Huntington Bank's move to benefit area nonprofits

A chance encounter today led us to the discovery that Huntington National Bank will soon be offering a bonanza to area nonprofits. HNB will soon be vacating or at least downsizing its historic headquarters at the northeast corner of Ninth Street and Euclid Avenue and is setting up a process to donate hundreds of desks, chairs and other items to local nonprofits. We are tracking down the details and will post them here! Watch this space to get on the list.

Looking Back, Going Forward

As far back as I can remember I have found myself repeatedly at points of cultural confluence. As a consequence I have been blessed with an understanding that the black community has never been monolithic, even when we were largely united around certain broad public policy goals like ending American apartheid and promoting equal opportunity. Or celebrating heroes like Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson.

Yesterday I was speaking with my youngest daughter about the radical shift that occurred in Cleveland’s Glenville area when my family relocated here from segregated Washington DC in the mid-fifties. Cleveland was still a high-energy town back then. Unbeknownst to practically all of us, the city was just past its high-water population of 914,808 and about to undergo severe constriction in size and stature.

Much of the town’s energy continued to come from its status as a haven for immigrants and refugees. The renowned Cultural Gardens were less than a block from my neighborhood elementary school and offered endless out-of-school lessons in geography and history. Many a weekend, as we rode to Saturday choir rehearsal or Sunday worship, we passed Lithuanians, Albanians, Italians, Germans, Hungarians, Poles, and others dressed in native garb celebrating or commemorating Louis Kossuth or some other hero.

These experiences helped me to understand that the white community wasn’t monolithic either. I never thought all white folk were alike. I learned that Dutch didn’t care much for Germans; that many western Europeans looked at their East European brethren with disdain; that Turks and Armenians were a combustible combination; that there was historical enmity between Chinese and Japanese. Eventually I came to appreciate that Caucasians [and some Latinos!] didn’t even become white until they emigrated to the United States.

Close to home, as black people were migrating to Cleveland from the hostile regimes of Alabama and Georgia to presumed meccas like Hough and Central and Kinsman, the white folks — with names like Abt, Mishny, Negenborn, Blankenship — were fleeing to Euclid, South Euclid, and Mayfield Heights.

Of course, I didn’t understand any of the social forces at the time, even as I strove to comprehend the lynching of Emmett Till in mysterious Mississippi. What I came to appreciate later was that there was an establishment in this town that sought to constrain the movement of black people and to profit from that constraint. The strategic arenas were political, economic and social. The battlefields were schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods.

In little more than a decade, Cleveland would become the first major city in America to elect a black mayor. This fact for a time seemed to cement the city’s national reputation as progressive, consistent with the civic slogan “best location in the nation.”

But Carl Stokes’ 1967 electoral victory — historic and transformative as it was — actually masked the deep conservatism of both Cleveland’s white and black leadership. Cleveland’s Republicans, for example, were among Barry Goldwater’s staunchest supporters in 1964. And the evidence seems clear, despite the puppet political theater of the 1980s and 1990s, that ethnic-based leaders shook hands around political arrangements that protected interest groups at devastating cost to civic spirit and growth.

For reasons that are primarily historic and systemic, many of this area’s challenges — in housing, education, health, public welfare, criminal justice — have their greatest and deepest manifestations in the county’s blackest areas. Our communal failure to address our divisions honestly is a major factor in our ongoing urban crisis.

The good news is that as the remnants of old-style local leaders — Dimora, Hagan, Forbes, Pinkney, Voinovich — fade from prominence, Greater Cleveland at last has a chance to redefine itself in the public arena. Some of the new leaders are on suburban ballots this year, while others are likely to appear before the decade is out. We will be looking at a few of these bright lights in the next couple of weeks.

• • •

At the end of yesterday’s post I mentioned that I would be on Civic Commons radio today talking about the mischief politicians sometimes seek to create with confusing ballot language. If you missed my dulcet dynamite you can hear the podcast here.

The core of the program is a discussion about ballot initiatives—their language, intent and affect on political behavior — hosted by Dan Moulthrop and Noelle Celeste. Featured guests include Jeff Rusnak, a well-respected local political strategist, and Daniel Coffey, political scientist and a Research Fellow at the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

The Civic Commons was created last year with a $3 million Knight Foundation grant. Its mission is to educate, engage and empower citizens to be involved and active in strengthening the community using civic journalism, public engagement and social media. Moulthrop is curator of the conversation for the Commons, which describes itself as social media for stuff that matters.

One of CC’s most important issues is to increase northeast Ohio’s collective understanding of our global society. A key initiative in that regard focuses on the Middle East, which is more than a notion for any of us to understand. If your interests, like mine, skew to that sort of thing, check out this podcast, where Neda Zawarhi of Cleveland State University and Pete Moore of Case Western University, both members of the Northeast Ohio Consortium for Middle East Studies, discuss events in the Middle East. You can also hear Case Western Professor Dr. Ramez Islambouli talk about how his students perceive the Islamic world.

The Civic Commons podcast is a regional effort over the sixteen county Northeast Ohio region.  Its podcast is a dynamic half-hour public affairs program that features more citizen voices and  fewer talking heads. It airs Tuesday afternoons at 12:30 on 88.7 FM/WJCU, University Heights and Tuesday evenings at 7:30 on 88.5/WYSU, Youngstown. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or listen to it on Stitcher Smart Radio. (Download iTunes or Stitcher)

• • •

Uncharted Waters ahead in the 11th Congressional District

The worst kept political secret in town is state senator Nina Turner’s intent to challenge Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge in next year’s Democratic Party primary.

