Is This the Time for an Independent Black Political Party?

by David Love

-

In this election season, as the age of Obama comes to end, Black America finds itself at a crossroads.  And with the first Black president soon leaving office, the issue of a Black political agenda or lack thereof is placed in the spotlight. 

The questions that arise are whether the two-party system serves the African-American electorate, if Black voters are forced to select between the lesser of two evils, and whether a Black independent political party or a coalition with other people of color and white progressives is necessary as a counter - weight to donkeys and elephants to ensure that their interests are protected.

At present, Black voters are presented with a Democratic Party that most African-Americans support even amid decades-long charges that their vote has been taken for granted and a Republican Party that has emerged as a focal point of white nationalism and is viewed as hostile to Black interests. 

Meanwhile, within the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders vie for the Black vote and support of the Black Lives Matter movement, with many Black pragmatists attracted to the former, and idealists attracted to the latter.  But are African-American interests being served?

The notion of a Black party is by no means a new concept. As noted by William A. Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy, an independent Black political party was Malcolm X’s objective at the end of his life.

“I think this is the kind of work that we should have been engaged in a long time ago, well prior to Obama’s election as a Democratic Party candidate.  We should not have had high expectations of what his candidacy would be because it was squarely within the two-party system,” Darity told Atlanta Black Star. We should have developed a party for a long time.”

Such efforts were attempted. For example, the preamble of the National Black Political Agenda, also known as the Gary Declaration an outgrowth of the National Black Political Convention of 1972 states that “all truly black politics, must begin from this truth: The American system does not work for the masses of our people, and it cannot be made to work without radical fundamental change (indeed, this system does not really work in favor of the humanity of anyone in America).”

In 1980, Black nationalists convened to form the National Black Independent Political Party, out of frustration over the Democratic and Republican Parties. “The National Black Independent Political Party aims to attain power to radically transform the present socio-economic order. That is, to achieve self-determination and social and political freedom for the masses of Black people. Therefore, our party will actively oppose racism, imperialism, sexual oppression, and capitalist exploitation,” its charter stated. 

Darity notes that the successes of past third parties have been tied to the personalities of individual candidates such as Ross Perot or John Anderson.  “Their parties were so associated with them that there was no way to sustain them when their candidacy was done,” he said, adding that a viable third party needs its own base and cannot be dependent on an individual candidate. 

The professor, who focuses on inequality, believes a third party is necessary in addressing the problems faced by African-Americans. He finds the concept of a party focused on social inequality in America “an exciting prospect.”

“It is essential because the national imagination is deeply constrained by the two-party system. There is no effort to solve the degree of racial inequality, joblessness and poverty, and the existing two-party system will not dramatically change those positions,” Darity said.

“One of the obvious issues is, Blacks are an outvoted minority in this country, unlike South Africa, so there would have to be coalition politics. And those coalitions would have to be carefully crafted so they would be in line with our interests,” he noted.

Darity warned, however, that Black people must be careful about what their interests truly are. “There is a slippery slope of Black people blaming Black people for our condition. 

It’s what I call the Bill Cosby point of view the idea that our problems are a consequence of our actions which is a complete misanalysis,” he argues. “It’s not sufficient that this is anchored around Black folk. The ideological component of that party is crucial also.”

To advance his argument, Darity pointed to his research on the causes of Black disparity, including the finding that Black people who have college degrees have two-thirds of the net worth of whites who never finished high school.  

Further, studies have shown that Blacks who have finished some college or have an associate’s degree have a higher unemployment rate than whites who dropped out of high school. These studies are a “powerful indicator” of the problems faced by African-Americans not of their making, Darity insists.

Dr. Randall Miller, a historian and professor at St. Joseph’s University, believes the idea of a Black political party - not necessarily an exclusive party but one that “would push the interests of Black people to the forefront, and would drive policy and practice” geared towards African-American concerns - is a good one.

“One could also make the case that in terms of effectiveness, and in terms of unity of interests coming from the Black community - Black Lives Matter a case in point doing it within the present party structure, at least in the short run, might be the most effective,” Miller told Atlanta Black Star.  “There’s a lot of urgency in these issues. What happens historically with third-parties is they are short-lived, and don’t succeed.

If organized well enough, they drive certain issues that force people to address them,” he added. “The extent you can mobilize public interests and support could mean one of the two parties would have to take up the issues.” 

To make his point, Miller noted how through external pressure from the Civil Rights Movement, and internal pressure from Fannie Lou Hamer and others, the Democratic Party adopted policies of concern to African-Americans.

