Tonight I've been given the opportunity to speak on the radio about our local election here in Cleveland, OH. I would like some feedback on my comments. Please read and point out corrections and add information that I haven't included. Thanks.
We Celebrated the fact that we were no longer the Poorest City in the Nation as if something had changed in our lives.
When Martin Luther King Jr, said that his children should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. He did not say they should be judged by the content of their bank book.
We based our worth on wealth and not the content of our Character. If responding to our civic duty, our duty to our fellow man, is a measure of our character, then how can we claim we are no longer the poorest city in the nation? When issues like crime, poverty, gang violence and drugs get swept under the rug while the people sit idly by doing nothing to help, nothing to change it, what does this say about the character of Cleveland.
25% of our children are poor and yet only 16% of our so-called mature adults showed up to do something about it.
Something is terribly wrong when a city can only marshal 16% of it's people to participate in their own governance. It's so easy to point the finger at the people of this city and cry SHAME. It's even easier to point the finger at the African Americans in this city who make up over 50% of the population of the city, it's easy to point the finger and remind the majority of Clevelanders that the civil rights struggle was not won 40 years ago. It merely began 40 years ago.
When Dr. King sat in that Jail cell in Birmingham, he wrote that, "We can never be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote."
So can we lay the blame squarely on the shoulders of African Americans? Is it possible that something systematic is at work to disenfranchise the Cleveland Voter and negate the Black majority?
If you think back a little bit to the last major election, the Presidential election, leaving people standing in lines in the rain for hours on end, may have had an effect on turnout. Giving people the run around on where to go to vote, may have had an effect on turnout. Hired Republican goons accosting citizens and asking for their papers like the Gestapo in Hitler's Germany may have had an effect on turnout.
The black population of Cleveland is over 50%, do you understand what that means? I'm going to say it again, the Black population in Cleveland is the majority voice. If the Black community were ever to unite and address the issues of race, of crime, of violence, of poverty, of inequality, of lack of representation, our so-called Representative Democracy would have to respond. Now I say, so-called Representative Democracy because 16% of the population cannot represent the views of the population on the whole. Because the people have either lost interest or have lost faith in their form of government, I don't know which one is worse, but because of this we are not ruled by democratic principles. We don't have self determination. Before Dr. King wrote that he'd never be satisfied as long as a "Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote", in the paragraph right before that, he wrote, "So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind — it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact — I can only submit to the edict of others."
Dr. King fought hard for your right to vote, he spoke hard, he lived hard, he stood up for his faith and his people. He led with visions of a "Promised Land" because he believed in that promise land. Do you think this is the Promised Land? Malcolm X said "Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American."
So the real question, we have to ask ourselves is why aren't we eating "some of what's on that plate?" Why is the black population in this city saying, "Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" Why is the black community sitting around looking at the devastation of our schools, our children, our streets, our neighborhoods and asking of our leadership, "What's the matter boss, we sick?"
Yes, we are sick. There is a sickness in our streets, there is a sickness in our city, there is a sickness in our nation. That sickness is hopelessness. When a black person is forced to stand in the rain for hours on end just to cast a ballot, the same ballot that a Republican can cast in just a few quick minutes out of the rain, when that happens and nothing is done, there is hopelessness. When a Republican can appoint an Uncle Tom Secretary of State to deliver broken machines or too few machines to black communities so he can deliver the vote for his master, we have hopelessness. When we have machines that were built by men who vowed to "deliver Ohio's electoral votes to the president", we not only have helplessness, we have despair.
It time to take back our Democracy. It's time to wake up and get involved. There and old quote by Thomas Jefferson “When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.” I 'm going to add to that, when the people lose faith in their democracy, there is inequality. When people refuse to vote on issues that directly impact their future, there is injustice.
