Last night a rather nasty debate was held between State Senator Kevin Parker, City Councilman Kendall Stewart, and Councilman Simcha Felder. The debate quickly degraded into a war of racial flaming, as reported in New York Observer
Each candidate is representative of one of three major demographic voting blocs in the district--Felder is an Orthodox Jew, Stewart is a Caribbean immigrant and Parker is African-American
(snip)
Stewart went on: "What promises did the Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg make to you [Felder], a supposed Democrat, to get into this race? And do you think Caribbean people can be bought?"
Felder responded by criticizing Stewart for being born in the Caribbean, earning a high-five from Parker.
Parker also accused Stewart of "having a slush fund where your staff is stealing the money".
One of the rarely discussed elements of the Republican Senate gerrymandering of 2002 was their decision to take racial groups and put them into safe Democratic districts in relatively even numbers. This was not an accident. SD-21 is 11-1 Democratic, however it is fairly evenly split between Orthodox Jews, African Americans, and Caribbeans. SD-60 is 6-1 Democratic and majority White, but was carefully drawn to ensure that Blacks and Whites would turn out in nearly equal numbers in a Democratic primary, thus exacerbating racial tensions in an area that still in many ways has not moved past the 1950s. These are just two examples.
These moves have been brilliant from the Republican perspective. From Buffalo to New York, resources are tied up cycle after cycle in primary races intentionally caused by the Republican districting plan. These resources are therefore not being used to defeat Republicans.
In 2012, Democrats will have the opportunity to redraw the State Senate lines across the state. Priority number one should be to redraw districts to avoid racial primaries. The divisivenesses only serves to hurt the Party, the Candidates, and New York. |