If the contest happens — and, while likely, it is by no means a done deal — the battle between two of the community’s best-known politicians could be epic.

A Fudge-Turner contest would have an immense impact on black community political life, no matter the victor.

Many of Cleveland’s black politicians are of the timid variety. They dodge and duck having to endorse a candidate if the outcome is not clear. But a Fudge-Turner faceoff, which could even attract other strong candidates looking to sneak to victory, would permit no bystanders.

The congressional district Fudge now represents was first drawn in 1968 in the wake of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The plum — the assurance of becoming Ohio’s first black Congressman — produced a mad rush of candidates, including legendary Cleveland City Council majority leader Charles V. Carr, and the ambitious eastside Cleveland councilman, George L. Forbes.

Louis Stokes, fresh off a huge legal victory before the U.S. Supreme Court [Terry v. Ohio, the seminal stop-and-frisk case], and hugely aided, of course, was the eventual winner, aided by his brother the mayor’s political machine.

Upon Lou Stokes’ retirement thirty years later in 1998, the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones resigned as county prosecutor and seized the seat with a resounding primary victory over the Rev. Marvin McMickle and then-state representative Jeff Johnson. She seemed poised to challenge Stokes’ longevity record until her sudden death in August 2008.

Lou Stokes stepped into the void after Jones’s death to manage an orderly though not uncontroversial transition of the congressional ring to Fudge, a Stephanie confidant and then-mayor of Warrensville Heights.

Fudge declared last Saturday in Richmond Heights that she would be running wherever the district lines wound up being drawn. Her announcement came at an 11^th District Caucus town hall meeting, the day after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the handiwork of the Ohio Apportionment Board in securing a 75% favorable GOP-district set up could be challenged by voters in a November 2012 referendum.

That decision becomes relevant only if and when the Democrats can secure 231,000 valid signatures to force a statewide vote.  At the moment, the decision creates uncertainty as to the primary date, the district’s outline, and the filing date for primary candidates.

Amidst all the uncertainty, Turner must decide soon whether she can raise enough money and secure enough endorsements to make at least a credible challenge to Fudge.

It is both ironic and sobering to realize that less than four years ago, neither Fudge nor Turner had a political profile that was discernible more than a few blocks from their respective residences.

• • •

Your humble correspondent can be heard on the airwaves tomorrow over at the Civic Commons, where I will be delivering a three-minute commentary on the maddening obfuscations that assail even educated voters trying to decide how to vote on an issue where they have made up their minds but the ballot language leaves them scratching their heads.

The show starts at 12:30pm. Catch it on WJCU/88.7 FM.

Been wondering about Herman Cain?

Some days you can't do better than cite a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Here is Leonard Pitts:

Explaining Herman Cain

By Leonard Pitts Jr. The Miami Herald

…Modern social conservatives, in my experience, do not hate black people en masse. To the contrary, there are two kinds of blacks they love. The first is those, like [Condoleezza] Rice, who are mainly mute on the subject of race, seldom so impolite as to say or do anything that might remind people they are black. The second is those who will engage on race, but only to lecture other blacks for their failures as conservatives conceive them. And that, friends and neighbors, is Herman Cain all over.

“I don’t believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way,” he told CNN recently. Had he contended too many African Americans use racism as an excuse for failure to succeed and even failure to try, Cain would have gotten no grief from me; I’ve made that argument often.
But what he said was that racism is no longer a factor. He surely warmed the hearts of his conservative fellow travelers who swear blacks have the same opportunity to succeed as whites if they’d only get off their lazy so-and-sos and do it.

It is a claim spectacularly at odds with reality, given that African-American unemployment runs twice that of whites, given that the Agriculture Department admits to systematically discriminating against black farmers, given documentation of a “justice” system engaged in the mass incarceration of young black men.
But what made the claim truly bizarre is that two days later, Cain branded himself a victim of racism. Specifically, he said some black people are “racist” because they disagree with his politics. So blacks aren’t held back by racism, but Cain is?
…
One of the least-discussed impacts of the black experience in America is its emotional toll. African Americans were psychologically maimed by this country, the expression of which can still be seen in the visceral self-loathing that afflicts too many.

Meaning the black child who equates doing well in school with “acting white.” Meaning the famous black man who bleaches his skin. Meaning the famous black woman who rationalizes her use of a certain soul-killing racial epithet. Meaning Herman Cain.

In his diminution of African-American struggle, he comes across as a man profoundly at odds with the skin he’s in. He seems embarrassed he’s black.

For what it’s worth, I suspect black folks aren’t real happy about it, either.

Saturday Roundup and Parental Pride

 I am supposed to be off today but but I wanted to share the news with those who may be unaware that late yesterday the Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Republican drawn congressional maps can be put to a voter referendum. The GOP had tried to end run state law by attaching an appropriations measure to the redistricting bill [House Bill 319] to prevent an attack by referendum. Even our too-partisan state Supreme Court could not swallow that stew.

On Monday the state Democratic Party is expected to ask the Court to restart the 90-day window for collecting signatures to but a repeal referendum of the ballot. This reasonable request is likely to be granted; otherwise the Court’s action yesterday would have been mostly for show and without substance.

• • •

I’m off for the day to go see an international belly dancer, the world-renowned Lara Adrienne. Real Deal readers and parents of every stripe will forgive the mild hyperbole. Lara is my youngest daughter and a professional belly dancer. She is based in the Washington DC area and in Turkey, where she has spent most of this year.

I have been relegated to seeing her in videos on her website and YouTube. Tonight I get to see her live for the first time [apart from a 2010 wedding, this is her Midwest debut!] when she takes the stage at the Bohemian National Hall, 4939 Broadway Ave, in Slavic Village.  Call 216.883-0675 or visit sokolgreatercleveland.org for more information.

