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CD-11 is about race after all
This is not about who has a right to run. Let me remind people that I started as a Yassky supporter who was greatly impressed with Chris when I first met him. After that my wife and I felt that we would have a very hard time choosing between Yassky and Chris. In the end Yassky lost us and Chris has become our clear choice. For my wife it was a variety of things that Yassky himself said at various meetups that soured her on Yassky. For me I tended to put a better spin on what he said than my wife did, I objected to some things he did: endorse Sampson, propose a bailout for Ratner on his promise to fund a jobs program, and his initial refusal to take a stand on voting machines, something Yvette Clarke did early.
Race did not matter to me. At all.
But I find race matters a great deal to most people in the district and it will affect the outcome of the race.
First of all, let us never forget who first brought up the race issue: David Yassky. I remember the earliest speeches he gave in this race always started with "I'm the white guy in this race." Yassky brought up the race issue from the very beginning, yet it was the response from black candidates that got everyone angry, not his initial baiting.
Let us also remember that BOTH the Clarke and Owens campaigns took the bait. In fact, almost every time the Clarke campaign talked to me as a Daily Gotham writer, it was the race issue they wanted me to focus on. They asked me point blank to be harsher on Yassky for it. The Owens campaign never did that.
So Yassky set the bait. Clarke and Owens took the bait.
I never thought they should have taken the bait but it is easy to see why they did. Because to the voters in the district, race matters.
Yvette Clarke draws her support almost exclusively from the Caribbean community and is barely noticed outside that core group. Some union support may help her reach out to other groups, but the bottom line is, her support is primarily along racial lines.
Carl Andrews draws his support almost exclusively from the Southern black community and is not well liked outside that core group. Again, some union support will help him reach out to other groups, but the bottom line is, his support is primarily along racial lines.
And now we come to the case of people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. David Yassky, the candidate who first brought up the race issue, gets his support almost exclusively from the white and Orthodox Jewish communities and no amount of glossy mailings with shiny happy black faces on it has gotten him much support outside the white community. Race matters to Yassky supporters too. I suggest Yassky supporters drop the "I am the white candidate and that's okay" line because it has grown old and it is hypocritical. Yassky's core support is primarily along racial lines.
In all the petitioning and canvassing I have done, almost every white person I have talked to (outside of the organizations I work with like CBID, DFNYC and NDM) leans Yassky, even if they have no idea where any of the candidates stand. And they all dislike Major Owens, though again they seem surprised when I point out that he consistently opposed the Iraq war and Patriot Act, stands they invariably like. Almost every black person I talk to supports one of the black candidates. Not a one likes Yassky. Most of them like Major Owens, often quite a bit.
The district is racially divided. Let's admit it. In fact the only candidate whose support comes about equally (very roughly) from all racial groups is Chris Owens. To his advantage and disadvantage, he has no racially based core support but rather has support across racial lines and based more on his stand on issues. So those Yassky people who want to talk about race are in many ways endorsing Chris Owens.
I do not hold their racially based core support against Yassky, Clarke and Andrews. They are not responsible for the racial comfort of the voters. But I do blame Yassky and his supporters for portraying themselves as somehow "above" the race issue when he himself first brought it up and his core of support is as racially motivated as Yvette's or Carl's. In fact possibly MORE solidly racially motivated because Clarke and Andrews gets some cross-racial support due to union endorsements.
Chris Owens is the only candidate who talks across racial lines. Now that alone is not a reason to vote for him. But if people are going to keep bringing up race (and I still am getting it both on the blogs and on the streets), they have to face the fact that Chris is the candidate whose main support is not racially based.
Mole, I think you need to edit your post
Double check. There's a paragraph there that I think you wrote Owens but meant Andrews.
CD-11
Last night I happened to turn on NY-1 Inside City Hall and there was a debate with all 4 candidates in attendence. Let me tell you if I was registered to vote in CD-11 the first candidate I would rule out would be Yvette Clark. She came through as a bitch, knocking Chris Owens and that he's never held elective office. She was also nasty to Yassky and on the defensive with Andrews. At one point Dominic Carter, the Moderator, even made a comment that her remarks were nasty. Yassky I could never vote for based on his comments that we should bomb Iran and the money he's taken from Ratner and real estate interests, and as for Andrews he's a tool of Clarence Norman and I don't want him as a representative in Congress based on his allegance to Clarence. I find and found more so last night tht Chris Owens is the most qualified candidate to represent CD-11. Dispite Clark's comments that because he's never held elective office he is unqualified this is a plus for him. He is not beholden to interest groups and the machine the way Yassky, Andrews and Clark are, and he listens and cares about people and the district. Clark will not, is running on empty and her lies about her education are in my book leading me to believe that she cannot be trusted. Yassky will sell out the district to real estate interests and Andrews has already sold his soul to the Brooklyn Machine.