“The danger in doing so is it co-opts it and mutes it,” Miller said of movements that align with a particular party. Ultimately, he believes that for third-party politics to succeed, a “radical transformation of white views is needed.”

He thinks, however, that there is also much potential for third-party successes on the local level. According to Vincent Hutchings, Professor, Department of Political Science at the University of Michigan, the challenge for any third-party effort is that the laws as written by the two parties discourage a third party from emerging.

“Unlike other advanced democracies, the U.S. makes it difficult to form a third party,” Hutchings told Atlanta Black Star, noting the winner-take-all system in which a party wins with a majority of the votes and not a plurality.

“The people who are there want to keep it that way,” he said.Ultimately, because the rules do not favor a third party, “the third party would ultimately have to replace one of the two parties in order for that to happen,” Hutchings added. Although the prospects are difficult, however, he believes such efforts as a Black independent party should be encouraged.

“A case is to be made for a party outside the Democratic or Republican Party. Just as the system is rigged to prevent the rise of a third party, the system is set up as to not be responsive to the interests of African-Americans,” he noted. “It’s set up in part because of the nature of the electorate. 

Most of the voters are white, and given the peculiar history of this country, they are not inclined to embrace the sorts of policies that would be necessary to address longstanding racial inequities,” Hutchings said.

Given that the system will make no substantial efforts to address these intractable forms of inequality, Hutchings said, it makes perfect sense to consider political structures outside the traditional two-party system.

“The issues that African-Americans and others face in this country can be described succinctly: For multiple generations, the United States has afforded privileges to people classified as whites. We are not only living with the residue of that, but the process is going on in 2016. 

The issue is not one about Black disadvantage and inequality, but white advantage and inequality that is sanctioned by the state,” he noted, emphasizing the need to address white supremacy and the privileges afforded to white folks.

“That portion of the population, on balance, will be reluctant to give up that power as a rule. Whites are reluctant to recognize they possess disproportionate advantage and give up anything that would diminish that advantage, and that is whether whites belong to the Republican or Democratic parties,” Hutchings said.

Further, he believes that addressing the concerns of Black people “means taking something away from whites,” which none of the presidential candidates are inclined to do, because “it is not in their political fortunes to do so.”

In addition, the political science scholar views a Black coalition with other groups “as being desirable, though not realistic in the short term.” However, he also noted that “at one time it was unrealistic to consider abolishing slavery or giving women the right to vote. History is peppered with things that were once unrealistic.”

Moreover, there are inherent difficulties to establishing an independent Black party, which would require a great deal of grassroots organizing, funding and internal unity. As Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

For example, as Hurumia Ahati wrote in “An Independent Black Political Party: Posing an Alternative to Asses, Elephants and Rainbows” in the National Black Law Journal in 1988, the party may be labeled as separatist and not desirable for some Black people over being involved in a white-dominated power structure.

Hutchings anticipates some internal barriers to the success of such an organization. “Other Black people will be resistant,” he contends. “Given the depressed disadvantage of many African-Americans, you understand why they cling their allegiance to the Democratic Party, because the other party wants to make things even worse. 

So a solution outside the two-party system has some risks. The risk is that the current allegiance to the current Democratic Party might facilitate the success of the Republican Party,” he noted. “We also risk sticking to the current strategy.  

Things are bad, the Democrats are not going to make them better, and the Republicans will make them worse.  So, pick your poison.”

Blacks are Preoccupied with American Electoral Politics While Self Determination Goes by the Wayside:

by Quincy Jamal Stewart (MAALS Pontiac Chapter Leader)

Here we are, two weeks away from the election and blacks of every ilk are preoccupied with saving Hillary or going into hell with Trump. If we look closely at America's history, we will find that blacks in particular and the poor in general have been a political football for decades.

I find it difficult to swallow in my own community when independent thinking is shunned and the only way to be heard is to submit to the group think of political correctness. One example would be Obama.

Speak critically of Obama and many blacks are ready to form a lynch mob to rid themselves of such a blasphemous ingrate. The fact is that under Obama, war has never ceased, blacks have swarmed the prisons in record numbers and law enforcement and the criminal justice system has increased it's war on blacks replete with murder and unjust incarceration.

Yes, Obama has freed some people from prison but our political prisoners remain behind bars. Their plight is sealed under the fear of white political backlash.

I might add that Hillary Clinton is touted as the most qualified person to ever run for the office. Yet, she has supported the Crime Bill and the Welfare Reform Act to name a couple and touted young blacks as "super predators."

