I couldn’t put it off any longer, so I had eye surgery last week.
For several days afterward, the world was a blur—no racism, self-hatred, or violence—but my hearing was 20/20, allowing me to listen to radio, podcasts, and television.
By week’s end, I became sickened with one tv commercial that seemingly runs every 12 minutes on cable television: the insurance ad voiced by ‘Jonathan,’ selling a life (death) insurance policy for $9 a month. No exception, no age limit, and no reality.
Jonathan (a former company employee) fails to reveal that the policy won’t pay for the average African American home-going gathering, much less the funeral, as it is worth only $1,000. Not a scam, but…
I mention that ad because it was still ringing in my head when my vision cleared, and I saw this week’s ‘plantation elections’ through prisms that were previously a confusing blur.
And what I saw particularly in the most defining school board elections in recent memory was a deceptive and disingenuous (maybe even racist) Democratic Party ruse that Jonathan could use as a similarly deceiving topic for an insurance commercial.
Through my new vision, there are no longer any delusionary shadows obscuring my sight, and what’s in clear focus is another example of a betrayal of our community that will not only stagnate the Black Agenda but doom another generation of Black children to second-class citizenship.
Since most of the Black community has 40/40 vision and is forced to see through glasses produced in sweatshops using cheap materials, let me put this in focus:
Milwaukee has the worst-performing public school district in the entire United States. That paradigm partly exists because the teachers union—admittedly—has prioritized guaranteed employment, salary, and benefits over the education of students, 80% of whom are ‘colored.’
Eight of the nine MPS board members were hand-picked by the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (MTEA) to serve that organization’s interests, which included blocking every major reform in the last three decades.
Yesterday’s election provided an unprecedented opportunity to elect a slate of candidates who would challenge that paradigm. But aside from historic Black apathy (another disgrace, particularly given the election coincided with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination anniversary), those ‘Damn Dem’s’ interference swayed the election.
In these politically polarizing times, I assume I must clarify I am not a Republican, and aside from its support of school choice, I feel about them the way I do about Donald ‘Trumpster’ and hog maws: I can’t stand them for the most part.
If Black folks take off their brand-name sunglasses and start our own party, I will be among the first to jump on board, as I’ve been advocating for that paradigm since Lot was ‘raped’ by his daughters.
(Sorry, you must read the bible to know about that.)
But we’ve been stuck with the Dems because the GOP has either dissed, insulted, or stymied us since 1964.
That situation has left us open to exploitation, victimized by ‘plantation politics’ in which the overseers (poverty pimps) benefit from our dysfunction and ignorance. The Dems are the glue that holds those chains together.
In part, because we are a gullible people, we have essentially allowed the Dems to use, abuse, and misuse us to the point of ridiculous redundancy.
Tuesday’s election was the cherry on top —providing proof positive of the Demo Party’s scheme to reassert their influence over us and to further trap our children in a failing prototype through which we falsely believe Jonathan’s $1,000 insurance policy is the best we can buy.
Apparently, most of us were looking through foggy lenses when the state Democratic Party withdrew their policy of neutrality in the non-partisan 2004 mayoral race by stabbing former Common Council President and Acting Mayor Marvin Pratt in the back.
Pratt had been assured the Dems would stay out of the race, but after he convincingly won the primary, funds, and resources were provided to Tom Barrett.
That betrayal not only led to the election of Governor Scott Walker because of the Black backlash, but left us thinking where Milwaukee would be today had Marvin won.
We slept through similar betrayals since then in local races, but I went ballistic when the state party involved itself in the state superintendent race two years ago.
Jill Underly, a hypocrite whose only exposure to Black people was from watching syndicated episodes of ‘Good Times,’ was the chosen pick of the state and local teachers unions solely because she would maintain the status quo.
Underly faced a candidate with a proven record of successfully closing the achievement gap in Brown Deer. But her prior employment in private and charter schools posed a threat.
Making that election even more chilling was that Underly not only mentioned she had no knowledge of the challenges of urban education. But she did possess an accommodating qualification—she declared opposition to any Black family leaving MPS for better educational options. That statement was inflammatory because Underly sent her children to private schools!
The Dems put six figures into Underly’s campaign treasury and dictated to other special interests that they do the same.
There have been a dozen similar incidences of Dem ‘interference and manipulation.’ But yesterday’s races provide the penultimate and far-reaching example.
The party involvement in local school board elections is endemic to the ‘Demo templat’e. For 30 years, they’ve made it clear that despite our crucial vote, teacher union support is more highly regarded.
And that disingenuous paradigm flies in the face of the party’s claim to ‘love’ us ‘darkies’ since it dooms thousands of our children to substandard education and limited life choices.
