Green: All Your Vote Are Belong to Me
Later this month Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Green will have to declare the Regular Democratic Organization’s choice for mayor and the Fourth Ward City Council seat.
It brings to mind the kind of nutty post on Jerry Green’s Page for December 18 in which he condemns John Campbell, a backer of the successful 2008 primary and general election candidates Adrian Mapp and Annie McWilliams, for “dividing the black vote here in the City of Plainfield.”
Excuse me, but wasn’t the early civil rights movement all about being able to vote, and to vote one’s conscience?
Green’s blog post attaches to the supporters of the 2008 primary and general election winners “the emasculating attitude” that “those in charge of slave ships used to turn their captives against one another” similar to the “Willie Lynch syndrome,” a reference to a possibly dubious slave era speech on how to exert control over captives.
So Green conveniently kicks to the curb the free choice of registered black voters in favor of lock-step loyalty to the entrenched party. Does he think that his choice of mayor and Fourth Ward candidate this year will then become the nonpareil slate that none dare challenge?
It is Plaintalker’s opinion that voters of whatever ethnicity in this diverse city are smarter than that and will sift the candidates for the most deserving of their votes.
The complete field will not be known until the April 6 filing deadline. And then the race will be on.
--Bernice Paglia
It brings to mind the kind of nutty post on Jerry Green’s Page for December 18 in which he condemns John Campbell, a backer of the successful 2008 primary and general election candidates Adrian Mapp and Annie McWilliams, for “dividing the black vote here in the City of Plainfield.”
Excuse me, but wasn’t the early civil rights movement all about being able to vote, and to vote one’s conscience?
Green’s blog post attaches to the supporters of the 2008 primary and general election winners “the emasculating attitude” that “those in charge of slave ships used to turn their captives against one another” similar to the “Willie Lynch syndrome,” a reference to a possibly dubious slave era speech on how to exert control over captives.
So Green conveniently kicks to the curb the free choice of registered black voters in favor of lock-step loyalty to the entrenched party. Does he think that his choice of mayor and Fourth Ward candidate this year will then become the nonpareil slate that none dare challenge?
It is Plaintalker’s opinion that voters of whatever ethnicity in this diverse city are smarter than that and will sift the candidates for the most deserving of their votes.
The complete field will not be known until the April 6 filing deadline. And then the race will be on.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 4:12 AM
3 Comments:
Bernice,
Your phrasing of the so-called Willie Lynch speech as "possibly dubious" is really too kind. That speech has been so thoroughly discredited that I was stunned when Jerry Green referenced it in his blog. Does this come from his brain or is it from some legislative assistant who doesn't bother to fact-check? When I showed the blog to some of the Early American lit/African American literature professors/colleagues I work with, their response was, "this came from an elected politician?" Green's brand of simple-minded demagoguery is deeply offensive to me, personally, and to the black community in general. As an African American and lifelong Democrat who has worked and volunteered for the Democratic party since childhood, I can tell you that Green does a disservice to the African American community in his district and here in Plainfield in particular with such outrageous and inflammatory statements. There's no love of community there, only hateful invective spewed against those who dare to disagree with him. He deems any black people who don't support him as "Republicans" or as not authentically "black," i.e., they are not serving his entrenched machine politics agenda. In a town like Plainfield, the odds are that there will be more than one black candidate vying for one of the two local offices. There may be four or five. Their supporters will span the color spectrum, just as the supporters of President Obama did. Is Green (who did NOT support the "black" President during his primary run) saying that he, too, was victimized by this "emasculating attitude" back in 2007 and 2008, when Obama was seeking support and Green didn't give it? There is a new generation of voters out there, signaled by the election of Obama, whose cabinet is diverse in many ways. Does Obama fit Green's paradigm as a man who won the support of a multiracial coalition working for positive change? It seems that he does. Jerry is not making sense, Bernice. His own running mate, Linda Stender, is a white woman!! Does she play the same racial tactics as he does? It truly is time for Green to get out of the game. And he needs to take his mayor with him. You are right. We are smart enough to vote OUR interests, not those of Jerry Green and his handlers.
Assemblyman Jerry Green has played the race card at every turn in his vice-like grip of Plainfield politics. The divide and conquer approach to maintaining power has fed well into the collectiive African American image of being the persecuted. Whether it be white against black or black against black, his mantra reinforces insecurities surrounding black identity. Consequently, at every opportunity he has surrounded himself with Plainfielders (new & old white & black) who did not challange these racial rantings as a means of maintaining political power and the patronage bleeding, that has drained the life-blood out of a once-upon-a-time proud Plainfield. Even the late Mayor Al McWilliams went along with this tactic until he acquired the self-confidence to stand-up to Boss Green and look what happened to him. The current economic recession, is there another kind, is a tragic reminder of how poorly Plainfield has faired under the leadership of Assemblyman Jerry Green. The city has missed two housing cycles and the accompanying commercial development that should have taken place in the downtown. Will Plainfield get another "bite at-the-apple" or will it continue to self-destruct? Only when Plainfielders have the confidence to place Boss Green and his cronies into the garbage can of history will Plainfield have the potential for sunnier days.
Reply to 10:13 AM message
A Republican President freed the slaves and Reconstruction was driven by northern occupation and Republicn leadership. Jim Crow laws were inacted throughout the south by elected officials that were Democrats. Democrat, President Lyndon Johnson warned that by passing civil rights bills, Democarts would lose the south for generation or so. He was right. They have. In Plainfield the Democrats have run the city since 1980, and by most objective criteria, the city is in worse shape now than then. Point: I am not so sure that being a life-long Democart has been in the best interst of Plainfield or Plainfield's African Americans. There have been alternatives, and in the past 25 years, I can think of 2 Republicans that ran for mayor of Plainfield. If either had won-preferrably both-the city would be far better off today. So much for identity politics. It has failed Plianfield
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