Back in October 2006, I did the first of a two-part column, where I asked whether or not a black person would soon become Brooklyn’s Borough President, and in so doing: make history. At that point in time, the only black who had publicly spoken about running for the office was Assemblyman Nick Perry. Let me tweak that: Chris Owens-the well known political activist from Brooklyn- had also publicly stated interest in running for the position. Now remember that Chris has a black father and a white mother, so to be accurate I call him mixed (both black and white); just like Barack Obama. That’s the only reason why I didn’t mention him in the same breath as Nick. If Chris calls himself black – or considers himself black (only) – then he can le me know, so in future I will refer to him as he wishes. It is one of the painful realities of the good old USA: this racial identity thing that could be ridiculous and absurd at times.
Anyway, neither Chris nor Nick had made any formal public declarations at that point, so the race was still wide open for speculation. In that column – and also later in the second part – I ran through a list of potential runners for the seat, and came up with many names for people of differing races, ethnicities, religions and nationalities; all of whom were rumored to have some interest in the race. Since then I have done one or two updates in my sporadic “Vines” columns, as I continued to keep you readers informed as to the dynamics of this unfolding race. I also continued to speculate as to all the other blacks in Brooklyn’s politics, who may have had some interest (fleeting or otherwise) in this job. I floated many names: some of them have sunk, some others have shrunk.
So now here we are, just about a year from circulating petitions for that primary, and the field seems to be crystallizing rather quickly. At present there seems to be four runners: two blacks and two whites. In alphabetical order, their names are: NYC councilman Charles Barron; another NYC councilman Bill DiBlasio; former Deputy Brooklyn Borough President Yvonne Graham (who served for over six years under Marty Markowitz); and NY State Senator Karl Krueger. The other names that were previously mentioned as having an interest in the race have all dropped by the wayside. This includes Nick Perry, Chris Owens, and NYC councilman Nelson, among many others.
So now there is one woman and three men. I am being told that one of the whites is Jewish; and I know that the woman was born in Jamaica, West Indies. The Caribbean-American crowd is starting to get excited about her candidacy. Of course her name is Yvonne Graham. She is a very attractive candidate, and I mean that literally, figuratively, physically and politically.
Ms. Yvonne Graham is a health expert who was selected by current mayoral candidate (and Brooklyn’s number one cheerleader) Marty Markowitz, to be his deputy boro prez in 2002. For years, many of us in certain circles of Brooklyn’s politics had considered Ms. Graham’s political potential as limitless; however, she was, for quite some time: a reluctant runner. All this has changed. She is quite enthused about this race; she is fired up and ready to go. She is also supremely confident that she can put together the racial, nationalistic, religious, gender and ethnic coalitions, reflective of all of Brooklyn’s residents. She intends to be a woman for all the people of Brooklyn.
This diminutive young woman was brave enough to face down the radical Charles Barron, in a one on one meeting a few months ago, and to tell him in no uncertain terms: that she was entering the race. Telling him this, despite the fact that he had publicly declared to run for the same seat, on Boro Hall’s steps last year May, in front of about one hundred of his vocal and misguided supporters. Quelle muejer!
What Barron didn’t understand then -and probably still doesn’t understand to this day- is that he blew whatever little chance he had of becoming Brooklyn’s boro prez, on the day he formally announced. With his patented anachronistic verbiage, he shouted from the top of his lungs, that when he becomes boro prez, he would “take care of black people”. As if the millions of non-blacks in Brooklyn didn’t count. As if nobody else matters but “his” people. It was another of many disappointing statements coming from Barron’s loose lips- which have been progressively sinking his political ship since the day of his first inauguration.
One warm night in August of 2006, I happened to hear Charles Barron addressing a crowd of mixed races (though predominantly black) at the Christian Life Center, on Flatlands Avenue near Starett City. It was while he was running for the US Congress against the incumbent congressman Ed Towns. He closed his presentation by saying:”I love (my) black people”; after he had already articulated how much he would do for “his” people in Washington. I remember calling him up on the phone early the next morning, to admonish him on his divisive remarks. I told him that as an elected official, he was no longer some militant rabble-rousing radical, speaking at some protest rally where that kind of talk would go down well with the fired-up crowd. I further told him that being the elected representative of all the people in his district (almost 10% white, and about 20% Hispanic), he has to show more sensitivity to those who were not black. He argued with me no end, trying to justify his remarks; until he finally came around (somewhat abruptly) to saying that I was correct. Maybe it was just to appease me and end the argument-given the countless arguments we have had over the years- but he insisted that in the future he would be careful not to say things like that; he lied (again).
When good old Charlie Bee made that faux pas on Boro Hall’s steps last year, many people – who are seriously committed to fighting racism, bigotry, injustice and the like – then saw Yvonne Graham’s potential candidacy as: a breath of fresh air. Is it any wonder that her potential candidacy is creating excitement in certain political circles in Brooklyn?
Stay tuned-in folks; I will tell you more about this woman’s qualifications, credentials and accomplishments in the second part of this column. She is an impressive individual with almost no political scar-tissue. She just might be: exactly what Brooklyn needs right about now.