Hilary is presented to us as the lesser of two evils. This nearly insane retort to evil in general is like being a little bit pregnant. Trump is as obvious as the nose on your proverbial face; racist, sexist, overtly war mongering and completely unstable.

To contrast that to Hillary's calm demeanor only equates to the fiery style of Hitler compared to the calm of Ben Carson. Both are insane. More importantly, is the fact that the entire American system, founded on institutionalized white supremacy, in spite of the profound contradictions encountered by slavery and the founding fathers.

Despite their debates over the matter and the pinhole light of decency that emerged through the pulled shade of greed and hatred they ultimately displayed, is yet a sham.

The rich and powerful run this system through money. The elections are not "rigged" as Trump suggests. Something has to be legitimate FIRST in order to rig it. Elections and the so-called "electoral college" which is also a sham, are ruled by those who have the most money.

Certainly we can all go out and vote and numerically we may see some transparency. Votes DO COUNT. But as we saw with Gore in 2000, in the end, when they want someone to win, it happens regardless of your so called "vote."

Here in Michigan, we voted down Public Act 4, which literally stripped even the veneer of democracy from majority black cities. Stripping city councils and mayors of ALL their power to legislate and gave it over to Emergency Managers, people of the lowest character and countenance as monarchs to gentrify and deep cleanse the communities of their resources and bring in the friends and family plan, firing long time workers, denying pensions and hiring outsiders to have those jobs.

Even after Pub Act 4 was voted down by the people of the state, Lansing Republicans and some Democrats by stealth simply wrote another bill, Public Act 436, which was even more despotic than the previous voted-down bill and stripped Pontiac, as an example, of ALL its resources; fire department, police, DPW, all the tax-paid-for trucks, cars, buildings...you name it and now Pontiac is a city ripe for the expansion of deep gentrification of Carthaginian proportions. So much for the vote.

Yet, we cling tenaciously to voting as though it is our ONLY resource. We hearken back to the good old days of the Civil Rights movement as though it was a way of life....Civil rights was a strategy not Buddhism or Kemetic Spirituality.

Civil Rights is not a way of life! Those old washed-up, rough-dried has-beens of the past who urge us to practice posterity instead of intelligent planning and progressive action keep telling us that marching, singing old songs, and begging the system for justice will eventually shake the tree of morality and justice will come falling down like manna from heaven. This too is a hapless myth.

Martin Luther King showed us that this fallacious assumption can't happen in a country that feeds on war and greed. How can one appeal to the moral conscious of a system which has no conscious to appeal to? They killed our most peaceful protagonist in this age-old saga of cat and mouse. They killed him anyway.

What am I saying? Nothing really - I am only suggesting that America is stupid in so many ways. We reveal our stupidity and gullibility by even allowing a circus act, and a poor one at that- like Trump to even enter the discourse let alone run for office.

We equally show our collective ability to be had and bamboozled by a dynasty (Clinton's) of wide-lapeled, double-knit, polyester leisure suit wearing used car salesmen/hucksters who tell us despite serving blacks up for Crime Bills and Welfare reform Acts which have ripple effects Tsunami-style to this very day we should be willing to eat the gruel and drink the piss so long as it comes from a Democrat.

For me, Self Determination; the ability to chart one's own destiny, peacefully when and if possible - to at the very least be in a position where no matter who is in office, our economic self sufficiency is stable and then we aren't, as Comrade George Jackson so aptly put it, "at the whim and caprice of the system."

Are Chaldean merchants who control our communities economically worried about who is in office as long as we buy from them? Are the Koreans who do our nails?

As long as the cottage industry of black economic exploitation exists and as long as black complicit behavior patterns and apathy exists with it, we depend on a system which has historically exploited us, while those who exploit us locally depend on us.

Vote. Go ahead. But as the song says, "after tonight, Will you still love me, tomorrow?" No pimp answers that one.

Blacks Believing That Racism Was Lessening Was Just Our Imagination

by Kenny Anderson

Over the past year, since the racist police murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the acquittal of white 'killer-kop’ Daren Wilson, Blacks across this country have consistently protested against the on-going racist murders of Blacks by police.

These racist police murders have become routine, like the recent murders of a Black male and female in Texas. Christian Taylor, a 19-year-old male, was murdered by a white cop in Arlington, Texas; Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old female was found dead while in police custody in Walker County, Texas.

From my perspective, the majority of Blacks protesting against racist police murders, and the Blacks who are not protesting, believe that most whites are empathetic to our struggle against injustices, along with a belief that the American government is against racial injustices. The reality is, both of these notions are ‘untrue’ – they are false!