GO CHRIS.
taking the bait
I certainly thought it was ridiculous for chris owens in particlar to take the bait Yassky gave on the race issue, because he is half white. It strikes me as odd that Chris would be considered any more a black candidate than a white candidate. Is it because he looks more black than white? Of course Chris's mom and white relatives won't appear in any of his literature, and I've only seen her at one event which was well over a year ago. Chris is campaigning as a black candidate. If people think that Yassky is not qualified to represent this district because he's white, then is Chris not also? In truth, both candidates are well versed in the district's issues and NEITHER should be judged on their race.
People also vote for who they see, and in Park Slope they see Yassky constantly and rarely see Carl Andrews at all. Without benefit of a runoff, you don't need a maority vote of the whole district, so you only campaign in specific neighborhoods. It is gamesmanship. I can't blame someone in Crown Heights who doesn't vote for Yassky if they've never seen Yassky there, and I can't blame someone in Park Slope who doesn't vote for Carl Andrews because they've never seen him there. When this happens it is not a race issue but a neighborhood issue.
Also is the overriding issue in this election race, or is it-- as chris himself has said-- really "class", as in rich neighborhoods vs. poor neighborhoods. I'm sure there will be black people in park slope or brooklyn heights voting for Yassky and white people living in crown heights voting for carl andrews.
Identity
For most people it is about race, for better or worse. I don't think it is class, though probably it should be. I think Liza is right...race is the distraction. If it wasn't for racial divisions then it WOULD be about class and a lot of poor people who are now divided along racial lines would be getting together against the power that keeps them bankrupt but protects corporations from bankruptcy.
But more generally, what appears to be about race is really about identity. I have written about my own personal wrestling with that elsewhere. Suffice it to say that just like Chris is half black yet is black, I am half Jewish but I am Jewish. It is a question of identity. I don't consider myself German Lutheran even though that is what my father was. I am Jewish. Period. Not half...completely. That is how I choose to identify myself, AND, as my wife starkly pointed out, that is how people who like to attack JEws would identify me.
Chris is black because that presumably is how he idetifies himself, AND it certainly is how society identifies him, as can be seen by the universal lumping him in with the "other black candidates" rather than saying, as would be more accurate, that he is representative of the diversity in the community.
Identity can sometimes diverge from actual race. I read about a person whose whole family identified themselves as (depending on the era) Negro, black, African American... He was very into his identity and wanted to get one of the genetic analyses that could link him to particular genetic haplotypes and thus further characterize his "black" identity.
The DNA test came back indicating that he was of mixed heritage...Native American and Hispanic. No Afrcican haplotypes at all. His genetics and his personal identity didn't match. Who is he?
I would say he is who he chooses to identify himself as, which involved genetics, upbringing and personal choice. I read about this guy, so I don't know how he himself resolved this, but it shows how thorny this can be.
In terms of the CD-11 race, I still want to say race shouldn't matter: Chris is my PERSONAL choice as the best candidate separate from race. But my observation and experience is that most people in the district want to vote for the candidate who looks most like them. And that includes Yassky's supporters who claim to be "above" the racial issue.
Yassky and race
I could possibly cut Yassky some slack for being the first to bring up race, if I thought he did it because it was the elephant he happened to find in the room with him - in other words, if it was an accident of circumstances, and he felt it had to be addressed in order to past it, to the issues. That would have been the case if he'd been the first, second, or even the third candidate to declare.
But the fact is, he would never have even entered this race if there weren't already three (and at the time four) non-white candidates already running, and he saw a ready-made constituency for himself. He was the last candidate to enter the field. In that context, "I'm the white guy in this race", says, "You can breathe a sigh of relief" to any white voter in this district whose comfort level would be higher voting for someone who looks like themselves. And I am sure I'm reading this message accurately, because it was aimed at me. But I'm not buying.
I doubt there are that many people in this district who are self-conscious racists. But there are plenty of people here who grew up in very homogeneous places, whether the old ethnic neighborhoods of New York City, or small towns in other parts of the country. They think of themselves as good people, they are for equality for all, at least in theory, but they are comfortable with what they grew up with. This appeal is almost subconscious for them, which makes it that much harder to resist. I believe Yassky understands every bit of this. And that's why, on this particular issue, he gets no breathing space from me. At all.
