Trump Train stops in Cleveland Heights

Bulletin: events in Charlotte NC today have pre-empted planned showing of this Town Hall, tentatively re-set for broadcast tomorrow at 10pm.

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS OH — Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump spent the morning at New Spirit Revival Center today for what was billed as a “town hall meeting to discuss issues confronting urban America”.

No surprise to those who pay attention, but it turns out it was anything but a Town Hall meeting. More on that later.

There were actually two campaign events this morning at the New Spirit Revival Center. The first was a meeting with black pastors that was open to the media. I was busy claiming a seat on the other side of the huge NSRC complex. The clergy meeting was likely well covered by other reporters, who focused on Don King’s extemporaneous talk that featured his accidental [?!] use of the N-word.

I suspect but don’t as of this writing know that the pastors’ meet up was almost as phony and scripted as the pseudo town hall gathering. You can watch that event on Fox News tonight at 10p in the year-long Trump for President infomercial known as the Sean Hannity Show. Suffice to say that while this will be put in the column of outreach to the black community, fully 80% of the audience was white, overwhelmingly suburban GOP faithful.

The entire event was scripted, the black attendees were corralled in the front row “reserved seat” section, and the dialogue with the community consisted of two, pre-approved questions, neither one of which did Trump actually answer. To the first question, which was about black-on-black violence, Trump called for the nationwide implementation of the “stop and frisk” policies that were notoriously used by the Giuliani administration in New York City in the 1990s. The policy led to phenomenal police incursions in communities of color, the detainment of tens of thousands of black and brown people, and ratcheted up police community hostility. Trump today called the policy “very successful”, either unmindful or disdainful of the fact that a federal court ruled the policy unconstitutional.

The second question came from a disabled US Army veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq war theatres. His question was about what could be done with respect to the criminalization of returning veterans who became addicted to opioids [legal or illegal] and whose lives deteriorate as a result. Trump’s response was to talk about his fantasy wall along the Mexican border.

I will have more to report on this event but it will have to wait for later in the week. I will say that the cast of characters on stage with Trump and Hannity did raise my eyebrow. In addition to Don King, there was Trump running mate Mike Pence, Dr. and Mrs. Ben Carson, former Cleveland attorney turned right-wing west coast media personality Larry Elder, Niger Innis, and the ubiquitous Omarosa.

The show airs at 10p tonight on the Fox News cable channel. Show host Sean Hannity hardly asked Trump any questions, preferring instead to condemn and ridicule Hilary Clinton and the Democrats, cite deplorable statistics about the black community that were totally devoid of any context, and then tee up an opening for Trump to utter a few well-rehearsed lines.

I can’t end without saying that I found this not-Town Hall event to be simultaneously hypocritical, condescending, and phony. Still, there was a certain skill to its execution, designed as it was to create a false image of outreach.

They might have done better had they told the white suburbanites to stay away. Those folk could not have been happier as they led the cheers for virtually every Hannity inanity.

Update on 'Don King Way'

Update: This morning we wrote with uncharacteristic vehemence about the proposed redesignation by Cleveland City Council of a stretch of Cedar Avenue as “Don King Way”. We promised this update after we had reached out to the measure’s co-sponsors, council members Phyllis Cleveland and Mamie Mitchell. We emailed each of them this morning and called them this evening but were able to reach only Ms. Mitchell, alas too late in the evening to conduct an interview. 

We believe this issue merits thorough public discussion that goes beyond even our own excited outburst this morning. We will continue to report on this matter, which we understand will go before a council committee on Monday. Stay tuned!

The Stench of Don King Way

It's fairly mind-boggling to learn that two Cleveland City Council members — Phyllis Cleveland and Mamie Mitchell — have introduced a measure calling for a section of Cedar Ave. to be renamed Don King Way in some bizarre commemoration of the former numbers king pin turned boxing impresario. The proposed action will change the current designation of a section of Shaker Boulevard in front of the Call & Post Building to a stretch of Cedar Ave. that includes the site where King once stomped a man to death over a gambling debt. For his horrific act, King was convicted of second-degree murder — subsequently reduced to first-degree manslaughter — and served four years in prison. After he became rich and famous, King was pardoned for his crime by then-Ohio Gov. James Rhodes.

King is now the owner and publisher of the Call and Post, once a proud voice on behalf of the black community, but now a little-read and mostly useless vehicle that features King’s weekly stream-of-consciousness page one rants on the virtues of Donald Trump [seriously!].

We intend to reach out to Council members to find out just what justification there might be for this proposal. Check back tonight for the response.

Black Cleveland pastor speaks to nation at GOP convention tonight

There has been scant black presence or even visibility inside the arena at the GOP Convention taking place this week here in Cleveland, notwithstanding the fact that this is a majority black city. In fact, early indications are that there may be fewer African American delegates at the event than at any convention since 1964, the year the GOP nominated Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, whose disdain for the black vote -- if not black people -- was, to be be declaratory about it, a self-evident truth.

The black folk who thus far have had a turn at the convention microphone would be called, in the parlance of our forebears, an embarrassment to the race. Darryl Glenn, the Colorado candidate for the US Senate, and Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke, in particular, seemed zealously out of touch with about 95% of the black people in America, including the large number of socially conservative African Americans. As for Dr. Ben Carson, let's just say some people should be brain surgeons and stay away from politics.