According to the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute survey released June 23^rd of this year, the survey found that 63% of white Americans believe that protests against unequal treatment are good for the country.

However, when Blacks are protesting against injustices, less than half of whites, 48%, believe that Black protests are good for the country; white protesters are viewed as an ‘activists’ - while Black protesters are often viewed as 'thugs’.

What was ‘note-worthy’ in the Public Religion Research Institute survey, and needs to be highlighted, is that, young whites in their 20s, the millennials, have basically the same racist views as older whites.

This survey showed that the so-called ‘post-racial generation’ of whites aged 17 to 34, were only slightly less likely than whites 65 and older, to say Blacks were ‘unintelligent’ – a 1.5 point difference, or ‘lazy’ – a 3.6 point difference.

Indeed, the election of a Black male president Barak Obama and a post-racial America is a farce! With regard to the Obama Administration supporting the Black protest struggles against racist police murders and injustices of the system is also a farce.

Emails recently obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that Obama’s Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter group, one of the leading groups protesting against racist police murders. No surprise, nothing has changed! During the 1960’s President Johnson’s FBI under J. Edgar Hoover constantly monitored Martin Luther King, Jr. and the SCLC when they protested against Southern white supremacy racist police brutality and murders.

What were Blacks thinking when they believed racism was decreasing in America just because Obama was elected as president? Blacks have been politically neglected by Obama and our worst off socio-economically under his administration. In the words of Eddie Kendrics: “It was just my imagination running away with me.”

This post-civil rights political imagination is rooted in the idealistic – romantic excerpt from ‘The I Hade Dream Speech’ by an over-optimistic and naïve Martin Luther King:

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave-owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of  freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”

As Blacks we forgot these latter words of a more mature and seasoned Martin Luther King:

“I remain an optimist, though I am also a realist, about the barriers before us. Why is the issue of racial equality still so far from solution in America, a nation that professes itself to be democratic, inventive, hospitable to new ideas, rich productive and awesomely powerful? The problem is so tenacious because, despite its virtues and attributes, America is deeply racist and its democracy is flawed both economically and socially, justice for Black people cannot be achieved without radical changes in the structure of our society, exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced.”

This radical reconstruction of American society King refers to must be expressed in Black organizational resistance by simultaneously exposing, confronting – protesting against racial injustices and building as a first priority institutional 'Black Power’ in our communities.

Though protesting is necessary it’s not sufficient’; protesting alone makes us dependent on whites granting us justice, as Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael) stated: “Then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.

Establishing The Black-Commune: Community Control of the Black Community

by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin

"How do we raise a new revolutionary consciousness against a system programmed against our old methods? We must use a new approach and revolutionize the Black Central City Commune, and slowly provide the people with the incentive to fight by allowing them to create programs, which will meet all their social, political, and economic, needs. We must fill the vacuums left by the established order. In return, we must teach them the benefits of our revolutionary ideals. We must build a subsistence economy and a sociopolitical infrastructure so that we can become an example for all revolutionary people." - George Jackson, in his book Blood in my Eye

The idea behind a ‘Black-Commune’ is to create a dual power structure as a counter to the underdevelopment, decline, and marginalization of Black communities due to economic globalization and the political neglect from federal, state, and local government. This means that Black people must form and unify their own organizations of struggle to take control of the existing Black communities and all the institutions within them for the purpose of progressive re-development.

The realization of this aim means that we can build inner city Black-Communes which will be centers of Black power and social revolutionary culture against the white political power structures and elected Black neo-colonial officials in majority Black cities of the United States. Once they assume hegemony such Black-Communes would be an actual alternative to the State and serve as a force to revolutionize Black people - it would serve as a living example of self-determination.

There's a tremendous fighting power of potential in the Black community but it is not organized in a structured revolutionary way to effectively struggle and take what is due. The white Capitalist ruling class recognizes this, which is why it pushes the fraud of "Black Capitalism" and Black politicians and other such "responsible leaders. These fakes and sellout artists lead us to the dead-end road of voting and praying for that which we must really be willing to fight for!

The Black-Commune is a staging ground for Black struggle for the struggle of political self-determination and economic self-reliance. This communal staging ground will be governed by community councils who make policy decisions, administer affairs, and develop the capacities of the Black community. These councils would be democratic neighborhood assemblies composed of representative elected by Black workers in various community institutions-factories, hospitals, schools-as well as delegates elected on a block basis.

