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When NOT to Vote Black (at least in Memphis)
By Glen Ford
The unfinished African American
journey out of Jim Crow and its narrow political mindset
has reached a critical juncture in Memphis, Tennessee.
There, in the city's 60 percent Black Ninth
Congressional District, a first-term white incumbent
whose voting record would place him solidly in the
political bosom of the Congressional Black Caucus, is
challenged by a young Black female corporate
operative—an acolyte of Harold Ford, Jr., the
worst Black congressman in modern history.
Nikki Tinker is backed by the full
flatulence and awesome gluttony of the Memphis Baptist
Ministerial Association, greasy-fingered clergymen who
have descended into homophobia so foul and raw it must
embarrass the White Christian Right whose behavior they
mimic. These politician-pastors oppose federal Hate
Crime legislation because it includes protections based
on sexual orientation, while claiming moral and racial
authority over the secular lives of Memphis Blacks.
It is a perfect storm of corruption:
Nikki Tinker, a physically attractive but intellectually
vapid lawyer for regional boss-man Northwest Airlink/Pinnacle
Airlines - whose principal duty is to keep unions in
check - backed by a gang of gay-baiting preachers who
never saw a Republican Faith-Based Initiative check they
wouldn't cash. If elected, Tinker can be expected to act
as a surrogate for her sponsor, Harold Ford, Jr., the
Bush-loving former representative of the district,
unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate, and now nominal
chairman of the corporatist Democratic Leadership
Council (DLC).
The white boy in the race, Rep. Steve
Cohen, previously a
long-time state legislator who lost to young Harold
"The Prince" Ford in 1996 but triumphed against a
crowded field ten years later while Ford was courting
statewide redneck voters, should by all principled
political rights keep the seat. Since his swearing-in in
January of this year, Cohen has voted his Black
district's interests as diligently as 23 of the 40
voting members of the Congressional Black Caucus,
earning an 80 percent grade (a "B") on the CBC Monitor's
latest
Report Card. Six Black congresspersons scored lower
than Cohen, eleven higher. In contrast, the CBC Monitor
named Harold Ford, Jr. "Lawn Jockey Emeritus" for
consistently ranking at the bottom of every Black
congressional class he attended since the watchdog group
began tracking votes in September, 2005. In fact, Ford
veered sharply to the right in his second term, in 1998,
which means Cohen is the best - and "Blackest" -
congressman the Ninth District has had in nearly a
decade, and as progressive a representative as most
Blacks on Capitol Hill.
However, literally nobody but the CBC
Monitor keeps methodical track of such things, so Cohen
must resort to behavior that some might consider,
pandering. He has issued a document called "Steve
Cohen's Position on the Covenant with Black America";
applied to join the Congressional Black Caucus but
withdrew after noting the resulting discomfort among CBC
members; and takes every opportunity to ceremonially
show allegiance to the majority of his constituents. But
most importantly, he votes correctly most of the time,
and is careful to display a range of issues-positions on
his web site, to prove it.
Challenger Nikki Tinker is encouraged
to believe she can be elected simply by displaying her
melanin. Tinker's campaign
web site doesn't even bother to put forward a single
substantive position, but is instead laden with
meaningless "Nikki's
Promise" items such as:
"I will place my satellite office in
a community where people rely heavily upon public
transportation (for example either the Hickory Hill
community...
"I want to perform economic
development in these areas. I have met with
business leaders and expressed my dedication to helping
to improve opportunity in these areas...
"Our children...need to know that we
support them and that we have become successful not
through professional sports, through rap music, nor
through illegal activity."
The emptiness of Tinker's campaign
literature is not due to a lack of proficiency with
words. She is, after all, a lawyer - a corporate
vice-president for "labor relations" for a
right-to-work-state routed airline - the in-house
executive in charge of suppressing excessive union
activity. Tinker is well-trained in that regard.
Previously, she worked at the union-hostile firm Ford &
Harrison, which was honored this year by
Chambers USA, "America's Leading Lawyers for
Business." Such are Tinker's credentials for
representing the people of the
8th poorest city in the nation.
Therefore, Tinker says very little,
issue-wise, leaving it to the roaring, retrograde Black
reactionaries in the pulpits to insinuate that Cohen is
too friendly with folks who are supposedly even more
alien to Black Memphis than his white self - gays.
Memphis is home to probably the
largest concentration of backward clergy in Black
America, and
proved it in August when Black Baptists declared:
"The
Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association stands
in total opposition to any legislation that will silence
churches on the matter of sin and abomination. It is our
belief that the New
Hate Crime bill is a subtle attempt on the part of
the Gay Community
to further legitimize itself as an acceptable lifestyle.
We find nothing in Biblical Scripture to support the
same.
"We also recognize the difference
between homosexuals and homosexuality; God loves the
homosexual but hates homosexuality. We further believe
that all citizens of these United States of America are
equally protected under the 14th Amendment of our
Constitution.
"The new Hate Crime Bill spelling out
specific groups is immediately a red flag for suspicion
- attaching it to the Defense Authorization Bill raises
further concern. All citizens are protected under the
present laws.
"We go on record that we detest the
alignment of African-Americans with homosexuals and
lesbians as being equal. There is absolutely nothing
immoral about being African American." - Dr. Basil
Brooks, President
Ugly words - and stupid, too, unless
one understands that this federal issue is being used as
a local club to bludgeon the not-gay Rep. Cohen, whom
key members of the Baptist group seek to associate with
tolerance for sin and "abomination." It does not matter
that, as Cohen has accurately noted, the entire
Congressional Black Caucus (and 30 Republicans) support
the Hate Crimes bill.
What we have in Memphis and across
Black America is a confluence of old-line conservative
Black preachers who know they will cash in politically
and monetarily if they deliver their congregations to
the boss-man's camp, and an equally ancient corporate
enemy that has learned in recent years the art of
grooming secular Black minstrel-politicians. Harold
Ford, Jr. was once their favorite performer, not just in
Memphis, but nationally. Nikki Tinker is his designated
successor.
It appears that this type of
despicable political tag-team - well-dressed
corporate-trained Negroes from the suites operating in
tandem with vile, spittle-spewing preachers working
their shows in the ghetto - is the current model for
corporate takeover of Black electoral politics,
especially in the South. However, Memphis, in this
primary season, presents a particular, transcendent
challenge to African Americans. A white incumbent has
reversed ten years of abject betrayal of Blacks by the
previous, Black representative. He is challenged by the
very same deceitful forces, who would no doubt continue
the sell-out legacy. Will Blacks in Memphis vote their
fundamental interests, or be hoodwinked by
sucker-solidarity with the skin color of the criminal
that is preparing to rob them?
If the answer is the latter, then
Black Memphis will have shown itself to be too deeply
mired in the Jim Crow experience, too addicted to hollow
"Black faces in high places" celebrations to defend
itself in the modern world, or to be of use to any of
the rest of us.
Glen Ford can be contacted at
Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
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Source:
Black Agenda Report
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posted 5 December 2007 |