Lara Adrienne is Shaker Heights High School ‘00 and Howard University ’05. See her dance here and check out her writing here and here. With respect to the last website, I am personally amazed that one who can be so talkative would adopt a medium so spare.

• • •

Stories we are working on for next week include the latest maneuvers from the Gang-That-Couldn’t-Shoot-Straight, aka the Richmond Heights Board of Education majority, and a certain news organization that has perverted the endorsement process in ways that seem inconceivable.

Remember, that since we publish daily, Sunday through Friday, we are sending fewer email reminders of publication. Become a follower to ensure prompt notice of publication of new material and to make us feel better.

Go Browns!

Black Political Leadership in Cleveland and Civil Rights, Part III

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.

Mini-pieces: Reflections on Cleveland black leadership, etc.

This is a day for Real Deal mini-pieces.

1.   Blogging daily Sunday through Friday is more than a notion. Phone calls, reading, research, getting out & about, piecing things together — in short, doing the work of reporting before the actual writing, can skew your senses. Which is why in Wednesday’s column, when I meant to say that I would be talking about state house redistricting the day after tomorrow, i.e. Friday, I wrote "Thursday".  I realized my error a couple of hours after I published Part II. With blog technology, I could have just changed Thursday to Friday but I knew that some of you would come back today expecting what isn’t here, go back and double-check Wednesday’s promise and say, "hmmm." So you have this long-winded apologia in the name of, all together now: transparency.

2.   Our discussion of black political leadership has obviously touched a sore spot with many of our readers. We know this from the volume of off-line emails and the phone calls we are receiving.  This public conversation would certainly be more invigorating if more of the comments were placed on site instead of emailed to me. Just so you know, I will never quote an email writer by name, but I am growing more inclined to post some of your comments. My takeaway from many of the comments is that many people resent the notion that any three unelected persons could be posited as speaking for such a widely diverse community. People are glad that The Real Deal is willing to call out the PD and Brent Larkin for a horrible piece — somebody has to do it, you say — but unwilling or unable themselves to get down and dirty about it.

3.  One thing I can say about Messrs. Stokes, Forbes, and Pinkney is that they understand power and are not afraid to use it when it suits their purposes. The mostly private debates center on how often, how well, how wisely they have exercised power on the community’s behalf.

4.  With respect to former Cleveland City Council president [1974-1989], current satrap of the Call & Post and current NAACP president Forbes [1992-way too long], much of the discussion centers on the abuse of that power. I went off to college in 1963, the year Forbes was first elected to public office, so he has been a constant presence on the Cleveland scene my entire adult life. He has become a fixture on the local landscape much like one of the obsolete manufacturing plants that dot many Cleveland neighborhoods. You remember when they belched smoke and soot during your childhood. Today they remain as monuments to a different era, their windows boarded, the doors rotting, the premises littered with broken bottles and mountains of trash, amid the weeds. They will not go away by themselves and many cannot be retrofitted.

5.  In my Cleveland, George and Arnold and Lou are as much one-name icons as the player who took his talents to South Beach. They are actually quite personable and charming when they want to be. But charming is not what is needed these days. As one of my correspondents wrote me at 0430 today, “Keep in mind what is really important. Not this notion of who is the leader but what can we do [to] address the sorry socioeconomic state of affairs and hopelessness of many everyday black folks.”

Another reader asked rhetorically why the triumvirate would want to proclaim their leadership over the black community, given its current socioeconomic and cultural state. Either they weren’t leaders or they failed, he said.

6.  During my travels around the community over the years I have had several informal encounters with George Forbes. He has said things that are real windows into his worldview. For example, simple arithmetic led to his accumulation of power at City Hall. He knew as long as held eastside black councilmen together he needed only one white vote to hold the reins of power. A primitive and cold calculus to be sure, but realpolitik in late-twentieth century Cleveland.

7.   Many black people are very fond of quoting the Frederick Douglass, perhaps the first and certainly one of the most exemplary national African American leaders. In an 1857 speech, Douglass said:

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

    The Douglass quote was obviously pre-Civil War and applicable to the struggles for emancipation. During the civil rights era it was a rallying cry for collective action against the tyranny of Jim Crow, de facto segregation, and all sorts of invidious discrimination, much of which continues to this day.

      Forbes understands the first sentence of the Douglass quote. But insofar as Greater Cleveland’s black community, however defined, resents the implications of Larkin’s statement about their leadership, they should consider themselves the subject of Douglass’s third and fourth sentences, and respond appropriately.

• • •

The entire Douglass speech is worth a read. Find it here.

Black Political Leadership in Cleveland & Civil Rights, Pt. II

A few weeks after last year’s November elections, a gaggle of black elected officials and political operatives met at the Harvard Community Center in Cleveland’s Ward 1 to assess the aftermath of the statewide Republican sweep and the uncertain landscape of local politics following the election of Cuyahoga County’s first-ever county executive and county council.

The meeting was the bright idea of State Senator Nina Turner and State Representative Sandra Williams, two of the area’s more diligent state legislators. They invited virtually every local black elected official they could identify, including every black Democratic precinct committee they knew about. 

The meeting drew plenty of suburban council people, as well as old political heads-without-portfolio like Lang Dunbar, and Bill Crockett; up-and-comers like Ward 11 Dem leader Anthony Hairston and Euclid councilman David Gilliham, and seasoned operatives such as Lynnie Powell, Kenn Dowell, Michael Taylor, and Bob Render.

