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Black Politics Paradigm Paradox

By Salim Muwakkil

Political pundits were ready to announce that black politics had reached an important milestone after Cory A. Booker won the mayor’s race in Newark, N.J., on May 9. The 37-year-old Booker defeated his chief rival by a margin of nearly 3 to 1. His victory is a generational change (the man he’s replacing is 70), but it also marked a… return to article

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    Black or white who cares? When the politicians become corrupt - often by being bought off by special interests - we all suffer the loss of representation. To think that the color of ones skin is important is merely silly. (One might hope that class would be a better predictor, but even here we find that even the initially earnest can be bought - at discount prices no less.)

    United States Posted by wolf on Jun 20, 2006 at 8:35 AM

    Woof-woof, Wolf.

    When capital flight flees to the suburbs, or the exurbs, or out-of-stae, or out of the country, the people who can best afford to flee (the middle class, including the minority middle-class) will fly with it.  This normally results in a higher urban unemployment rate, a lower urban median income, a larger working-class population competing against one another for a shrinking employment base, a larger population of public education students less inclined or prepared to succeed in an academic or vocational market which rewards the children of the economic migrants who might have been otherwise inclined to employ or educate them, higher crime rates, lower literacy rates, increasing rates of drug addiction, alcoholism, child and spousal abuse, and a general deterioration of the social and individual welfare of the folks who are allowed to remain mired in their own misery.  And all of this occurs because the people who possess the capital are allowed to seek their own levels of profitability, regardless of the social consequences they create, which are either ignored or blamed on the people who are forced to suffer them.

    None of this is rocket science, Seymour.  Anyone, even someone with your own limited capacity to comprehend causal correlations, is capable of understanding it.

    United States Posted by Major Major on Jun 20, 2006 at 4:24 PM

    “someone with your own limited capacity” Is there any other kind of capacity? :)

    You’re funny! Have a good day, my friend.

    United States Posted by wolf on Jun 21, 2006 at 11:48 AM

    That a new school, prototype Black political “paradigm” would evolve before the demise of the old school civil rights era Black politicians makes sense and is in step with the overall retreat of “the people’s” influence in the U S political process.  Whether and how long they can co-exist is another matter.

    United States Posted by theloneous on Jun 21, 2006 at 12:05 PM
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