As Black people due to our accute socioeconomic crisis we can no longer afford to depend on Black Mayors, other politicians, or government bureaucrats; we must reject them in order to struggle 'for real' community power. Therefore we must take up the political responsibility to gain community control of all the institutions of the Black community instead of just letting the State decide what is good for us! We need full control over our communities because it is not only our right to benefit from our resources and dollars but also the residents of a community have a true understanding of its needs and desires.

The local council would then be federated - joined together on a local level to create a city-wide group of councils who would run affairs in that community. The councils and other neighborhoods collectives organized for a variety of reasons would make a mass commune. This commune would be in turn federated at the regional and national level the aim being to create a national federation of Black-Communes, which would meet periodically in one or a number of mass assembly meetings. This federation would be composed of elected or appointed delegates representing their local commune or council.

Such a national federation of Black-Communes would allow Black community councils from all over North America to work out common policies and speak with one voice on all matters affecting their communities or regions. It would thus have far more power than any single community council could. However, to prevent this national federation from bureaucratic usurpation of power by political factions or opportunistic leaders, elections should be held regularly and delegates would be subject to recall at any time for misconduct, so that they remain under the control of the local communities they represent

The Black community councils are really a type of grassroots movement made up of all the social formations of our people: the block and neighborhood committees, Labor, student and youth groups, (even the church, to a limited degree), social activist groups, and others to unite the various protest actions around a common program of struggle for this period. These community councils represent direct democracy instead of the type of phony American "representative democracy,” which is really nothing but control by politicians and businessmen. The councils are especially important because they provide embryonic self- rule and the beginnings of an alternative to the dependency-deprivation reliance on the American government.

The Black-Commune also represents a Black revolutionary counterculture - it is the embryo of the new Black revolutionary society in the body of the old sick, dying one. It is the new lifestyle in microcosm that contains the new Black social values and the new communal organizations, and institutions, which will become the sociopolitical infrastructure of the new Black cooperative society. Our objective is to teach new Black social values of unity and struggle against the negative effects of a greedy materialistic - consumeristic white Capitalist society and culture. To do that we must build the Black-Commune into a Black Consciousness movement to build race pride and respect.

This Black communalism would be both a repository of the best in Black culture and ideology. We need to change both our lives and our lifestyles in order to deal with the many interpersonal contradictions and conflicts that exist in our community. We must examine the Black family, Black male/female relationships, the mental health of the Black community, relations between the community and the white establishment, non-Blacks, and among Black people themselves. We would hold Black consciousness raising sessions in schools, community centers, prisons and in Black communities all over North America that would teach Black history and culture; new liberating social ideas and values to children and adults, as well as relevant counseling and therapy techniques to resolve family and marital problems, all the while giving a Black revolutionary perspective to the issues of the day. Our people must be made to see that the self-hatred, disunity, distrust, internecine violence, and oppressive social conditions among Black people are the result of the legacy of African slavery and the present day effects of Capitalist greed.

Finally the main objective of Black revolutionary culture is to agitate and organize Black people to struggle for their freedom. As Steve Biko, the murdered South African revolutionary stated: 

"The call for Black consciousness is the most positive call to come from ally group in the Black world for a long time. It is more than just a reactionary rejection of whites by Blacks. At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization by Blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. Once the latter has been so effectively manipulated and controlled by the oppressor as to make the oppressed believe that he is a liability to the white man, then there is nothing the oppressed can do that will really scare the powerful masters. The philosophy of Black consciousness, therefore expresses group pride and the determination by Blacks to rise up and attain the envisaged self. "

By the "envisaged self," Biko refers to the Black self as a liberated psyche. It is that which we want to rescue with such a Black consciousness movement here in America. We need to counter Black self-hatred, defeatism, fatalism, and frivolous survival ’party mentality’. We also want to end the social degradation of our community - rid it of drug addiction, prostitution, Black-on-Black crime, and other social evils that destroys the moral fiber of the Black community. These negative social values, the so-called "dog-eat-dog" philosophy of capitalist greed teaches Black people to be individualists of the worst sort; willing to commit any kind of crime against each other, and to take advantage of each other. This oppressive culture is what we are fighting against and as long as it exists it will be hard to unify Black people around a revolutionary self-determined political program.

Building a Black Survival Program.

The racial oppression of Black people is glaringly manifested in economic deprivation: massive unemployment and poverty. Therefore we must address economic survival in addition to providing new cultural role models. It is in the area of socioeconomic development where the Black-Commune, a network of community organizations and institutions assumes its greatest importance.

