What are the characteristics we should be looking for in our
leaders?
Imagine
how things might have been different if, instead of Messrs. Forbes and Pinkney
signing off on reapportionment and redistricting plans for NE Ohio drawn up in
Columbus back rooms, these gentlemen had advised House Speaker Batchelder, “Bill, you really should be discussing this
with House and Senate members from this district. They are the currently
elected representatives of the areas you propose to affect. We would be
delighted to arrange that session for you if you would like.”
What
if, instead of a closed circle of elders whose process enervates rather than
energizes community action, state
senators Shirley Smith and Nina Turner, or state representatives Barbara Boyd,
Sandra Williams, Bill Patmon, and John Barnes had pre-empted Batchelder's end-run and called for community input, or a metropolitan wide teach-in?
What
if PolicyBridge or United Pastors in Mission had convened a gathering of
community experts or representatives to initiate a discussion about the shape
of a new Congressional district or the imminent new state legislative
districts?
What
if one or more of those legislators or community citizens had stood up and
questioned whether the concerns that animated us in 1968 were, or should be,
still the most pressing considerations in 2012?
What
if our political players focused on fostering a kind of leadership that looks at the big picture instead of
scrambling for crumbs, that doesn’t marginalize black representation but
recruits and nurtures black candidates who could confidently seek votes across
all kinds of ethnic or religious lines?
Italian,
Irish, Jewish, Slavic candidates repeatedly come into our communities and ask
for our support. And when we find them worthy, we give it to them. These
candidates are usually accompanied by elected black officials whose stance and
rhetoric and inaction tell us that they are afraid to go into Italian, Irish,
Jewish, and Slavic communities and ask for support.
The
masses of black people loved Carl Stokes and Stephanie Tubbs Jones and love
Barack Obama because they earned our trust to the point that they could campaign
in any community and remain authentically themselves.
That
is one reason that it was so distressing in 2008 when former Congressman Louis
Stokes, put the kibosh on a new county charter because, he said, a black
candidate could never win the office of county executive. He said this at the
very moment that presidential candidate Barack Obama was eradicating barriers
right and left, north and south. [1]
Insofar
as we accept that African Americans can only win in jurisdictions that are
heavily black, we limit our horizons and our prospects. We handicap our
candidates and our best leaders. We marginalize ourselves. And we tell the
world that we have no confidence in our leaders or ourselves.
Our
political model is seriously outmoded. There was a time not long ago in this
community where African Americans simultaneously headed Cleveland City Hall, the
Cleveland Foundation, the Growth Association, and a host of other major
institutions and agencies. Who can argue that we don’t have the talent to lead
this community?
We
have a broken political structure in our community based on obsolete tapes
of decades gone by. It discourages many of our most potentially able leaders from
even considering political office. It casts a pall on our polity and our
economy, locally and regionally. It reduces our regional strength and
diminishes our statewide impact. And, I believe, it is a major reason why so
many black voters stay away from the polls on Election Day.
What
do you think? How can we move forward?
[1] It
was the esteemed former Congressman’s solitary and non-community processed veto that resulted in the overwhelming
adoption the following year that was inferior to a more reasoned and equitable
plan developed by a bi-partisan study group that included community-wide input
and a more transparent process.
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