The stated agenda was to analyze the 2010 election returns, to try and divine the reasons behind low and unenthusiastic voter turnout in black communities, and to craft a forward-looking strategy.

The approach was thoughtful. There was promise in the air when the meeting began with perhaps sixty-five attendees arranged in a semi-circle. People were initially respectful as Turner called the meeting to order, stated the agenda and offered the podium to Arnold Pinkney, dean of local black politics.

That was the high point of the meeting.

Mr. Pinkney’s account of the election was distressingly feeble, astonishingly devoid of insight, and absurdly self-serving in its assessment of the strategic and tactical errors of the Ted Strickland/Ohio Democratic Party-led statewide campaign. The essential takeaway from his presentation was that the state party should have hired him to get out the vote instead of some out-of-state crew.

No one challenged his eminence regarding this assessment so Sen. Turner then attempted to move to the agenda’s next item: abysmal turnout by black voters.

It serves no point to offer a blow-by-blow account of how the meeting quickly degenerated into a verbal free-for-all. Suffice it to say there were destructive efforts to derail if not highjack the agenda. These efforts had been primed if not planned and led to silly and distressing assertions of political primacy and potency. The leading protagonists were eventually restrained and the shouting match ended with desultory attempts to restore a semblance of stability.

This was such a depressing turn of events that I have been reluctant if not unable to write about it.

• • •

There was an elephant in the room that day whose gigantic shadow caused many of the attending elected officials to become discombobulated. They behaved as if they were playing musical chairs on quicksand. The music was cacophonous, and nobody knew which of the too few chairs were safe to sit in.

The cause of this erratic and discomfiting behavior was a radical realignment of political forces on many levels. New networks were being empowered and you couldn’t tell the players even with a scorecard.

On the state level — Democrats had been thoroughly ousted. Republicans were in, led by a combative governor who would soon demonstrate that black people had no rights the GOP was bound to respect.

On the county level, there reigned a new county executive, an Irish former G-man, Ed FitzGerald. He owed much of his electoral victory to support rounded up by newer black political leaders who were not in attendance: East Cleveland mayor Gary Norton Jr., Cleveland councilmen T. J. Dow and Kevin Conwell, and suburban leaders like Joe Fouche of Oakwood Village.

There appeared to be not a single person in the room with an inkling of how FitzGerald would deal with the black community and its established political leadership.

Moreover, the uprooting of the corrupted county government structure had facilitated the emergence of new leadership for the county Democratic Party. New party chairman Stuart Garson had been selected, courted, and ratified by Congresswoman Marcia Fudge as new party chair six months earlier, but his connections to the rank-and-file were even more a mystery than FitzGerald’s.

To cap it off, in two years on the job Fudge had yet to consolidate the mantle of leadership that had flowed so long from the 11^th District Congressional seat, first from the dynastic authority and political skill of Lou Stokes, and then from the dynamism and infectious indefatigability of Stephanie Tubbs Jones.

So, with every traditional political lighthouse either adrift or under uncertain or foreign control, there should have been no surprise when the captain-less crew engaged in unseemly jousting for control of the helm, shouted mutual accusations of mutiny, and wanted to throw shipmates overboard.

This sorry state of affairs has continued for much of the last year, as evidenced by infighting among the leaders of the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus over state legislative redistricting.

We will look at that on Thursday.

Black Political Leadership in Cleveland and Civil Rights, Part I

The trio of deaths we noted here last week continue to trigger a number of thoughts. Unsurprisingly, most of the media coverage has centered on Steve Jobs, a contemporary whose impact was obvious and whose accomplishments were tangible: millions of us are daily users of the products he envisioned and developed.

Still, for other millions, the accelerating passage of senior civil rights leaders is cause for pause on how American public and private lives were changed by the service and sacrifice those leaders rendered our nation.

It’s not important to compare whose impact mattered more. But last week’s passing of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and attorney Derrick Bell does underscore two separate but related topics that have been on the northeast Ohio horizon this month: civil rights and black leadership.

Two days ago, Plain Dealer columnist Brent Larkin penned one of his patented “insider” columns purporting to show that a trio of old black men — Lou Stokes, George Forbes, and Arnold Pinkney — still run black politics in Cleveland.

The piece repulsed the senses on so many levels that it is difficult to know how to begin to dismantle its nasty influence. Larkin argued that the men who were the go-to guys in the black political community forty years ago are still the same go-to guys today. But the column omitted salient details and provided no context to those who don't have a thorough understanding of Cleveland political history.

It is misleading to write about Cleveland’s black community and its alleged rigid and unyielding political structure without ever noting their place in the larger community’s hierarchical rigidity. The history of twentieth century Cleveland is the history of a top-down community run by an interlocking directorate of corporate bosses and white-shoe lawyers who worked hand-in-glove with whatever ethnic politicians happened to be in charge. Then and now, a principal responsibility of the Plain Dealer was to support this closed circle of dominance and control.

Column Intermission: A few years ago I attended an annual meeting of The Roundtable, one of a string of establishment organizations ostensibly designed to promote noteworthy civic objectives like economic inclusion, corporate diversity and the like. [1] On stage were three key figures: Danny Williams, the group’s president; Jane Campbell, the city’s mayor, and uber-lawyer and grey eminence Dick Pogue. The mayor had just cracked one of her characteristically bad jokes, attempting to make light of Pogue’s longevity at the seat of power; when Pogue ad-libbed aloud to the effect that he was still running the show, Campbell quickly beat a sheepish retreat. In Cleveland, the dominance of commercial interests over public welfare has been virtually unending. 