We must build a political socioeconomic infrastructure to intervene in every area of Black life: food and housing cooperatives, Black Liberation schools, people's banks and community mutual aid funds, medical clinics and hospitals, rodent control and pest extermination programs, cooperative factories, community cultural and entertainment centers, the establishment of an intercommunal electronic communications network, land and building reclamation projects, public works volunteer brigades to rebuild the cities, youth projects, drug clinics, and many other such programs.

Michigan State Colonialism: Annexing Majority Black Cities

 by Kenny Anderson

Michigan’s state colonial mandate imposition ‘Public Act 4’ has been a major disaster for majority Black cities - an ‘economic tsunami’ massively washing away jobs and municipal assets. Colonialism is the forced establishment, maintenance, acquisition, and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. 

Public Act 4 is a policy whereby the state claims sovereign authority over the city-colony; and the social structure, government, and economics of the city- colony are dominated by colonizers from Lansing through their Emergency Managers.

Several majority Black cities in Michigan suffering from disaster capitalism deindustrialization are currently subjected to colonial administrative Emergency Managers appointed by Republican governor Rick Snyder. Superseding elected officials and legislature, the emergency manager under Public Act 4 can autocratically eliminate programs, lay off workers, void contracts, including those made with labor unions, privatize services, and sell off assets.

The cities and one school district under the control of an Emergency Manager are Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint, Pontiac, and the Detroit Public Schools. This is the second time around for Ecorse which was in State receivership for 13 years. This is also the second time for Flint, which had an ‘Emergency Financial Manager’ from 2002-2006. The cities of Detroit and Inkster and Benton Harbor Public Schools could soon be added to this list. If Detroit is appointed an Emergency Manager, half of African-Americans in Michigan will be living in cities run by EMs.

As Blacks it is important to recognize the history of this state’s colonial intervention financial emergency policies like Public Act 4 have developed over many decades. In December 1986, the Wayne County Circuit Court issued a court order appointing Louis Schimmel receiver for the bankrupt City of Ecorse devastated by deindustrialization two square miles just south of Detroit. On August 1, 1999 Schimmel's autocratic reign including being the official ‘monitor’ ended in Ecorse; Schimmel is the current Emergency Manager over the City of Pontiac.

The current situation of majority Black cities being under an autocratic Emergency Manager began over 25 years ago is rooted in massive auto plant closings. This deindustrialization process began in Pontiac in 1979 when over 30,000 auto jobs were loss; a loss of over 100,000 jobs in Flint; and the loss of over 250,000 jobs in Detroit, Highland Park, and Ecorse – majority Black cities – resulting in a rippling effect of municipal deficits and de-population. When a city loses industry, businesses, and people, it loses revenue – becomes deficit-ridden.

Right wing conservative legislators understood the de-industrialization producing economic plight on these majority Black cities, and formulated a plan – a policy to repress, exploit, and destroy. Racist policy-makers and politicians here in Michigan understood due to globalization that majority Black cities would not rebound economically nor were they going to assist these cities mired in economic downturns.

By 1987, the Michigan Legislature started to write up a method of exercising state power over distressed majority Black cities and the bill that would become Public Act 101 of 1988 was brought to the State Senate floor, spearheaded by the future Governor and Lieutenant Governor duo: John Engler and Dick Posthumus. This bill set up a state colonial intervention process personified by the Emergency Financial Manager position, which was modeled after Schimmel’s receivership in Ecorse. Moreover this bill ideologically represented a continuation of the white conservative backlash against Black civil rights under the guise of the State’s Treasury Department.

For years the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy has urged reforms to Michigan law giving more power and protection to Emergency Financial Managers, state-appointed officials who parachute into ailing post industrial majority Black cities with a colonial austerity mandate. In January 2005, Mackinac published four recommendations by Louis Schimmel an adjunct scholar with the Center to make changes to Public Act 72. Including granting emergency managers the power to override elected officials (such as a mayor or school board member) and toss out union contracts. All four ended up in Snyder's Public Act 4 legislation.

Schimmel’s amendments to Public Act 72 were as follows:

1. Under current law, the EFM can be sued personally. Given that actions by an EFM will almost certainly be controversial, and harassing lawsuits are likely, it is essential that an EFM’s personal assets be protected. Making the EFM an employee of the state treasury department with access to the legal staff of the attorney general would make the present lack of indemnification for an EFM largely moot. Harassing lawsuits by local bargaining units or other affected entities or individuals would be defended by the state — an entity that has the depth of financial resources to discourage the filing of frivolous lawsuits.

