[img]2682|right|Mark Ridley-Thomas and Alex Johnson||no_popup[/img]Three of the most tenaciously destructive problems endemic to the black community are political apathy, a lack of education and the self-serving corruption of some politicians and so-called “community leaders.”
The Aug. 12 race for the First District seat on the Los Angeles Unified School District School Board has revealed conclusively that County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and his new young crony, Alex Johnson, are the embodiment of all three problems.
Subsequent to the untimely passing of longtime School Board member Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte last December, a large coalition of parents, clergy, politicians, local activists and groups within the education community came together to support the interim appointment of George McKenna to complete Ms. LaMotte’s term. That is how such matters have been routinely handled in the past.
Mr. McKenna is a lifelong educator with an illustrious background, a proven track record. He is esteemed within the educational community. He became nationally renowned after being portrayed by Denzel Washington in the movie, “Hard Lessons,” chronicling Mr. McKenna’s stunning turnaround of Washington Preparatory High School in South Central. Mr. McKenna enjoys the endorsement of the Democratic Party, the United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times, La Opinión, Los Angeles Sentinel and 100 leaders in the education, ecumenical, political, civic community, and now four of his five former rivals in the June 3 special election.
In spite of the support that Mr. McKenna enjoys from within the community, and that by forcing a special election the community was left without representation for months, costing the district $2.5 million that could have been going toward our young people’s education, Supervisor Ridley-Thomas ignored these facts. He used all political influence he could muster to force a special election. Why did he thumb his nose at the best interests of the community? So he could promote the candidacy of a political crony, Alex Johnson, one of his deputies on educational affairs, a clear case of giving the consolidation of power priority over the best interests of the people.
Here Is How We Know
Of course, Johnson/Thomas supporters might ask, how do we know that Supervisor Ridley-Thomas doesn’t feel Mr. Johnson is the better man? The tone of the Johnson/Thomas campaign.
When you have a candidate whose primary concern is to better the plight of the people, that’s what their campaign will focus on. Such a politician will come to the people with an agenda, tell the people what he or she hopes to accomplish, and begin to explain why he or she is better. That certainly doesn’t describe the Johnson/Thomas campaign. They came out slinging mud.
Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ridley-Thomas have taken a page right of the Republican playbook. They’re using the same tactics against Mr. McKenna that the GOP has been using against President Obama. Alone, that should tell us they are bad news. They have no sense of integrity. They hope to benefit from anger, animosity and turmoil rather than competence. That accounts for why they are throwing mud instead of an agenda.
They don’t want that seat because they want to help the people.. They want that office, any office, to consolidate the personal political power of Mr. Ridley-Thomas.
Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s behavior seems to indicate that he sees himself as the big-city version of “Boss Hog.” This sort of thing has been going on for quite some time. In the 2010 article, “L.A. County supervisor gives his side of the story,” that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Steve Lopez writes:
“L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas greeted me warmly Monday afternoon, even though I'd come to hear him explain why he used $25,000 in taxpayer money to buy a place in ‘Who's Who in Black Los Angeles.’ I wanted to ask him whether his decision to buy the spread had anything to do with the fact that the book's associate publisher has made campaign donations to the supervisor and is a longtime ally.
“But first Ridley-Thomas wanted to give me a tour of his office, which he had intended to refurbish at a cost of $707,000 — until the project made the news . . .”
In the same essay, Mr. Lopez gives Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s explanation as to why he paid $25,000 of the taxpayer’s money to be featured in Who’s Who:
“Ridley-Thomas told me it was worth honoring those County employees because many in the African American community ‘don't know’ there are black people ‘in positions of leadership’ in the county. I thought he must be kidding, but he said he wasn't. I suggested that it might be cheaper to use his newsletter to break the news, rather than in ‘Who's Who,’ especially since I don't think anybody's buying the book unless they're featured in it.
“I wasn't all that surprised to learn that the associate publisher of ‘Who's Who,’ Anthony Samad, happens to be a longtime friend of Ridley-Thomas. But I was a little rattled to discover when I looked up campaign contributions that Samad donated $1,250 to Ridley-Thomas's campaign in 2007 and 2008. And that's not all. I also laid my hands on a document showing that Samad had been awarded a $24,999 consulting contract in 2002 by the city of Los Angeles, at the behest of then-Councilman Ridley-Thomas.”
Money Making a U-turn?
If one is a logical contortionist, one could say that by funneling that money to Mr. Samad, it could be considered funneling it back into the community. I am not a contortionist. It looks like cronyism. I am not going to pass judgment on whether this palm-greasing is improper. I will leave it to the reader.
One thing is irrefutably clear: Mr. Ridley-Thomas feels no reluctance in using his office to promote his own interest and to benefit friends. That is what he is doing in the First District School Board race. This time it is different from greasing a palm. This time is different. By supporting the eminently inexperienced Mr. Johnson over the renowned Mr. McKenna, he is demonstrating that his loyalty to self, friends and cronie,s a much higher priority than you and your children.
With all the adversity we are forced to face in the black community, can we afford to have politicians who place their needs before our own? I don't think so. We need to keep that thought in mind when Mr. Ridley-Thomas faces the voters again. When a politician becomes so comfortable that he begins to think he is running things, it is time to get rid of him.
Eric L. Wattree is a writer, poet and musician, born in Los Angeles. A columnist for the Los Angeles Sentinel, the Black Star News, a staff writer for Veterans Today, he is a contributing writer to Your Black World, the Huffington Post, ePluribus Media and other online sites and publications. He also is the author of “A Message From the Hood.” Mr. Wattree may be contacted at Ewattree@Gmail.com http://www.whohub.com/wattree or Http://wattree.blogspot.com or Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