But this is America, so when color enters the picture, stuff happens. People lose their critical faculties. They pontificate about politics in the black community as if all black folks were still stuffed in eastside ghettos. They make no mention of the fact that there are more than 80 elected black officials in Greater Cleveland, most of whom live outside the city limits where new and in some cases more sophisticated manifestations of black power are developing. Most of these 80 elected officials seldom if ever consult with Stokes, Forbes or Pinkney.

The day is long gone when a small group of black politicians could say they spoke for the black community. In fact, it is debatable whether a solidly black electorate even exists, and whether that is a good or bad thing either way. But that’s grist for another mill.

Consider this about current black leadership: the black political establishment did march almost in lockstep in opposition to Issue 6 in 2009. Their counsel was overwhelmingly rejected in every ward and jurisdiction with one exception: Ward 1, the political base of state senator Nina Turner. She was a flag-bearer for Issue 6. But Issue 6 lost in Ward 1. This means that black leadership counsel was universally rejected on the most important local issue in 40 years.

That Stokes, Forbes and Pinkney remain active so active in local political discussion is largely due to indolence, inertia, and lack of imagination. Pundits such as Larkin, public officials like Speaker Batchelder call upon Forbes and Pinkney because they always have. Their primary concern is to not be accused of failing to check in with the black community. Forbes and Pinkney profit from the fiction of their continued political ascendancy.

The world has changed. The county has changed. The black community, however defined, has changed. The model of black political leadership that the Plain Dealer and perpetuates is obsolete and does a disservice to us all.  It has been withering for decades. Tomorrow I will describe its disintegration.

• • •

---

[1] A predecessor group was called BICCA [Businessmen’s Interracial Committee on Community Affairs]; the current incarnation is the Commission on Economic Inclusion housed at the Greater Cleveland Partnership.

A Little Balm at the Bistro

Music is a universal balm and it proved just so in our household last night, where news of the death of Derrick Bell came with particular force. My wife, Anita, was especially close to Derrick and his first wife, Jewel. Anita had worked with and then succeeded Jewel as director of the African American Student Center at Tufts University. So when Anita suggested we go hear some music after work today, we headed over to Favor Bistro on Lee Road in Cleveland Heights, where Hubb’s Groove has a steady gig on Thursdays.

We were finishing dinner as the band trickled in and began to set up. Their demeanor suggested the easy familiarity of four guys who gathered in the basement two hours before kickoff every autumn Sunday: you could see these cats were friends.

The musical dividend of their effortless camaraderie was apparent with the first notes as they quickly settled into an eponymous groove on what memory tells me was a Stanley Turrentine standard. Their comfortably-paced two-hour set also included songs by Stevie Wonder, Grover Washington and Herbie Hancock.

The quartet was an altogether sterling unit comprising Phil Jones on electric piano, Gary Stevenson on bass, Tony Watson on soprano and alto sax, and Robert Hubbard on drums. After a couple of straight ahead numbers, Hubbard appeared to suggest the band would later get into some of the smooth jazz that is also in their repertoire but that never happened. The musicians were having so much fun doing what they love: finding a groove and working it.

It worked for the rest of us too.

Three Giants Leave the Stage

This is a day for sober reflection. In short order the US — and the world — has lost three giants: Steve Jobs, Fred Shuttlesworth, and Derrick Bell. All were men of vision and principle who persevered through defeat and emerged triumphant.

Steve Jobs' succinct and memorable 2005 commencement address at Stanford University was just on WCPN 90.3/FM [NPR]. I suggest that whatever your current stage of life, you take 15 minutes to listen to perhaps the best such talk I have ever heard. The talk consists of three deeply personal stories — one on birth, one on life, one on death. They are honest, vivid, and gut-grabbing.

I went looking for the link on NPR at the request of my wife, who wanted it for her SAGES course on Movers and Shakers at Case Western Reserve University, but my friend Ken Lumpkin sent me a twofer: both the text and video are here.


Derrick Bell was a pioneer legal scholar and activist who consistently forsook personal gain for the greater good. He gave up privileged positions because he knew his sacrifices would benefit those who would come after him.

Perhaps he was inspired by the example of Fred Shuttlesworth, who as a young minister in 1950s Birmingham, Alabama repeatedly put himself in harm's way to protest the US apartheid system and to agitate for a new society.


Who among us could not learn from these giants?

Free tickets to tonight's showing of 'American Teacher'

If you were slow in getting tickets to the Cleveland community screening of American Teacher,  showing tonight at 7PM at the Capitol Theater, on West 65 Street at Gordon Square, we have two free tickets for the first person to request them via the comment section. 

American Teacher is the feature-length documentary produced and directed by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth ; produced by Nínive Calegari, co-founder of the literacy non-profit 826 National, and best-selling author Dave Eggers ; and narrated by Academy Award-winner Matt Damon. It is based on the New York Times bestseller by Eggers, Calegari and Cleveland’s own Dan Moulthrop of Civic Commons.

Coincidence? Browns' loss coterminous with FirstEnergy outage

"An equipment problem at an electric substation in Euclid caused a power outage Sunday afternoon for FirstEnergy Corp. customers in Cleveland Heights and parts of Euclid and South Euclid.

The first reports of power being lost came in at about 2 p.m., according to a FirstEnergy spokesman. FirstEnergy crews repaired the problem, which occurred at a Euclid substation, and restored power to all areas by about 3:45 p.m."

The Browns were losing 14-6 when the power went off at my house yesterday. The host team did not score again until after power returned, by which time they were trailing 31-6.