2. The present Act lists the powers of an EFM, which are extensive but are not all-inclusive. This can allow the governing body to impede the overall effort of the EFM to deal with the municipality’s fiscal crisis. The Act should state that the EFM replaces and takes on the powers of the governing body (mayor and council or school board.)

3. Charter provisions, especially in old charters, can prevent or make it difficult for an EFM to make necessary structural changes to address financial problems. The EFM should have the power to review charter provisions that frustrate the process of cleaning up and streamlining a municipality’s financial functions.

4. Presently, most labor contracts provide for mandatory continuation of an expired contract until a new one is negotiated. This means municipalities have no opportunity to take advantage of lower-cost service providers. Additionally, in the case of public safety unions, municipalities must adhere to the provisions of Act 312, which mandates that when a municipality and union cannot agree on the terms of a new contract they must go to binding arbitration. In most cases, it takes nearly two years or longer to complete the process, and the legal costs are substantial. Furthermore, municipalities rarely reduce costs by going through the Act 312 process but rather, at best, limit the amount of increased expenses. Act 312 should be repealed in its entirety.

So you see, Schimmel is the originator - ‘god-father’ of the Emergency Manager. You see folks, Public Act 101, Public Act 72, and Public Act 4 were never designed to save economically troubled majority Black cities. These Public Acts were developed to seize and sell, that is why these Acts are under the Michigan Treasury Department!

I want to end by highlighting some points:

Black folks as I mentioned earlier the evolution of the Emergency Manager Public Act bills are rooted in de-industrialization, the massive plant closings that took place in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. Ecorse went bankrupt because Great Lakes Steel closed down large sections of its Plant and laid off large numbers of workers.

Here in Pontiac, GM shut down 90 percent of its plants, there were 11 plants here – now only one (the Power train) there are no cars and trucks produced in Pontiac. These plant closing resulted in a huge loss of revenues to this City, with no jobs individuals and families left in large numbers – depopulation. When families left, their children left the Pontiac School District.

Coupled with Charter Schools and Schools of Choice, have cause a deficit ridden School District; deficit ridden school districts in deficit ridden majority Black cities are also being placed under Emergency Managers. Case in point is the Detroit Public Schools where over 100 schools have been closed.

Highlighting depopulation, according to the 2010 census data – Detroit’s population is 714,000 people. It has less people than Charlotte, North Carolina. Detroit has lost over 200,000 people the last decade alone.

Folks De-industrialization, De-population, and Deficits – the 3 Big D’s are a result of Globalization, the global impact on the American economy. Majority Black cities in Michigan are being punished by being placed under Emergency Managers due to an economic crisis that we did not create nor can we control!

Black folks in Michigan are being punished for Disaster Capitalism –deindustrialization. No different than Blacks in New Orleans were punished for the “Disaster” of Hurricane Katrina. 

Pontiac – A House Divided

by Kenny Anderson

It has been almost three years (March 2009) that the City of Pontiac has had an imposed Emergency Financial Manger and Emergency Manager: the first autocrat was Leeb, the second was Stampfler, and now Schimmel. 

What is glaring about the autocratic rule here, is that many Pontiac residents claim to prize democracy, yet there has been no unified – massive protest to tell the County, the State, the Country, and the World that this imposed autocracy is unacceptable and the citizens here are outraged. This united expression of outrage has not manifested. Why Not? Simple Answer – Pontiac is a House Divided!

Autocratic rule here in Pontiac did not have to use a strategy of divide and conquer, all it had to do was impose and conquer because the lack of unity – division was already here. For some time, community and local politics in Pontiac has been divided; generally no unity, at times superficial unity that has been ineffective.

Starting in the Black community, over the years most Black neighborhoods in Pontiac have been beset by many critical socioeconomic problems; ranging from poor education, no jobs, no businesses, neglect, and violence – but no effective unity to address these problems. Black churches are not effectively unified.

There is no real unity between Blacks, Whites, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Hmong here in Pontiac. City workers have been divided; police and firemen were glaringly divided; each falsely believing at one point that they were too important to be laid off or eliminated. Indeed, Pontiac has been divided by many self-serving self-interests.

Under autocratic emergency managers, these self-interests mean nothing! These divided self-interests are autocratically conquered now, resulting in apathy, complaining, superficial responses, and appealing for outside intervention. One of the reasons why there has not been an effective unified response to autocratic Emergency Manager rule here in Pontiac, is citizens are in ‘denial’ that Pontiac is a house divided!