If I were a one-issue voter, my central concern would focus on education or, in the case of Milwaukee, a total restructuring of our city’s abysmal government education system before a state takeover or it goes bankrupt.
In that case, I would totally abandon the Dem party.
The state and county branches put their support behind union-backed candidates, thus denying a slate of community activists a chance to address the Milwaukee Public School’s nation-leading academic achievement deficit.
Despite its stated commitment not to favor any candidate in local non-partisan races, the Dems went so far as to deny access to essential election data to village-endorsed candidates and to reportedly provide resources to union-backed candidates.
Ask Jeff Spence, a former MPS director who found himself targeted and ousted by the MTEA during his term for the crime of questioning board apathy to Black failure.
Despite being a Democrat, he was recently denied essential data from the party whose officials told him they were supporting and endorsing Missy Zombor, a hand-picked candidate of the union.
In fact, Zombor is a former employee of the MTEA and editor of the newsletter, ‘Rethinking Schools.’ That missionary publication has attacked Black leadership for questioning union opposition to reforms and supporting educational options.
In a nutshell, the Demo Party is undermining the Black community to benefit another special interest—the teachers union.
That puts us fifth—behind White folks, unions, women, and poverty pimps.
Obviously, the party’s manipulation of ‘non-partisan’ local elections would not be effective without the ‘blind’ support of various special interests and the ‘Negrocracy,’ Black pawns willing to put their party before their people.
I noted in a social media post that the paternalistic and ‘missionary newspaper,’ The Shepherd Express, not only endorsed union-backed candidates for school board but, in its editorial, never mentioned
In fact, in endorsing Marva Herndon (an African American incumbent) over the superiorly qualified Shandowlyon Hendricks-Reaves, the monthly ‘Missionary’ magazine could only note Herndon’s interest in music and art. Nothing was said about her opposition to MPS reform proposals or anything about a feasibility study proposed last week that would have been conducted by Harvard University to assess MPS policies and programs.
By the way, despite serving on the board ‘overseeing’ the worst-performing district North of Cuba (which probably has a higher graduation rate than MPS), Herndon voted herself a raise last year.
And make no mistake, yesterday’s school board race pitted status quo failure against bold changes that will occur only if power is wrestled away from those who benefit from Black failure. As America’s foremost abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, once declared, “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.”
Douglass—if here were alive right now—would not hold his tongue on Black complicity in our own impotence.
For White party control to continue, they must put some ‘Black faces’ at the vanguard to avoid allegations of racism and paternalism.
Who better than former U.S. senate candidate Mandela Barnes, who gave a non-sensible endorsement of Zombor over Spence.
Or, his support makes ‘cents’ (if you know what I mean) because it benefits Barnes in the immediate future.
I’m not going to jump on the Mandela ‘sell out’ train some have invited me to get on, not because I’m a big fan of Barnes as a train conductor, but because I already have a ticket on the Soul Train.
Suffice it to say, the Democratic Party relies on members of the ‘Negrocracy’ to push their agenda, along with myopic, ‘boot-licking’ Black Dems who see that party as our only hope for equality, justice, and the ‘American Way.’ To that, all I can say is get an insurance policy and hope your reward will come in the next lifetime.
Like most ‘selected…err, elected… those Black Dems can be identified by their rhetoric and excuses (for the lack of progress.)
They nonsensically oppose educational options even as generation after generation of our children are chained to substandard government schools.
Like Barnes, whose senatorial website boldly declared his mother was a teacher but fails to mention she and her ‘third’ shift worker father—a good brother I went to school with—sent him to private school.
Those who disingenuously declare Barnes lost in his bid to replace U.S. Senator Ron Johnson this year because ‘White racists’ didn’t vote for him did so either out of ignorance or because they continue to ignore the obvious: Barnes lost because hecouldn’t rally the Black vote.
Barnes saw a reduced local Black vote becausemany tribal members questioned his loyalty (beyond the usual rhetoric) to the village and his hypocrisy regarding school choice.
If you recall, even Black Radio dissed him, andseveral Black leaders noted he ignored campaigning in the Black community because he didn’t want to confront questionable topics.
Moreover, he completely dissed the BlackMedia.
And his reward for supporting a failing, raciststatus quo: He is again a favorite of the party,which will make sure his new PAC organization,The Long Run, will be funded. That organization,ironically, will find and train like-minded ‘minorities’ who put party before people.
I expected to take off my patches a few days agoto see a rainbow created by the election of a slateof board candidates who would stop the educational bleeding slowly draining our village.
Instead, to my dismay–but not my surprise–theoverwhelming majority of Black folks wereswayed by Jonathan and spent the day amassing $9 to purchase Jonathan’s $1,000 policy.
Hotep.
(Signifyin is the sole opinion of its author, anddoes not necessarily reflect the position of thepublisher.)
Leave a Reply