Baraka for Newark mayor
If a city can be a victim, Newark is one. For decades, it has been the victim of an unfair tax system, cynical politicians, suburban dominance of the state Legislature, racism, greed, and a sense that it should be grateful for the pitifully small handouts it gets from the rest of New Jersey. Most other states—granted, not all—take pride in a dominant city. Not New Jersey and not Newark. That is why Ras Baraka should be elected the city’s mayor. With Baraka as its chief executive, Newark won’t be a victim.
Let me first say I don’t believe the billionaires who are pouring money into the campaign of his opponent, Shavar Jeffries, will allow Baraka to become mayor. Not willingly. At my age, I have mourned too many missed chances to believe the rich will allow a champion of the poor to become chief executive of the state’s largest city. If the race is close, the political machine at Essex County—the machine counting the votes– will ensure the appropriate number of votes will go to Jeffries. Makes me wish that former President Jimmy Carter would come to Newark to supervise the election.
So, Baraka has only one chance. The vote for him has to be big. So big that the election thieves on Wall Street and the county machine cannot take it away from him without provoking a national embarrassment. I write this and I feel a surge of hope and enthusiasm I need to suppress. Not because I am so enamored of Ras Baraka—I hardly know the man—but because, if he wins, if he beats the billionaires and George Norcross and Joe D. and Cami Anderson and Chris Christie, then he will truly raise not just the city from its status as victim, but he will give hope to all communities in the nation that are demanding someone listen, that someone pay attention. To the poor. To the exploited. To the other.
I changed my mind about endorsing Baraka–I wasn’t going to endorse anyone because, after all, why should anyone care what I think? But then someone sent me the full videotape of Baraka’s street corner speech about gangs and bloodshed and violence. The person who sent it to me apparently believed I would be offended by its harsh tone. I am, after all, white. But I saw and heard no racism in the words of a man Baraka for Newark mayor | Bob Braun's Ledger:
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