A.G. Gancarski
A doorknocker showing up on the front doors of houses in predominately African-American neighborhoods on the Northside and Northwest Jacksonville, as opposed to predominately white, Hispanic, or Asian-American neighborhoods, makes some tough claims about Republican mayoral candidate Lenny Curry.
It calls him “divisive and dangerous,” a “partisan Republican” who “worked to block the voting rights of African American voters” as Republican Party of Florida chairman.
That’s proven objectionable to at least one African-American office holder, Democratic District 8 Councilwoman E. Denise Lee. She sees the literature as yet another piece of dangerous, race-baiting campaign messaging that insults African-Americans and perpetuates a false mythology that’s racially incendiary and gives the impression that Mayor Alvin Brown doesn’t believe he can win without employing such tactics.
Amplifying criticisms that she had made of a Brown radio ad a couple of weeks ago, Lee said her critiques of the door knocker “mimic the concerns” she had with the radio ad that appeared on urban radio stations, but not on pop, country, rock, or other radio formats.
It’s a “shame and disgrace for any campaign to race-bait,” she said, rejecting as absurd the idea that “African-American votes would be blocked” by Curry.
“African-Americans need to wake up,” she said, and recognize such tactics as attempts to manipulate them. “It says something about the campaign [that they use] these scare tactics. Where is the proof?”
Lee points out that the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 guarantees black citizens the right to vote.
“I am most disrespected by the fact that this [tactic] is done by someone who looks like me,” Lee said about Brown, a fellow Democrat. “He needs to stop it.
“I just got off the phone with another African-American who called me about this. I told her that this was out of control. She told me that the sad part is that she has friends who believe those lies.”
Then Lee went into an old-timey voice, mocking the intended effect of the literature, which she believes is clearly designed to bamboozle unwary voters and to persuade them to vote for the mayor based on false premises.
“Remember when you couldn’t vote? … Well, it’s back again,” Lee said, with an edge of exasperation in her voice.
“This stuff is asinine and it’s disrespectful,” she added, urging that the Brown campaign cease and desist with such tactics.
Lee added that “even if what [the ad is] saying is true,” which she doesn’t believe that it is, “is that acceptable to African-Americans on the campaign?”
“Do you really believe that someone from the other race is after you? Tell me about you,” she said in direct address to Brown. “Don’t attack with race-baiting. I resent it. I live in the 21st century.”
Councilwoman Lee did not stop there, however.
“They’re trying to start a race riot in Jacksonville,” similar to what we’ve seen “around the country,” by “using these tactics, creating hostility. Don’t inject that kind of rhetoric. It’s not right and it needs to stop. In Jacksonville, we don’t need chaotic race relationships. We’ve all got the same God.”
By using such tactics, it’s as if the Brown campaign “wants to see black and whites fighting” and desires to “create a chaotic situation.”
“It’s a shame,” she said.
In decades past, Jacksonville had its share of racial conflict, as manifested in the infamous Axe Handle Saturday and the myriad public disturbances linked to integration of local schools in the 1960s and 1970s. Lee has been around long enough to see that things have improved. Clearly, she thinks Alvin Brown’s insistence that Lenny Curry wants to “turn back the clock” is false, and that by using such rhetoric, it could be the mayor who is trying to whip up confrontational discourse.
The Brown campaign declined comment on Lee’s statements. There seems to be a general feeling, relative to the comments of Lee and her former City Council colleague Johnny Gaffney — who broke with his party and endorsed Curry on Thursday — that they would only give such critiques credibility with direct response.
That said, a reasonable guess is that surrogates such as Warren Jones, whose statement was provided to Florida Politics last night, won’t be quite so restrained. The District 7 and District 8 Council runoff races now seem to pivot on questions of authenticity and who is a “true Democrat” in both of those contests.
