Freedom Rider: Et tu Bill Thompson?
Wed, 06/05/2013 - 00:03 — Margaret Kimberley
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
Bill
Thompson, the Black candidate for mayor of New York City who endorses
stop-and-frisk and has reactionary Republicans collecting money for his
campaign, is betting that Black people are chumps. “The
powerful lobbyists and their clients are making sure that Bloombergism
will continue without Bloomberg” – with a Black face. Haven’t we seen
that movie before?
Freedom Rider: Et tu Bill Thompson?
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Not
surprisingly, the old guard of misleaders including former mayor David
Dinkins and Congressman Charles Rangel, have endorsed Thompson.”
Former
New York City Comptroller William Thompson could be running as the
incumbent mayor of New York City. In 2009 he came within a few
percentage points of defeating Michael Bloomberg and his multi-million
dollar war chest. Thompson would have been New York’s second black
mayor, but he narrowly missed the cut after being hypnotized by
Bloomberg’s well orchestrated plan to create a sense of inevitability.
Thompson might have pulled off a huge political upset, but instead
conducted a timid campaign and paid the price.
Thompson
is now running for mayor again in a crowded field of candidates who are
all current or former office holders, yet none has emerged as a clear
favorite. Consequently he has a better than even chance of winning the
Democratic primary. Yet this possibility of electoral success turns out
to be a very bad scenario for black New Yorkers.
Thompson
lagged behind his competitors in fund raising until very recently when
former Republican senator and now powerful lobbyist Alphonse D’Amato
emerged as his mentor and lead check bundler, accounting for $125,000
in contributions. D’Amato is now a king maker in New York state, and his
rationale for supporting Thompson doesn’t bode well for black people.
D’Amato
is quite clear about why he has chosen Thompson. He knows that he has a
good chance of winning and is satisfied that he is someone “who doesn’t frighten business,” adding that “They don’t have fear of Bill Thompson, that he’s going to do some radical proposal that’s going to hurt their business,” Thompson is equally attached to D’Amato, declaring that he is “proud to have his support.”
“Former Republican senator and now powerful lobbyist Alphonse D’Amato emerged as his mentor and lead check bundler.”
There
you have it. The billionaire mayor will finally be gone, but no one
gets the job without bowing and scraping to the big money people.
Working people in New York city have faced a loss of jobs, housing
gentrification, charter school privatization and perhaps worst of all an
ever expanding police state epitomized by Bloomberg’s stop and frisk policies. The powerful lobbyists and their clients are making sure that Bloombergism will continue without Bloomberg.
The
mutual admiration society with D’Amato was the first bad omen, but
Thompson himself confirms that black voters have even bigger reasons for
unease. It turns out that the black candidate doesn’t really have a
problem with the infamous stop and frisk program. He has said publicly
that it isn’t so bad
after all, and that criticism of it is an “over reaction.” More than
700,000 people have been stopped and searched by the police for the
flimsiest of reasons. People are arrested for putting their feet on the
subway, or for not having any identification. Young people are ordered
to empty their pockets and are then arrested if they are in possession
of marijuana. More than half of those victimized, 55%, are black, while
30% are Latino.
Thompson’s
reasons for minimizing the stop and frisk horror isn’t very mysterious.
White New Yorkers happen to be quite satisfied with stop and frisk and
Thompson can’t be elected mayor unless he gets more of their votes than
he did in 2009. He and his check bundlers hope that telling white people
what they want to hear will be the key to victory in November. Thompson
has made a political calculation, but he should have every expectation
that all voters are making their own calculations too.
Are
black people who have been given summonses for loitering at their own
homes, who have been stopped dozens of times, or who have spent hours or
days in jail without having committed a crime supposed to just forget
their experiences and vote for Thompson? Thompson may think so but that
is no reason for anyone else to be similarly deluded.
“White New Yorkers happen to be quite satisfied with stop and frisk.”
He
is betting that the prospect of his presence in the mayor’s office will
be such a treasured goal that nothing else will matter. The desire to
see a black face in a high place can be quite dangerous. It is the quest
for black politics which should be all important, and not necessarily
the quest to see black politicians in office.
The
candidate who gets black votes in the Democratic primary should be the
one who stops the charter school onslaught against public education, who
creates and protects jobs for working people and who stops the
encroachment of gentrification which displaces entire communities. Stop
and frisk is closely linked to gentrification. It is the tool used to
remind those who didn’t get the memo that their time in New York City is
up, and they ought to leave town before sundown.
It is heartening to see that some public officials and candidates are not taken in
by this cynical deal and have spoken out against it. Not surprisingly,
the old guard of misleaders including former mayor David Dinkins and
Congressman Charles Rangel, have endorsed Thompson, stop and frisk, and its architect, police commissioner Ray Kelly.
It
is all too sad to be believed. While the president of the United States
gets away with behavior that black people would have never accepted
from anyone else, the pernicious political model is spreading around the
country. One Obama is bad enough, the model of talking over the heads
of black people to speak directly to white people need not be replicated
by anyone else.
Candidates
have a right to make appeals to any group of voters that they like, but
voters have the right to make their own choices, including the right to
support so-called third party candidates or to sit out elections and
work towards a better day. If any candidate decides that the votes of
one group are more important, then people in other groups should feel
free to spurn their advances. Not voting for a person who violates one’s
principles is itself principled. Doing otherwise amounts to little more
than acting like a chump. Bill Thompson and other politicians spend
their time and efforts hoping for just that. They should be disobliged
of this idea as strongly as possible. There shouldn’t be any chump
voters in New York City in 2013.
Margaret
Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely
reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as
at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