I believe one of the reasons that people don't vote is because they don't know how to vote. They look at all of these issues and people and sit befuddled by indecision. They must believe that these issues don't reflect their needs or their future. It's not that they are too stupid to punch a Chad, like some people have said. It's that they don't know which chad to punch, which chad will serve their interests. They rely on newspapers owned by huge conglomerates to run polls telling them what everyone else believes they should vote for. They rely on television to tell them what to vote for. They rely on radio programs that tell them what to vote for. But that's not how you vote. That's not how you make a decision as important on who or what to vote for.
When you stand in that poll booth, you have to make a decision not only on your future but the future of your children. That's how you have to look at your vote. You have to ask yourself, if I were to die tonight, which person would I entrust my children to? Which issue would best ensure that my child will be educated, loved, cared for, fed, clothed, sheltered and which decision would guarantee their right to self-determination? That's the stakes. When you cast your ballot and you look at your vote not as a selfish means to an end but as securing your children's future, you gain a seriousness, a sense of purpose in finding our what these issues or people are all about. You won't look at a persons party line spin and simply vote because they have an R or a D next to their name. You won't vote for issues because some talking head or ghost in the radio tells you it's the right thing to do. You wouldn't leave your children to strangers without first finding our everything you could about their character. You wouldn't vote for laws that limited their participation in their own city. You would vote for people that will lift your children up and give them the dignity of a proper education, in safe schools, in a safe city. You would vote for issues that protected the promises made over 200 years ago and fought for just 40 years ago.
I've been asking people about who they support for mayor come November. I've wanted to stay out of local issues because the national political crisis is overwhelming our country and that's where I feel the main battle must be fought. Right now, millions of people across this nation have banded together to fight against the desire to turn the American Dream into an American Empire. American's know the lessons of history and we know the dangers of Empire. Overwhelmingly, we reject the idea of a corporation controlled America thrusting it's will on the people of not only this country but the entire world. Right now, we are in Iraq, a country that posed no threat to us and yet we attacked them, killed their people and removed their government. We went in with promises, with a blank check and with millions of tons of ammunition and bombs and told them they must accept American Democracy. We only have to look at the Democracy in Cleveland to see the future of the Democracy for Iraq. If we use Cleveland as a gauge, how can we promise them self-rule if we don't practice what we preach?
Is this failure of Democracy in Cleveland laid squarely on the shoulders of the Black Community? No. You can't deny the black community shares the blame but you also have to look at our leadership and ask, "where is our leadership?" Where is our mayor, our city council president? How come they were celebrating the outcome of the primary when, in stead, they should be ashamed. They should be ashamed that they lack the leadership to inspire the people to participate in their own government. They are the leaders of this community and neither one of them have spoken out loud enough about the malaise, the hopelessness of our city. They have not only have failed to offer the people of this city anything to eat from our Democratic table, they haven't even invited them to the table. If they want to celebrate a 16% voter turnout, well, I say, more power to them but I think they should be ashamed.
So we have to address this issue of voting in Cleveland. We have to address the issues of disenfranchisement. We have to stop our election officials from messing with our ballots. We have to return the faith that our vote will be counted,that our vote will be fair and that our vote won't fall prey to partisans who have enough money to swindle the people out of their vote.
There's going to be 4 issues on the ballot in November and I wanted to talk about these issues. After the last election, the 2004 election, a great many people in this state woke up to the reality that something is wrong with our election process. After watching poor people stand in the rain for hours on end because Uncle Tom Blackwell chose to deliver broken machines or not enough machines to poor neighborhoods, people began to react. After watching machines switch votes for Kerry to Bush right in front of their eyes, they began to mobilize. After the sham of a recount were 2 people in Cleveland were just arrested for fiddling with the recount, after this sham of a recount people began to seek out a better way to guarantee our right to vote. They got together and hit the streets and got 4 initiatives put on this years ballots. In November, the people are going to be asked to vote on Issues 2,3,4 and 5. I've read these issues and after some internal debate, I am going to vote for them. Now I said that I had an internal debate because I am speculative on any issue or person now. I don't have faith in this system or faith that my vote won't be thrown in the garbage like so many provisional ballots were in the last election.
