Posted on 05/14/2014 1:35:21 PM PDT by Cronos
ASKED last month to name his role model, Ras Baraka mentioned Marion Barry, a former mayor of Washington, DC best known for smoking crack and running a City Hall of staggering incompetence and corruption. Washingtonians remember Mr Barry as a terrible manager, but he sure gave a rousing speech. That is perhaps why Mr Baraka admires him. It is also why, on May 13th, Newark elected Mr Baraka as its new mayor with 54% of the vote.
..Mr Baraka (pictured), a school principal, is as close to African-American royalty as one can get in Newark. His late father was a poet who gave voice to the Black Power movement. In 2004, he helped broker peace between the Crips and the Bloods, two rival gangs. Spike Lee, a film-maker, and Lauryn Hill, a singer, supported him. So did Sharpe James, an ex-mayor of Newark who was jailed for fraud in 2008.
The new mayor’s racial politics irk the city’s Latino and white minorities. He told the Star-Ledger, a local newspaper, that there was a “master-slave” relationship between business and blacks. He speaks of reform, but is seen by many as part of the old Newark political machine.
...Mr Baraka has a tough task ahead of him. Last year saw 111 murders, the most since 1990, and the city faces a $90m budget deficit. Still, Newark has a busy port and airport in its backyard. Christian Benedetto of HSB Advisors, a property broker, says that investors are interested in the city no matter who is mayor. Lisset, a Jeffries supporter, is not so sure. “Newark will go back 20 years,” she predicts.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
The son of Leroi Jones is mayor of Newark. How fitting.
“Racial politics is bad... no matter who plays it”
Absolutely; this will ensure whites continue fleeing by sundown. Hispanics are the growing population in Newark, with non-welfare economic activity in their neighborhoods; if they leave then it is completely finished. The last few years haven’t been kind to Newark (as with the rest of NJ); within the past month the non-affiliated minor league baseball team started there a dozen or so years ago (that was going to “revitalize the city”) just went out of business. The prostitutes that worked the location prior to the construction of the stadium probably contributed more to the city’s economy...
I believe that in the 60’s I heard tapes of his father calling on blacks to burn down white people’s homes, rape their women, etc. Part of the reason Newark had the riots and has been a disaster ever since.
Newark just went from bad to worse.
Before 1967 riots, it was a bustling urban and manufacturing center.
Went to college there from 1972-1976. Like being in Fort Apache, the Bronx.
Worked there from 1976-1996.
Every group of immigrants that came there succeeded.
Except for one.
And 47 years later, the group has not changed.
I was born in Newark and our family moved to East Orange when I was A freshman in high school. I moved to neighboring Bloomfield with my wife in 1962. My parents stayed in East Orange with my 5 brothers and sisters. Around 1965 my parents black neighbor me and my father were talking across the back yard fence when this great neighbor with 2 small daughters told us he was putting his house up for sale. My father asked why and Mr. Williams said it was because the n******s were moving in. Those are are his words and I will never forget them.
Yes; denial isn’t just a river in Egypt, even though many blacks who’ve bettered themselves won’t be caught dead there after sundown.
Sounds like one of Godfrey Cambridge’ old comedy bits!
“Ras Baraka “....Is that a name or some kind of disease?
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/amiri-barakas-most-anti-semitic-poems/
Dad was quite the poet.
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