I had never had much interest in politics, and had never been any kind of activist. I mean, at college I would attend the
obligatory rally on Martin Luther King Day each year. But that was pretty much it.
All that changed late the night of February 4, 1999.
It was on that night that Amadou Diallo, a black African immigrant living in the New York City borough of The Bronx, was
gunned down by four white undercover New York Police Department officers outside his home. The officers, mistaking his wallet
for a gun, vaporized the unarmed Diallo in an incredible 41-bullet fusillade. The incomprehensible outrageousness of the event
sent thousands of New Yorkers into the streets in protest. The protesters were speaking out against not only the insanity
of the Diallo shooting, but also the horror of numerous prior incidents of unjustified or excessive force used by the NYPD
against minority New Yorkers.
There had been, for example, teenage Anthony Baez, who in 1994 was choked to death for trying to defend his brother David
from needless manhandling by the officer whose car David had inadvertently hit with a tossed football. We also had Derwin
Panel, a black undercover police officer who in 1992 was shot in the back three times by other officers while he was in the
middle of making an arrest. Toss in Nathaniel Gaines, a law-abiding and unarmed black man, who in 1996 was pulled off a subway
train by an officer who frisked, fought with, and then shot Gaines in the back as he was running away. And of course there
was the notorious 1997 station house torture of Abner Louima, whereby two officers rammed the wooden handle of a plunger up
his rectum, nearly killing him. There had been many more such incidents. And this was to say nothing of the countless non-fatal,
yet still frightening encounters between the NYPD and untold numbers of innocent, law-abiding black and brown people over
the preceding twenty years – including tens of thousands of the so-called "stop-and-frisks," most of which are never
reported.
But the Diallo shooting was on another level. It was so stunning, even whites turned out in large numbers to join what
had traditionally been a minority-only response in the wake of such atrocities. Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s reaction to the
protest was shocking in its lack of humanity. He would essentially call press conferences at which he would deliver statistics
lessons as part of a misguided attempt to convince the protesters that their concerns were unfounded. While he reveled in
discussing the statistics showing that the number of police shootings had declined during his mayoralty, he offered neither
a racial breakdown of the people shot nor an accounting of how many of them had been unarmed at the time.
Mayor Giuliani’s cold, soulless approach to communicating with detractors was so repulsive that the protests, which
had become daily events, began to grow in size and intensity. Thousands turned out to call for the arrests of the four officers
involved in the shooting. Over a three-week stretch, protesters blocked the entrances to police headquarters to register their
dissatisfaction, volunteering to be arrested for their cause.
Now, as a black man and a life-long New Yorker, I was definitely sympathetic to the cause, but I was not about to go get
hauled off to jail just to make a point. I mean, I had a job and all, you know? But then something happened which changed
my mind on whether and how to respond to the crisis. I saw on the news where the mayor took to clowning the protesters, calling
them "silly" and dismissing their actions as simply "piling on." Rather than reaching out and trying to dialogue with citizens
sincerely expressing their pain, Giuliani mocked them at every opportunity. When former Mayor David Dinkins and Congressman
Charles Rangel, perhaps the city’s two most respected black politicians, joined the jailed protester collective, Giuliani
dissed their actions as a mere "publicity stunt."
That was the last straw for me. I found his attitude so disgusting that I finally felt compelled to join the protests as
well, volunteering to be arrested along with the others. And so, a couple of days before my 30th birthday, I treated
myself to one of the most meaningful gifts I had ever received – a brief stay in the 28th Police Precinct
station house in Harlem.
That was my birth as a civil rights activist.
A year later, the four officers involved in the shooting were acquitted of all charges in a trial that had been inexplicably
moved from New York City to Albany, the (90% white) state capital 150 miles away, by a panel of state judges appointed by
Governor George Pataki. The verdict served only to rub salt in a wound that had not even come close to healing in the wake
of the killing a year earlier. And then, just weeks after absorbing the blow from what so many of us considered to be one
of the grossest miscarriages of justice in the city’s history, we were rocked by yet another incident of fatally inept
policing.