I looked at the issues and I thought about the potential for fraud. Issue 2 is designed to allow all Ohioans the ability to vote by mail. What avenues of fraud does this issue open up? That was my first question. How can the Republican partisans or the Democratic partisans manipulate the vote through the mail? What barriers are they going to throw up to challenge your vote because the paper wasn't thick enough or you used the wrong color of ink? Remember that it was Uncle Tom Blackwell, who tried to get thousands of registrations thrown out because the paper wasn't thick enough, so these questions are real. While weighing this question, while reading the proposed legislation, I asked myself if the opportunity to commit fraud outweighed the opportunity to involve thousands of more people in our legislative process. I weighed the fact that we all ready have an absentee ballot system that allows people who cannot make it to the polling booth a chance to voice their opinion and participate. After weighing these things, I feel it's time for a change.
Issue 3 Helps stop the influence of big money in elections by greatly reducing campaign contributions. This I wholeheartedly support. After the Tom Noe scandal, where a partisan Republican fund-raiser was given $50 million of Workers Compensation money and is currently under investigation by the FBI for fraudulently channeling fund to the Republican party, after finding out about this, I know Issue 3 needs to pass. We need to remove big money from our politics. We need to remove the right of a Corporation to supercede the rights of the people. I do believe there is a place for corporations in politics but they should be limited to how much influence they have over our process.
Issue 4 Stops the politicians from drawing their own legislative districts and puts an Independent Commission in charge of this process. Tom Delay was just indicted for illegally laundering money to his political action committee. The purpose of this committee was to redraw the district lines that determined the number of Congress people sent to Washington. They used large Corporate donations to infect the politics of Texas so they could seize national power and benefit the rich in America. We must take this power away from our elected leaders who obviously can't be trusted to administer this state with the welfare of the people in mind. If they can redraw the political lines on a whim to benefit their own interests, what makes me believe they won't do it?
Issue 5: Places a bi-partisan Board of Supervisors in charge of Ohio's elections, instead of a partisan official who backs candidates and takes sides in elections. You've heard me call Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and Uncle Tom. I don't know if you're aware of this but Mr. Blackwell wore two hats in the last election. Not only was he responsible for overseeing and managing this last election, he was also a the Chairman of. the Commission to Reelect the President. We have to trust that Mr. Blackwell's integrity can guarantee us a fair election and yet he sat as the chairman to reelect the President. What sort of message does that send? What sort of message does trying to invalidate thousands of registrants, denying citizens the right to vote because the paper they submitted wasn't thick enough? What sort of message does it send when he was the one responsible for determining the allocation of voting machines? What sort of message does it send out when Blackwell boasts of helping "deliver" Ohio for President Bush and said he was "truly pleased" to announce Bush had won Ohio even before all of the state's votes had been counted in his own fundraising letter? To me it sends out the message that we have an Uncle Tom, a house Negro asking the ruling Republican party, "Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" No, we must stop this from happening at all costs. We must remove the partisanship from our election process.
Now, I'm not asking you to vote for these issue based on my opinion. I'm asking you to look back to the 2004 election and look at this last election and ask yourself, under the current rules can I guarantee that my child can determine his own destiny? Can I determine my own destiny? I'm asking you to read the legislation and make up your own mind. Gov. Taft has come out against this legislation because he says there's nothing wrong with out election process. Obviously, Mr. Taft didn't have to stand out in the rain for hours. Obviously, Mr. Taft and his Republican allies don't want to change a system that ultimately benefits only their friends, their class of citizen. Well, I reject Mr. Taft and I reject a system that is designed to disenfranchise the will of the people. I don't know 100% that the new legislation will fix the problems we face, if it will energize the people and restore their faith in Democracy, I don't know. What I do know is that when only 16% of the people believe they can make a difference, something fundamental has to change or we are all screwed.
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