Barack Obama's well-oiled campaign and subsequent election victories have
done much to inspire our country and reinvigorate public faith in our
electoral process. After the 2000 debacle and the voter disenfranchisement
issues, it appears that those that might have been skeptical about
electoral process came out en masse this past November. Regardless of who
won the election, this is a net positive.
During this election we served as eye witnesses the power and reach of
technology. For the first time, the Internet was harnessed to reach voters,
inform the public, and show multiple sides of candidates. Youtube,
Facebook, and MySpace all played important roles in mobilizing online
communities, thus drastically affecting the election. Younger voters were
touched in 2008 in ways the 2004 election could have only hoped. In
addition to being touched, many actually voted, surely swinging counties
and states that helped turn the tide of the election. I think of this
effect in a place like Bucks County, PA, (where I was raised) where you
have a mixture of Conservative Republicans and Regan Democrats (and not
many Black folk) yet it, and the other surrounding Philadelphia counties
went to Obama. I would not have thought this possible when I lived there.
Although this election has inspired many, including this writer, in so many
was, it also has shown me how important local activity is. In the after
glow of this historic year where national politics has mesmerized our
imagination, local politics must now fill this significant void. This is
especially important in The Bronx.
The Bronx is only a two-party system by name; the Democratic Party has
controlled it for the better part of two centuries. Even Abraham Lincoln
lost the popular vote here in both 1860 and 1864. The big party bosses of
the late 19th and early 20th century did much to operate outside of Tammany
control, and build the infrastructure that transformed The Bronx from a
sleepy collection of backwater villages, towns, and farms, to the northern
extension of Manhattan. The development of the Bronx park system (with New
York City's largest park and 4 golf courses), the expansion of subways, the
building of multi-family apartment buildings, the building of a Grand
Concourse and Boulevard, were all great examples of politicians and private
enterprise working closely to develop and improve the borough. Political
connections and influence were crucial during the Depression as Bronx ties
enabled Boss Ed Flynn (a Fordham Grad) to bend the ear of FDR, and have
federal funding go to projects such as the construction of 149th Street
Post Office, numerous schools and the Bronx County Courthouse building that
kept Bronxites working during the midst of the worst economic time in
recent memory. It was this same influence that brought presidential
candidates to the Concourse Plaza Hotel to work for Bronx voters' support.
When is the last time a presidential candidate made it a priority to
campaign in The Bronx?
Obama's election, subsequent momentum and excitement must be redirected
to cast a suspicious eye on Bronx elected officials. For those that don't
know, there was a lengthy and embarrassing fight over the position of Bronx
Democratic Chairman between Assemblymen Jose Rivera and Carl Heastie that
included shady party votes, threats, intimidation, and pending court cases
of who the true Democratic leader is. In the process, Bronx elected
officials, many of whom were looking at term limits and the prospect of
losing lucrative part time employment as elected officials, voted
themselves the possibility of another four years in office by following
Mayor Bloomberg's lead to extend term limits. All the while, gang violence
continues to senselessly claim lives, Bronx schools are used as incubators
for new teaching philosophies (however flawed), and small cultural and
community institutions are looking at severe budget cuts because government
money is drying up. Much of this can be solved by effective, sound advocacy
by elected officials that take up the Bronx's cause, and fight tooth and
nail for every dollar that is allotted. Instead, other boroughs (like
Brooklyn) do all the talking, and make sure their cultural institutions get
funding, streets get cleaned, and people want to visit and live there.
People want to come to visit Yankee Stadium, and then they get the hell
out, barely stopping for food in Belmont before tearing it back to Jersey,
Upstate, Connecticut, or the Island. They surely pay little or no attention
to million plus residents who call this borough home when Yankee Stadium's
mercury-vapor lights shut down.
The Bronx is stuck in the muck of ethnic politics that stagnate an entire
borough, adversely affect 1.4 million people, and causing much of the
positivity over the last 25 years to be overshadowed by petty in-fighting
that threatens the borough's future vitality. This election should show our
elected officials that The Bronx is not for the Puerto Ricans, or
Dominicans, or Africans, or African-Americans, or the Asians, or the Jews,
or the Albanians, or Inuit; it is for all of us. The multi-ethnic audience
that heard Obama on the National Mall was The Bronx: from the Bronxites
that traveled to hear and see it in person, to the Bronxites that forged
the Iron of the Capital Dome to the Bronxites that took Daniel Chester
French's design and sculpted the Lincoln Memorial Statue, on January 20,
2009, the Bronx was in Washington, DC.
Although there have been very active, and positive Bronx politicians over
the last three decades (Fernando Ferrer, Jose Serrano, Wendell Foster,
Herman Badillo come to mind) far too many have been experts in mediocre
politics, putting money into questionable pet projects, suspect non-profits
and their own pockets, practicing the worst kind of nepotism, committing
crimes while in office, ducking constituent meetings as if they are as busy
as heads of state, and missing crucial votes under mysterious circumstances
while the people and institutions they are voted to serve suffer. That is,
unless you are the New York Yankees, and want to use tax-free bonds build a
new stadium on a historic park instead of renovating your previously
tax-payer funded Stadium that you don't pay taxes on anyway. Other than
Councilmember Helen Foster, where were the dissenting, critical voices?
They were busy being leading the roll call in section 39, bleachers.
I'm happy that Barack Obama is our 44th president. However, I am worried
that we will bask in this after glow for too long, and loose our chance to
truly enact local change. Bronxites must stand up and force our elected
officials to demand for better quality grocery stores, more bookstores,
better public health education, better schools, safer community recreation
spaces, and less sneaker/cellphone/jewelery/fast food stores, less gangviolence, and a campaign to encourage tourism as an end to people bad mouthing The Bronx. Regardless of who's in Washington, we must make sure that The Bronx is rightly represented.
- MATC
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