventured down that avenue anyway.
Suffice it to say, Williams could generate a blinding light and make his opponents uncomfortable by asking specific examples of what would happen if 99 of the senate’s elected representatives were Democrats. Probably the same thing that happened during Barack Obama’s first two years in the White House when Dems controlled the house and senate. In face you forgot, the Dems spent much of those two years stabbing the brother in the back, side, and front.
Democrats have been running a game on us since LBJ invited the media to a press conference while he sat on the toilet. Most of us still have figured out that the Dems and Republicans are different wings on the same bird. And it is not a bald eagle.
But the Dems did learn their lesson. Even though they haven’t passed the John Lewis or police reform accountability bills, they did appease—or confuse— black folks by showing up at a press conference wearing kente scarfs.
In case you haven’t figured it out, while some of us called that symbolic gesture insulting and racist, Nancy Pelosi, and crew, felt comfortable knowing their Black colleagues wouldn’t question them.
Hotep.
SEPARATE STORY….
Tamu Kanyama (aka Ann Lockhart-Norman), author of the semi-biographical book, ‘1148 Lewis Street: A Long Journey’ will appear at two book signing in Milwaukee this week.
Kanyama, a Milwaukee native, will appear at the Black Historical Society and Museum, 27th and Center Streets, on Friday, July 15 at 7 p.m.
She will also be available on Saturday, 11 a.m., at Coffee Makes You Black, Teutonia and Hadley Streets.
Kanyama grew up in Milwaukee and attended North Division high school before securing a bachelor’s degree. She taught school until retirement.
‘1148 Lewis Street’ details her journey as a member of the Republic of New Africa, a Black nationalist organization that was targeted by the FBI and other federal agencies based on its calls for establishing an independent Black nation.
Viewed in the same light as the original Black Panthers, government agencies plotted to undermine the organization through harassment, intimidation and the imprisonment of members, including Kanyama’s husband.
Kanyama currently lives in Atlanta, where she works with her daughter at an alternative school named in her honor.
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