Once we stop denying and accept there is no real unity, then if we are serious and committed, we can initiate a genuine call to build a principled coalition - an effective, collective response to autocratic rule. This coalition must have an alternative democratic vision for Pontiac; realistic goals, a plan for capacity building, resource-development, and resoluteness.

Very importantly, this coalition must place emphasis on entrepreneurship, creating neighborhood businesses and jobs. Plant jobs, city jobs, and school district jobs are increasingly being eliminated. Besides getting beyond ‘division denial’, Pontiac residents have to accept change – new realities and responsibilities, embracing change and uncertainty. In order to deal effectively with these new realities and responsibilities, we as citizens must have a new ‘mind-set’ that consists of the following:

*Uniting, getting together for mutual aid!

*Focus on solutions!

*Stop gossiping and complaining. Do something!

*Stop playing the waiting game, autocracy is here and the challenge is now!

*Turn adversity – Emergency Manager rule, into a struggle to build grassroots political power!

*Stop looking for a president, elected officials, and the courts to be our saviors; SOS–Save Our Selves - be Self-determined!

Finally, we must have confidence and faith that we as citizens unified can initiate and create alternative democracy in Pontiac. However, for this unity to occur and progress to proceed we have to have some ‘frank-talks’ to address our divisiveness and a serious commitment to overcome what divides us.

Until we accept ‘together we stand and divided we fall’, Pontiac will continue to be a ‘House Divided’ that is crumbling’ even further under Emergency Manager rule.

Building Alternative Democracy in Pontiac

by Kenny Anderson

Hopefully, what is obvious and known now in Pontiac is this City is under the autocratic control of an ‘Emergency Manager’. Autocratic means the non-elective rule by one person, in the case of Pontiac the one-person ruler is Louis Schimmel, whose power was granted by the State of Michigan through Public Act 4, signed into law by the new Republican Governor, Rich Snyder. 

Section ‘EE’ of the Act highlights autocratic power, it reads: “Take any other action or exercise any power or authority of any officer, employee, department, board, commission, or other similar entity of the local government. The power of the Emergency Manager shall be superior to and supersede the power of any of the fore-going entities.”

So it has been written into law, the power of the Emergency Manager here in Pontiac is supreme and its supremacy is omnipotent for the time being. So it should be clear now that Pontiac is a non-democratic colonized City with no political and economic control; a Mayor and City Council stripped of salaries, reduced to mere symbolism; a City that’s under occupational law enforcement – the Oakland County Sheriff Department.

It should also be clear that residents of Pontiac have a choice, accept undemocratic democracy, or accept the responsibility of building an alternative movement for self-determined democracy. What’s clear to me is that some residents for whatever reasons will accept undemocratic democracy – autocracy; others will challenge the Emergency Manager’s rule through a court process; a waiting game of legal dependency; a process ultimately determined by ‘State’ and ‘Federal’ Supreme Courts dominated by Republicans.

For those citizens in Pontiac that believe in ‘democracy’and uphold ‘democracy’, they must take a Bold Stand against the legitimacy of an autocratic Emergency Manager rule of government, it’s ‘legal’ but it’s 'un-democratic'. Just as racist Jim Crow and segregation was the ‘law - legal’ in the South, it was ‘immoral’; Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Civil Rights movement took a ‘Bold Stand’ against it. Indeed, taking a ‘Bold Stand’ for alternative self-determined democracy here in Pontiac requires us to go beyond our fears and lack of confidence to take the initiative – responsibility and make the sacrifices change requires.

We must take a ‘Bold’ self-determined stand away from City Hall! The new decentralized City Hall must be our Homes, Churches, and Meeting Places. We must take a ‘Bold’ self-determined stand to create a new leadership structure comprised of a coalition of Black Block Clubs, Associations, Churches, and Community-based Organizations. We must take a ‘Bold’ self-determined stand to become Problem-Solvers, engaging in Resource Management and Development.

We must take a ‘Bold’ self-determined stand to provide education awareness empowerment communication to raise citizen consciousness. We must utilize alternative means of communication, such as web-conferencing, conference calls, email blasts, newsletters, and community forums. I believe sooner than later the Emergency Manager is going to pull the plug on televised City Council meetings.

As residents of Pontiac we must understand that democracy means much - much more that just casting a vote. Currently, just casting a vote will not change Emergency Manager autocracy in Pontiac because under Public Act 4 local elected officials have no power. However, a struggle for democratic self-determination can develop alternative citizen community power.

Through the process of democratic self-determination and activist-citizenry, democracy will be more capable and stronger on the other side of an Emergency Financial Manager.