I do intend to watch tonight when one of my neighborhood ministers, Rev. Darrell Scott of mega church New Spirit Revival Center, takes the mike. He gained the first dab of his fifteen minutes a few months ago as an apparent organizer of the aborted attempt to have 100 black ministers meet with Donald Trump at the latter's NYC headquarters, reportedly to endorse his candidacy. When word of the gathering leaked, many of the pastors hastily headed for de Nile River, claiming they had been misled as to the meeting's intent.

Scott is scheduled to speak at 9:10 EDT tonight. I'm most curious to hear him. He will be the second black man with local ties to have a platform at the Convention. But Don King deserves a post all his own.

Time for a NAACP president who believes in Black People

There are moments when a speaker will say something that illuminates their core beliefs that is far more revelatory than they could have imagined or intended. It comes across with such immediate and astonishing clarity that all else the speaker says just fades away. For me, such a moment occurred when George Forbes answered a question at the NAACP Executive Committee meeting in September.


Under discussion was the local NAACP branch’s apparent inability to generate much publicity about its ACT-SO program [Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics]. ACT-SO is a student enrichment program to promote academic and artistic excellence among students of African American descent, culminating in a local and national competition.

Cleveland youth have had considerable success in recent years in national competition, bringing home several gold, silver and bronze medals, in addition to numerous scholarship awards. The concern at the September meeting was why the Branch had been unable to get a story about the most recent successes published in the Call & Post, a paper that targets the local black community.
Mr. Forbes’ offhand answer was direct: “Hey, look, it’s a black newspaper. You have to write it, take the pictures, and deliver it to them.”

The remarks were delivered with an avuncular sort of bemusement that the question even had to be asked. 'See here, he was saying, these are black folks. They can’t do any better. It’s not a real newspaper, you know. It’s not like they have real writers and editors.'

There it was: the emperor with no clothes. Here was the leader of the local chapter of the nation’s preeminent civil rights organization, charged first and foremost with defending and advancing the interests of African Americans, pretty much putting down his own race and proclaiming the incompetence of black people.
Is it any wonder that white power brokers in Cuyahoga keep going to him for deal-making about county reorganization, or protection from complaints about a lack of inclusion when multi-million dollar contracts are being discussed?
Keep in mind that Mr. Forbes’ name appears on the masthead of every issue of the Call & Post, advertising his status as “Chief Legal Counsel”. In front of fifteen or so presumed advocates of equality and inclusion, he is publicly, nonchalantly and gratuitously denigrating his incompetent client, owned by his good friend and client, the boxing promoter Don King. [Mr. King would not even be the owner of the paper but for his lawyer’s suggestion, but that’s a story for perhaps another day.]

How long can Cleveland’s black community allow George Forbes to speak for them and allow him to negotiate on their behalf when it is clear he does not respect them?

Mr. Forbes could be heard last week vouching for the integrity of a wealthy white businessman for the umpteenth time. Dan Gilbert can be trusted, he told a lunchtime group of mostly senior citizens – NAACP Life Members whose votes he will be looking for this Sunday to maintain his bully pulpit. Mr. Forbes had dealt with a lot of rich white men, he told the crowd, citing his friend and former client, the late Dick Jacobs -- and he knew which ones to trust. Therefore, the community could be assured that black people would be treated fairly.

One by one, three members of Dan Gilbert’s development team, stood up at the luncheon and assured the crowd in the most reasonable tones, that they would work closely with Mr. Forbes to insure a fair deal for the black community.

Newcomers to Cleveland figure out where Mr. Forbes is coming from after about five minutes of watching this act. They uniformly assert that this kind of “leadership” would not fly in Alabama, Georgia, New York, or wherever they have just come from. How long will we tolerate it here?

In a comment to yesterday’s post, david asked: “Nice as he is, are we to select [attorney Larry] Floyd primarily because he isn't Mr. Forbes? What is it about Mr. Floyd's vision and agenda that makes him the guy?

Fair questions. The first answer is “yes”. The answer to the second question is that Mr. Floyd has been an active member of the branch, volunteering both personal and professional time. He has offered the outlines of a strategic plan for the branch, parts of which at least he seems to have mailed to each eligible voter.

The Floyd plan cites the NAACP’s assets [its history, legal successes, etc.] its weaknesses [including “outdated image, low active membership participation, lack of collaboration with other organizations, etc.] and its current challenges/opportunities [restoring credibility, establishing accountability, fundraising, growing the membership, etc.].

An important sidebar to this race is whether the branch will retain executive director Stanley Miller if Mr. Forbes is re-elected. Longtime branch official Jocelyn Travis declined to run for re-election, fueling speculation that she would like to replace Mr. Miller in a new Forbes administration. Rev. Miller was recruited by Mr. Forbes four years ago following a successful corporate career, but some say that Mr. Forbes has soured on his choice, citing Mr. Miller’s less than wholehearted defense of the NAACP’s endorsement of the statewide ballot issue in 2009. Passage of that issue authorized Dan Gilbert to build and operate the Cleveland casino, the construction of which will has Mr. Forbes as the anointed gate-keeper of black Clevelanders’ interests, pending Sunday’s vote.

Results posted here Sunday as soon as available, possibly as early as 6PM.