Race-based Voting Wrong, No Matter Who Does It

Published in the Macomb Daily Tuesday, August 31. 2010


Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should


The present day controversy over the building a mosque two blocks from New York’s Ground Zero reminds me of a saying my mother taught all of her six children and grandchildren that applies to the 41B District Court race in Macomb County.

“Because you can doesn’t mean you should” is what Momma Murray used to say when we would bully one of our siblings or do something else that was clearly just plain mean-spirited. She would take the time to explain to us that morality was sometimes just as important as superiority. She would tell us to think through whether we were doing the right thing the wrong way or doing wrong by insisting on always being right.

Such is the debate over whether a mosque should be allowed so close to the site of America’s worst mass murder. From a constitutional viewpoint, owners of private property have the right to build almost anything they want so long as it meets local community building codes. But what of a community’s moral obligation to prevent the long-term fracturing of itself by not listening to the current cries of a wounded spirit by ignoring the wailing of a not-yet healed soul from within that same community?

The same goes for local politics. You are sometimes judged by the company you keep. Current 41B District Court Judge Sheila Miller is running for re-election against attorney Carrie Fuca. Fuca has learned to be fiercely independent and does not rely on the old school political machine to determine her judicial destiny, which is a strong reason for my endorsement of her candidacy.

Judge Miller is a fine person, but she is not listening to cries of disenfranchisement from a community that supported her when she first got here. Her local mentor and political handler, Ed Bruley, has individually done more in recent history to disenfranchise blacks than any local group ever has. In 2001, when drawing Macomb County’s commission districts, Bruley split the black community in into three commission districts, a practice generally called gerrymandering. In January 2010, he did it again, but this time split the communities into two different, but substantially larger, districts. It is no secret that Miller gets her political marching orders from Bruley, and that fact alone makes her suspect.. She should not allow herself to be the face of the exception to his rule.

I couldn’t agree more with those who say blacks should not just vote for blacks simply because they are black, which is why I supported and worked the polls for Jacob
Femminineo over Alisha Baker for charter commissioner. Baker was not an independent thinker and let Bruley dictate her political path and, unfortunately, Miller may have made the same mistake. Femminineo turned out to be far less of a partisan charter chairman than some originally assumed, and while the end product was not without its “black holes”, under his leadership, the charter commission proved itself an independent body.

Whether Miller is “one of us” is utterly not the point and should not be the basis of how blacks cast their vote. Blacks should not vote for a candidate just because the candidate is black no more than whites should just vote against a candidate because the candidate is black. For justice to be served, justice must be free from prejudice and political influence, which is why it is important that Fuca be given serious consideration by the black community. It boils down to conduct, character and one’s company over the content of a candidate’s color, and on that basis, Fuca’s independence ensures she will get my vote.

The same goes for the proposed mosque in New York. There is something sacred about that site that should not be sullied by creating an invisible wall of animosity that will remain far longer than any of the present-day high brow justifications based primarily on constitutional principles. Sometimes in life and politics, the principle is just so plain and simple: Because you can doesn’t mean you should.