PHILADELPHIA – The Philadelphia Democratic City Committee is supposed to be a friend to Black people. After all, blacks keep Democrats in power in Philadelphia. But what do we get in return? We get punched in the face. We were ignored. And we were told to go back to the plantation until the next election.
Friends shouldn’t be treated this way and that’s why Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. wisely observed, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
And it was our so-called friends at the Democratic City Committee, through its board of directors, who on March 25 refused to endorse Larry Krasner, an incumbent Democratic and impressively progressive district attorney who has always fought for Black people in the criminal justice system.
By remaining still and refusing to endorse him, the Democratic Town Committee indirectly and intentionally supported a Republican in Democratic garb, the same candidate financed by the Republican FOP, the same organization that twice endorsed racist bogus President Donald Trump, who was twice endorsed by the KKK. FOP is the same organization that cooperated with the racist Proud Boys thug.
Moreover, these same so-called friends on the Democratic City Committee were at odds with local Black organizations and local Black officials who enthusiastically supported Krasner – the man I call “The Blackest White Guy I Know.”
https://www.penncapital-star.com/government-politics/criminal-justice-reforms-progressive-victories-and-other-takeaways-from-pgh-s-historic-2021-primary-election-analytic/
Black organizations and officials who have endorsed him include the Guardian Civic League (Association of Black Police Officers), Valiants (Association of Black Firefighters), Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, Philadelphia Tribune Editorial Board, board member Kendra Brooks, state Rep. Morgan Cephas, Rep. State Senator Isabella Fitzgerald, Council Member Jamie Gauthier, Council Member Katherine Gilmore Richardson, State Senator Art Haywood, State Senator Vincent Hughes, Council Member Kenyatta Johnson, Council Member Curtis Jones, State Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, State Representative Rick Krajewski, State Representative Joanna McClinton, Councilwoman Cherelle Parker, Councilwoman Maria Quinones-Sanchez, State Representative Chris Rabb, State Senator. Sharif Street, Councilmember Isaiah Thomas and State Senator Anthony Hardy Williams.
As the Tribune’s Michael D’Onofrio reports, “Jay McCalla, the city’s former deputy managing director, said the Democratic committee’s failure to endorse an incumbent was ‘the height of injustice’ … (which put Krasner) at a real disadvantage in terms of coverage when it comes to Black vote.” McCalla was right, as usual. Fortunately, however, Black people know a white ally when they see one. And they saw Krasner.
I should mention that not only did the Democratic City Committee not endorse a pro-black candidate, but according to Chris Brennan in the Inquirer’s Clout column on April 2, “Two people in the (meeting) room who spoke to Clout about the private meeting” stated that “most members of the party’s Political Committee were definitely inclined towards… [Krasner’s] pretender. …”What? Are you strongly resisting? Majority? For a bogus Democrat?
Who has friends like the Democratic Town Committee, do they need Trump/Rizzo’s Republican enemies?
Perhaps blacks should consider forming a local party to combat the lack of respect from the Plantation Democratic Town Committee. Maybe Black people should take a leaf out of the book of Fannie Lou Hamer and her Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), which was founded in 1964 as an alternative to the non-progressive (i.e. conservative) Mississippi Democratic Party.
As documented in the Britannica Encyclopedia: “With the support of Martin Luther King Jr. The MFDP nominated three African American women – (including) Hamer – to run against traditional Democrats in the state’s 1964 congressional elections. … That same year, the National Democratic Party held its convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the MFDP sent its delegation … (but) President Lyndon B. Johnson and other Democratic Party leaders “refused to name the multiracial and popular MFDP as the official delegation from Mississippi and instead chose a delegation led by rabid white racists from Mississippi.
Without a doubt, Democratic leaders in Philadelphia need to start “dancing with whoever brought them in.” Time and again we take local Democrats to the party, and time and time again the local Democrats leave with someone else, in the latter case the racist Republican FOP.
And it keeps happening. Look what happened in 2019. As I wrote in a Tribune article on May 24 of this year: “No black candidate for Common Pleas or Municipal Court judge was elected in the Philadelphia primary on May 21. Not one. Racists will say it’s because none of the eight black candidates out of a total of 27 candidates qualified. I would say these racists are liars.”
In my column, I presented objective evidence regarding the outstanding qualifications of each of these black candidates. I then added: “Much of the fault lies with the…Democratic City Committee and some of its officials for failing to endorse…(or) promote many qualified black candidates based on merit (instead of what, in my personal opinion, was nothing more than extortion demanding approximately $60,000 from each judicial candidate in the form of a political “bribe”).
More recently, in the May primary election, an eminently qualified black (current/interim) judge such as Hon. Mark Moore and an eminently qualified pro-black attorney like Caroline Turner were not, in my opinion, enthusiastically supported or sufficiently promoted by the Democratic City Committee. Let us hope, however, that Judge Moore – an extremely fair jurist – and the progressive and skillful lawyer Turner will be appointed to fill judicial vacancies by the Democratic Governor on the mighty recommendation of the Democratic City Committee. Let’s hope so!
It looks like black voters will have to start questioning many, if not most, Democratic City Committee members to find out how anti-black they are. It’s your job. But before they can be interrogated, they must be identified, exposed and condemned. It’s my job. Wait for further information.
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