His name was Patrick Dorismond. Like Diallo, he was black man. Like Diallo he was not participating in, a suspect in, or
in the vicinity of any criminal behavior when encountered by the police. Like Diallo, he was unarmed. And like Diallo, he
was – incomprehensibly – shot dead by an undercover police officer. Though a minor riot would not have been a
shocking reaction from a population still reeling from the incidents of the preceding year – more accurately, the preceding
decades – we colored folk kept our heads. Instead, we demanded to know why this had happened again, and what
action was going to be taken as a result. The mayor, manifesting a depth of moral depravity and bile-spewing viciousness that
even he had never shown us before, responded by attempting to demonize the victim! Giuliani illegally pulled and distributed
Dorismond’s sealed juvenile arrest record (which contained no convictions) in a pathetic and failed attempt to portray
Dorismond as a dangerous person. While Dorismond’s family was literally doubled over in pain from the shock of seeing
their loved one carried off in a body bag, this scumbag Giuliani offered them no sympathy whatsoever. Instead, he went around
town trying to destroy the image of a dead man. Even Giuliani’s supporters were dismayed by his actions.
I was hot! How, I wondered, did a racist jerk like Giuliani ever become the mayor of New York City – my city –
with dominion over me and over fair-minded people like me? It was at that point that I decided that I needed to be more involved
in the places that politics intersected with my life. I swore from that point forward to engage myself, as much as feasible,
in any and all political matters that are relevant to me or to people of color as a whole. I saw black men needlessly die.
For me, non-participation was no longer an option.
That was my birth as a political activist.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
It is not uncommon for Americans to feel all but completely disconnected from the political system. This is particularly
true of African-Americans, who had been written out of the political process by law for so much of this country’s history
that in some quarters apathy has all but become our official political philosophy. For the rest of us, myself included until
recently, our stance is probably best described as "November Activist." An election for an executive office comes around –
mayor, governor, president – and we light up like fireflies during a mating ritual. By mid-November, we have returned
to our collective state of political dormancy (I generalize, but let’s be honest. That pretty much describes most of
us). That’s a dangerous approach to take toward the system – especially for African-Americans.
[...]
The chaos that took place in Florida in the 2000 presidential election left me with a gnawing sense of powerlessness. I
knew that thousands of people in that state had been wrongly prevented from casting their votes and that thousands more had
cast votes that were never recorded. I knew that a disproportionate number of such people were black. I knew that the government
of that state had projected its power so as to insure that the true will of the people never be officially known. And I certainly
learned more about the presidential electoral process than I thought there was to know. As a result, I knew that I needed
to become involved in whatever way I could to prevent that kind of nonsense from ever happening again.
My quest for empowerment brought me to Philadelphia in the summer of 2001, where an assortment of election reform-minded
folks had assembled for a "Pro-Democracy Convention." A weekend’s worth of seminars and workshops explored the various
aspects of the American election system that work against true democracy. These discussions went way beyond the theatrics
of chads, undervotes, and recounts.
As with an onion, I found that these issues had multiple layers – and the more layers you peeled off, the more you
wanted to cry. Because while the majority of the organizers and participants at this convention were white, session after
session revealed – among other things –the ways in which these aspects particularly penalized non-white
– specifically black – citizens. To someone like me, then unschooled in the details of our electoral process,
it was a moment of revelation.
Minority disempowerment. It attaches itself like a leech to nearly every aspect of how we elect government officials, sucking
the blood from the opportunity of black and brown people to have fair influence over their own governance. To fight against
it is to play an important role in the mosaic of approaches needed for us to seize firmer control over our own destiny. The
fight against it is the reason I have written this book.
[...]
My hope is that this book can serve as an amateur’s guide to election reform, but from an African-American perspective.
Those who focus on such matters on a regular basis – politicians, academics, pundits, grassroots reformers – are
by-and-large already familiar with the issues to be addressed within. For them, the primary value of a volume like this will
be in the compilation and discussion of the full range of black voter disempowerment issues within a single full-length publication.
For the rest of you – those who care about the issue, but aren’t familiar with the details of the process –
this one’s for you.
[...]
So as you’re moving through the book, remember to take note of the efforts various people have made and continue
to make to obscure the will of the people and to cut us off from that which is rightfully ours. By the end, you should be
more certain than ever before of the value of your role in helping to mount the counteroffensive.
