Race and Politics in Brooklyn

For my first substantive post I want to talk about the most recent candidate I supported. You have to understand that I am the kiss of death for a candidate. The first vote I ever cast was for Bill Clinton. I haven't supported a winner since. Before I moved to NYC I used to drive a green Jeep that had all my bumper stickers on the back. Chuck Robb, Bill Bradley, Gore/Lieberman. My brother used to call it the "loser-mobile."

I moved to Brooklyn in April, and I'll be gosh-darned, but there was a hot congressional primary going on in my district. I actually first read about it on DailyKos. There were four candidates. Yvette Clark, Carl Andrews, Chris Owens, and David Yassky. Each candidate had a defining charecteristic. Yvette Clark was the only woman. Carl Andrews was connected to the corrupt former democratic leader Clarence Norman. Chris Owens was the son of the retiring incumbant. David Yassky was white.

The thing you have to understand about Brooklyn's 11th Congressional district is that it is a "voting rights district." That is, it was created as a district intended to have a minority representative. Indeed, Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for president, once represented this district. There has always been a sense that this is a "Black" district.

Much to my chagrin, race became the defining issue in this election. Yassky, a white councilman and law professor moved his home a few blocks so that he could run for congress in this district. He was immediately accused of exploiting the fact that the three Black candidates would split the black vote allowing him to win. The retiring incumbant, Congressman Major Owens, went as far as calling him a "colonizer."

I did not set out to support David Yassky at first. There was no chance I was supporting Andrews. In a time when corruption is running rampant in the Republican party, and, to be fair, afflicting the Democratic party in places as well (La. and NJ), the stench of corruption from Andrews meant he was a no go. Major Owens himself was a completely ineffective member of Congress, so there was no way I was supporting his son (who rumor has it was a Patriots fan). So I was basically going to chose between Yassky and Clarke, both of whom I had heard good things.

It quickly became clear to me that I was going to support Yassky. I saw him speak a couple of times. He spoke about guns, health care, and the failed policies of the Bush administration. I even asked him how he could possibly win in this district and he answered by talking about guns, health care and the failed policies of the Bush administration. All the other candidates could talk about was race.

The truth of the matter is that I was really offended by this congressional race. I am a Democrat, tride and true. I vote for the person who best embodies the things I believe in. I strive to live in a post-racial world where we finally realize that race is a social construct. If we didn't create differences there wouldn't be any. I had read some bad things about Clarke, she had lied about her college education, and had been on the wrong side of some housing debates. By and large though, she came off as an effective councilwoman who was popular in her district. I looked forward to hearing what she had to say. But I never saw her talking about her positions. All I heard was that they shouldn't vote for Yassky because he was white. Black people need to vote for Black candidates. But after reading that, I would see Clarke's people handing out flyers to White people. It struck me as odd. I mean how could they villify Yassky for being white but then come and ask white people for their vote? If a Black person had to vote for a Black candidate, shouldn't the White person vote for the White candidate?

I know it is uncomfortable to talk about race. It is a really sensitve issue. But it seemed to me that the message being delivered by Clarke, Andrews and to a much lesser extent Owens, was that black people need black representatives and white people need white representation. This mentality saddens and frustrates me. It is this mentality that limits our growth as a country but also limits the sucess of the democratic party. We should be moving toward a system where the quality of our representatives is more important of the color of our representatives. As long as we tell constituents that this is a black district and therefore you have to vote for a black candidate, the longer we will need "black" districts.

I gave Yassky a lot of credit because he never deviated from his message. No matter who he talked to, he always stuck to the issues. He never got dragged into the muck. He never responded to the accusations and racial attacks. He believed in the people. He believed, like I want to, that people are not pursuaded by the color of ones skin, but by the power of their ideas. In the end, he lost. But he ran a campaign to be proud of.

I am glad that Clarke won instead of either Owens or Andrews. Like I said, besides some resume padding, and a hit piece in the Village Voice, most of what I have heard about Clarke is decent. Not that there is much of a choice, but I will gladly support her when the general election rolls around next month. That doesn't change the fact her campaign left a really bad taste in my mouth. And it doesn't change the fact that this little congressional race evidenced how far away we are from achieving a post-racial society.