Chris family
I also don't think that race is an issue so much as history, but for the record Chris' mother's bio is right there on his website, a mere two clicks from the main page.
yes but why does Clarke get breathing room from you?
Yes but why does Yvette Clarke get more breathing room from you than Yassky, when one of her rationales for running was clearly that of the candidates running, she was the Carribbean candidate and could count on very strong ethnic vote. Is not Yvette making the same calculations as Yassky is?
The racial issue is very strong in this district no doubt. I was just hoping that times had changed. I remember talking to Chris's mom at an event at the Tank over a year ago about past races in the district, and she told of how Major would hide her at events with large black audiences, because he felt it was counterproductive for black voters in the district to know he had a white wife. She was at times not allowed on the stage at events or had to stand back in the audience. She said she was still very bitter about it. She said that when Major remarried to a hispanic woman, that it was more politically acceptable appearance wise than for him to be married to a white woman. His second wife could thus be more visible at events in the district than she ever could. She said flatly that she felt that a big difference between Chris and Major as candidates is that Chris was much more open and less paranoid about racial issues, and would never try to hide her as Major did. She was very happy to be at that event and to be able to campaign for and talk about Chris, of whom she is clearly his biggest supporter. I have not seen her since.
Just for the sake of accuracy
"Caribbean" is not a race. Not even an ethnicity at that. It just identifies people from a geographical region.
The dirty little secret that most US Americans don't get is that to talk about "being Caribbean" is to talk about CLASS not race. The Caribbean people who can vote usually either have jobs or businesses that need them here in the US (and hence, allows them to have a green card).
The equivalent of this among Puerto Ricans is the distinction between isleños and mainlanders. Upper-class Puerto Ricans would never call themselves nuyorican. Actually, "nuyorican" was (and in some circles is still) taken as a pejorative (although not as bad as 'spik').
So Caribbean is a code-word for CLASS distinction among blacks.
This brings up some questions
Here's some questions for those who think race is such an overreaching issue in this district- if the Democratic Primary results in Yassky as the nominee for cd 11, will you bolt the party and support one of the other candidates as an independent? Would that be saying that backing a candidate of the "politically correct" race for the district is more important than Democratic party unity?
I guess if Yvette or Chris lose the primary and run third party in November, they can always bring in Joe Lieberman to campaign for them.
Question for you
What do you think of Letitia James?
Leticia James
There is a big difference between the Tish James situation and this one in cd 11. When James Davis died, the local democratic party machine (the clarence normanites) did not hold a primary to choose his replacement as nominee. They simply decided on their own that Davis's brother should be the nominee. Davis's brother also had a past criminal record and was otherwise completely unqualified.
So Tish James ran on the WFP line, and it was right for her to do that because otherwise the constituents of that council district would have had no choice over their representation. In the cd 11 race, all of the candidates are essentially qualified and all democratic party voters have a clear and fair choice to make their own decision.
So the situations are vastly different. We need unity after the primary. The real enemies are the republicans and the democrats, as howard dean says, need to come together to be strong. What happens if one or more of the primary candidates refuses to back the nominee in this race and runs third party? You have more months of infighting and you risk alienating people who should be reliable democratic party voters. This is a Democratic city and yet we've had republican mayors. Why is that? Thats because every time, EVERY time we have a mayoral primary, the race card gets played and you end up with some segment of the democratic base getting alienated and voting either third party or in the mayor's race even republican.
I think the health of the Democratic Party is far more of a crucial issue than this race issue inflaming tension all the way through November, and possibly causing lasting damage to the Party in this district. We should all agree to support the winner of the Democratic primary on the 12th, whomever it is, because we are Democrats, and we have to show that we can rise above ethnic, racial, social class or other differences and come together for the common good.
So I ask again, will you support the person that wins the primary, as a good Democrat?
Thanks for the clarification
I am not comfortable with the sudden blanket anti-third party attitude that Lieberman has sparked. I am not even sure I am against Lieberman's Ind. run even though I don't like Lieberman. But, I understand where you are coming from.
My own view is evolving. I think third parties have a very important role. Letitia James is at one end where I think she done right. Nader is at the other where he clearly done majorly wrong. In between I have not determined the clear line of demarcation.
In the 11th CD, it clearly isn't a Nader situation, and it clearly isn't a Letitia James situation. So it remains gray for me. I THINK I will support the Democrat. But I am not sure.