Sellers is runaway winner in Warrensville mayoral debate

The mayor’s name appears on the sign identifying the premises as the Warrensville Heights Civic & Senior Center but the site for last night’s mayoral debate belonged to Brad Sellers in every other way last night, as the former hometown high school basketball star showed that he has game that transcends hardwood hoops.

When I arrived on the premises a full sixty minutes before the program started, Sellers was roaming the parking lot greeting debate goers as if they were being welcomed to his house. When I got to the entrance, there were five or six members of Team Brad in matching tee shirts and smiles, handing out professionally done campaign literature. Neither of the other candidates had either literature to distribute or a team of supporters in sight. During the course of the evening, with about 115 in attendance, I spotted one button for councilwoman Deborah A. Hill, who along with the incumbent Clinton Hall, seem to face an uphill battle against the seven foot tall Sellers. The mayor arrived only a few minutes before the debate kicked off. There was no evidence that he was running other than his presence.

The debate began on time with each candidate allotted time for an opening introduction. Hall spoke first and spent a good deal of his time talking about his family. He did say that in just under three years as mayor he had eliminated a $2.5 million projected deficit for 2010, absorbed $450 thousand in state budget cuts without laying off any employees, and that he had pushed through a new income tax and delivered on his promise of a new YMCA facility.

Deborah Hill, a member of city council and its past president, used her introduction to talk about the resilience of the city’s citizens. Somewhat defensively, she asserted, correctly, council’s role in the deficit elimination of which the mayor had spoken.

Sellers was the last to speak. He shared moving to the city in 1971, graduating from high school in 1981, and then going away and learning some skills. He said that he had walked every street and knocked on every door in the city since July. Speaking extemporaneously and with ease, he noted the city’s declining service level and failing school system and vowed improvements under his watch, suggesting that the brand new county library and YMCA were a precursor of better days ahead under his watch. He seemed to take credit for the new library and Y without doing so explicitly, undoubtedly because he had served as the city’s economic development director before resigning this summer to run against his former boss and Hill.

The debate, sponsored by the Warrensville Heights Area Chamber of Commerce, focused primarily on issues that most affect business, such as economic development, tax issues including tax abatement, the feasibility of merger with Highland Hills and North Randall, the city’s budget. Other questions referenced the school system, the challenge of the city’s vacant and foreclosed homes, and several stalled residential developments.

Many of these questions seemed to throw the incumbent for a loss, even though several have been longstanding issues during his administration. He clearly lost his train of thought several times, once so grievously that he admitted it after a substantial pause. More than once he cited the city’s inability to apply for certain funding, blaming Sellers for a failure to submit certain reports. Unfortunately for the mayor, since Sellers was employed by the Hall administration, the accusation aspersion cut two ways.

For her part, Hill seemed acerbic for much of the evening. She regularly allowed herself to be flummoxed by the inexperienced moderator, and far too often offered only bromides and platitudes in place of real answers. She spoke repeatedly of her passion for and dedication to the city, but seldom had a specific answer to any question.

By contrast, Sellers had done his homework and spoke forthrightly at every turn. He named problems — too few workers in the service department, the need to find a solution to the drag of Randall Park Mall, vacancies at the former Bass Chevrolet, Ellacott VW, and Corlett Lumber properties, the lack of infrastructure planning for several years. He proposed solutions— finding a real home for the Chamber of Commerce, having a real conversation about the type of school system the community wanted and needed, turning Randall Park into a job center, regional cooperation, being proactive, foreclosing on and then replacing residential developers.

Sellers’ rivals had memorable if somewhat awkward closing moments. Councilwoman Hill tried to claim the mantle of former mayor-turned-Congresswoman Marcia Fudge. Unfortunately for Hill, the Congresswoman has endorsed Sellers. The mayor acknowledged public speaking was his weakness and asserted a current surplus of $1.5 million in city coffers. Unfortunately, he followed that claim by unclear references to municipal debt retirement obligations, making it unclear how large any actual surplus might be.

Warrensville has about 350 businesses, including at least ten of substantial size. At the end of the evening, it was hard to envision very many of those business owners preferring another candidate to in the face of Sellers’ combination of candor, realism, decisiveness, and optimism.

• • •

Warrensville Heights mayoral debate about to begin

I am in Warrensville Heights Civic & Senior Center to report on this city’s three-way race for mayor. Candidates are the incumbent Clinton Hall, councilwoman Deborah A. Hill and former economic development director, Brad Sellers.

The three candidates are meeting in debate tonight, sponsored by the Warrensville Heights Area Chamber of Commerce. The debate is expected to focus primarily on issues that most affect business.

Unfortunately, the sponsor has banned cameras, and both video and audio devices. Chamber president Steve Petti told me a little while ago that this stance was taken to preclude inventive ‘gotcha’ editing on behalf of either of the campaigns.

The venue is set up for 160 guests. Although the program doesn’t start until 7PM, a good number of folks have already arrived and one can feel a certain anticipation building.

This is the first such public forum offered by the Chamber, according to Russ Friedrich, who chairs the group’s advocacy committee and will moderate tonight’s debate. He said the chamber has grown significantly in recent years. The fact that three candidates are running was a spur to the Chamber’s stepping forward, he said.

Rigging the Electoral Game

Chris Redfern, chair of the Ohio Democratic Party, announced today that he would be filing a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court to overturn the Congressional redistricting bill passed last week by the Republican-controlled Ohio General Assembly. Redfern denounced the legislation, House Bill 319, as “ a blatantly partisan congressional map that dilutes important Democratic constituencies and attacks the very foundation of our political process.”

It’s good to see the Democrats show some spunk. The Republican playbook seems to contain an injunction that if they gain an inch, they should transform it into two miles. I guess that’s what the party of corporate interests does in a capitalist society.

Ohio has long been regarded as a bellwether state in national elections, a barometer of political winds, if you will, that both forecasts and reflects short-term changes in the weather. The GOP is working to transform both Congressional and statehouse districts into cold-weather thermostats that will permanently freeze the range of choices available to voters. In the process, they have displayed ruthless zeal in carving up communities [examples: four different Congress people would represent a part of Cuyahoga County; Toledo would be split into three districts.].

The Republican message to Ohio voters of all parties or no party, of whatever county or color, is a paraphrase of Moe Greene's remark to Michael Corleone upon the latter's arrival in Las Vegas to buy controlling interest in the casino: " You think you can come to the polls and decide who you want to represent you? No! You don't elect me: I choose you."

• • •

GOP zeal in district distortion does not diminish the continued cunning use of racial elements in non-post racial America. While new Congressional districts increase chances for a Columbus-area African American congressional representative to be elected, the state district guidelines create ten majority-minority districts.

This is called having your cake and eating it too. The net effect of all this extensive gerrymandering may be to produce more black elected officials who will be consigned to irrelevance within the confines of a permanent minority party. The GOP is thus tempting black political officials with the opportunity to become bigger fish in the junior pond. 

What would C. J. McLin do?[1]

These black state reps would be further weakened if HB 194 — the ballot access-restriction measure— takes effect this week. Opponents of the measure must file 231,000 valid signatures with the Ohio Secretary of State by Thursday to delay its immediate implementation of that law and give Ohio voters a chance to ratify or reject it next year.

Careful readers will note that I wrote the “net effect of gerrymandering may produce more black elected officials who would be functionally irrelevant. Rendering impotent a core Democratic constituency is undoubtedly the GOP aim. For them only thing better is the possibility that some of these black officials would switch parties to enhance their effectiveness. The diabolical aspect of this possibility is that Republicans, who have been unable to win the hearts and minds of the black electorate by policy advocacy, would gain inroads into the black community by underhandedness.

While I denounce their tactics, the blame would belong elsewhere if they succeeded.

---

[1] C. J. McLin Jr. (1921 - 1988) was elected an Ohio State Representative in 1966 and quickly became one of the most influential leaders in the history of Ohio. The Dayton area politician was a formidable legislator who achieved numerous victories during his 22 years in office. He was a founder of what is today known as the Ohio Legislative Black Caucus and is enshrined in Ohio’s Civil Rights Hall of Fame.

Writing Off Readers

Plain Dealer Circulation Continues Decline

Today’s Plain Dealer carries the legally mandated annual statement of ownership, management and circulation. Total paid and or requested average daily circulation for the period ending September 15, 2011 fell last year below 260,000 to 259,993, or barely half of what it once boasted. This year’s figure represents almost an 11% decline in circulation since March 2009 when its reported circulation was 291,630.

Daily newspaper circulation is of course declining across the country, but as in other arenas, the implications for Greater Cleveland have special impact. Newspapers have traditionally served as a common denominator for the reporting and discussion of community news. The Plain Dealer has had this role almost exclusively since the demise of The Cleveland Press in 1982. Although it often performs the task abysmally, typically by what it fails to report — either fairly or at all — its continued decline as a common springboard for discussion is not healthy for northeast Ohio.

Editorial and publishing decisions made by the Plain Dealer’s parent company, Advance Publications Inc., which also owns the Sun Newspapers suburban area chain, have compounded this misfortune. Advance has effected the virtual journalistic redlining of every municipality in Cuyahoga County where the African Americans comprise forty percent or more.

The only literal exception to this redlining may be Richmond Heights, where, incredibly, this little blog has arguably done more independent, and accurate, reporting of key issues there in the past six months than either the Plain Dealer or the Sun Messenger.

Past, Present & Future

Struggling to find time today to finish one of the best books I've read in a long time. It's on racial politics and the Obama presidency. I hope to review it here soon. But my first order of business is getting ready for a visit from one of my oldest and best friends. With military timing, Charlie will be stopping by this afternoon at 1330 with his bride of six months.

Charlie and I go back to 1953 when he, his parents and his five siblings moved right across the street from the parsonage I called home. Almost every day after that, it seems, we played together, went to school and church and Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts together, shared jokes, triumphs, quandaries together, of which there none more undecipherable than junior high school girls.

I haven't seen much of Charlie in the last twenty or so years. He moved to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands where, he never tires of telling me, it's 84° F. every day.

A few years ago we took in an Indians game at Progressive Field. I wanted to absorb the August sun so we sat in the bleachers, idling time away like we were still kids at cavernous Municipal Stadium. The day was one of Cleveland's brightest, so I asked Charlie why he wasn't wearing sunglasses or a hat.

Almost apologetically, he explained that in the purer atmospheric conditions of the islands, the bright sun I was enjoying would have been an unusually hazy day back in St. Christianstad.

I really do have to travel more.

The Real Deal goes daily

"When I am working on a problem I never think of beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." — Buckminster Fuller

My good friend, communications guru John Ettorre, spoke yesterday to a sold-out City Club audience about communicating on web.   The program was sponsored by the local International Association of Business Communicators chapter.

It was John who back around turn of the century began to hound me about starting a blog. John was already producing Working With Words, which I thought was Cleveland's most interesting blog. Like his talk yesterday, WWW was consistently entertaining, informative, unpredictable and thought-provoking.

It took me until April 2003 to set up The Real Deal online, and another two years before my first post. My output since then has been mostly sometimes intense but too often sporadic, at least according to my three fans.

I learned sometime ago that the best way to get yourself to do something is to put yourself on front street, where everybody can see if you retreat or renege.

So beginning today, and for at least through the end of this year, I am a daily blogger. There will be fresh content here every day, Sunday through Friday, and sometimes on Saturday [check back tomorrow].

The pieces won’t always be column-length essays, or investigative. They certainly won’t all be about Richmond Heights. [I hear you, Anonymous Commenters 1-5.]

Sometimes a post may only be a thought or quote for the day, such as the Fuller quote above, which I was delighted to find on the back of Dyan Sutton’s business card. Dyan and I were virtually introduced by Ettorre [connecting people is one of his favorite things to do]. Check her out at www.creativeideasmatter.com if you need help with branding, marketing strategy, or creative design.

Because I am posting on a schedule, I will not as a rule continue to send email notifications. Google limits how many emails I can send and the time I spend managing the list I can put into the product.

Over the weekend I will see how to add a feed or whatever it’s called so that those of you who choose can automatically receive notice whenever a new post appears.

I want to thank all of you who have been readers, frequently or otherwise. A special shout-out to all of you who have taken the time to comment, anonymously or otherwise. I hope that I can continue to be worthy of your time and your trust.

A Note and a Promise to Real Deal Readers & Commenters

Nothing means more to a reporter than to evoke a response to something he has written. It is validation that the work he does is important.

I am deeply appreciative of the responses to Tuesday’s post. I find it curious that all but one of the comments is cloaked in anonymity. I suspect that one or more of the commenters is a public official about whom I am writing.

It has been my intent to bring to light issues in Richmond Heights that have long been shrouded. I have hoped that an enlightened populace would move to action. This has begun to happen in both the public and private spheres. The outcome of these efforts is less important than the fact of civic engagement that is underway. As a friend of mine says almost daily, people need to be agents of their own deliverance.

I shall have much more to say about these matters over the next few days.

Two more points for right now: First, the Richmond Heights Board of Education did meet in emergency session on Tuesday, September 20, 2011. The board went into executive session with only the board’s new attorney, Charles Tyler. Superintendent Linda T. Hardwick waited outside with her attorney.

The board remained in executive session for a little over an hour. When they re-emerged into public session, they adjourned without action.

Second, I ask the indulgence of my readers who wish me to move on from Richmond Heights.  I wish I could quote here those lines of Rick Blaine to Ilsa in “Casablanca” about the problems of certain people not amounting to a hill of beans. But I will attempt to articulate in the next few days the why of what I am doing, and I promise to provide details to support what appeared in my last post.

BULLETIN: Richmond Hts school board apparently trying to fire superintendent amid federal investigation

The proverbial stuff is about to hit the fan in Richmond Heights tonight where the school board has called an emergency special meeting in an apparent attempt, once again, to fire superintendent Linda T. Hardwick.

Grounds for the attempted discharge — which we understand requires an affirmative vote of four of the five board members — are Dr. Hardwick’s alleged insubordination for purportedly interfering with what was probably an inappropriate and possibly unauthorized edict from board president Josh Kaye to investigate “theft” of public documents.

These documents apparently consist of a number of immature, ill-advised, and intemperate emails written mostly by none other than the board president himself. Some of these emails evidence Mr. Kaye’s penchant for malevolent micromanagement and reveal a total lack of appreciation for his role as a public official. For instance, in one email Mr. Kaye volunteers to protect a board employee from the superintendent, essentially granting the employee license to disregard the superintendent’s directives.

Most of the emails were written months ago during the in-fighting between a board majority that includes Aaron Burko and Bob Fox, and Dr. Hardwick, over her attempts to discipline former varsity boys basketball coach Jason Kopp for his mistreatment of team members. Mr. Kopp has wielded great influence with the board majority — he taught Mr. Kaye only a few years ago — and is also the head of the Richmond Heights Education Association that only recently concluded contract negotiations with the school district.

Our investigation has determined that while the board majority was posing in exasperation with the superintendent for dithering over whether Mr. Popp would return as coach in 2011-12, the Kaye-Fox-Burko team was actually working to thwart any sanction against the coach, even enlisting the district’s expensive legal team on their behalf.

The board majority appears to some observers to hold the upper hand against its superintendent — it has on several occasions this year chosen to embarrass her, citing her for insubordination and voting to non-renew her contract more than a year ahead of time. But the actions of Mr. Popp and Mr. Kaye have prompted investigations into the school district by the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Education as well as the Ohio Department of Education.

These investigations, prompted by a series of complaints filed mostly by parents but also by the superintendent herself, have been vigorously contested by the Board majority at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, all without disclosure to the district’s taxpayers.

Preliminary findings of the federal investigation are expected to show that Mr. Kaye has presided over an environment hostile to the superintendent and the vast majority of the district’s students. The smoking gun for much of the government’s findings is the series of email exchanges cavalierly tossed about by Messrs. Kaye and Fox themselves.

Mr. Kaye’s recent discovery that investigators are in possession of his self-indicting emails is the trigger for tonight’s emergency meeting, whose motivating logic can only be panic. For the board majority to fire the superintendent under these circumstances would only add another to the list of retaliatory charges it is already facing.

The Real Deal has been tracking this story for much of the past several months in preparation for a thorough exposition of the dysfunction over which Mr. Kaye presides. We have outlined here only a portion of our findings so that the taxpayers, students, parents, teachers, and administrators of the district can have a basis for appreciating the truly bizarre nature of the board’s efforts to humiliate the superintendent it hired.

Our next report will detail how many of the efforts Dr. Hardwick has made to improve the district have been thwarted by the controlling board majority.

Edited for clarity, July 28, 2020.