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On one occasion after listening to my criticism, a black mayor of a
relatively large city asked me to give him some readings concerning
contemporary urban politics/governance that might shed light on new
policy/political directions that he might try to take in governing his
city. I had to admit to him that much of the literature on black mayors
was void of such visions because the analyses were too immersed in
legitimating the political existences of black mayors and too little
concerned with constructing critiques of their policies. Part of the problem is that too many black political scientists continue to treat black elected officials as if they are part of an insurgent political formation. This is nonsense. Regardless of their rhetoric, black elected officials are, in varying degrees, part of the political establishment. I remember when Andy Young used to claim that black elected mayors were the vanguard of the continuing civil rights movement. Young’s utter BS should have been seen for the self-serving nonsense that it was. A black mayor of a city today is no more insurgent than I am as a bourgeois black academic in a predominantly white academic setting. Both of us may try to claim to that our personal advancement is a brick hurled against an entrenched racism. Both of us would be guilty of manipulating race to mask our self-interested actions.
Undoubtedly someone will raise the issue of the fiscal constraints placed on black mayors. Certainly, it has been true that many black mayors inherited cities that were fiscally incapable of supporting a decent level of social services for its residents. With the flight of the white middle classes and later, the black middle classes to suburbs, tax bases in majority black cities have severely eroded. No one can expect a black mayor to perform miracles with an underfunded city. In the face of these fiscal realities, it would only make sense for big city mayors to redefine their position. Instead of efficiently managing a budget, the primary task before contemporary big city mayors is to increase the funds coming into their cities. State and federal budgets are the likely sources but they will only relinquish in funding that which is politically necessary. Unless the cities actively put pressure on state and federal political figures, cities will continue to be underfunded. Instead, most big city mayors do everything in their power to give tax breaks, etc. to any and every corporation in the hopes of enticing them to remain in the city or relocate there.
One can wonder why mayors of impoverished cities do not transform themselves into advocates for their impoverished constituents. Instead, they repeatedly campaign as if the mayor’s job was akin to a CEO’s position in a private corporation. Nothing could be more misguided.
One will look in vain for a mayoral candidate who runs for office and tells his potential constituents that there is not enough money in the city’s budget to provided adequate services. Instead mayors lie and campaign for office as if they can “turn-around” impoverished cities.
I once tried to convince a black mayoral candidate of Hartford to relinquish campaign rhetoric about being a more efficient manager of resources than his opponent. I told the candidate that regardless of his or his opponent’s managerial talents, there was not enough money in Hartford to address Hartford’s needs. I suggested that if he won, he should become the leader of protests directed at the Connecticut state legislature and the Connecticut governor. Instead of managing the budget of Hartford, the mayor of Hartford should become a protest leader in behalf of increasing the size of Hartford’s economic pie. Perhaps Hartford’s mayor could join forces with other Connecticut mayors who should have also understood that they were sitting on unsolvable financial bases. In Connecticut this could have meant joining forces with the mayors of New Haven, Bridgeport and Danbury. This Hartford mayoral candidate understood that I was asking him to engage in political activities that would alienate him from the state Democratic Party leaders who were quite content to treat Hartford residents as if they were extraneous citizens of Connecticut.
William O’Neil, the Connecticut Democratic governor at the time, was a rather visionless party hack who had no intention of doing anything innovative or non-innovative in behalf of Connecticut’s poor cities. Why, I wondered, would this Hartford mayoral candidate worry about alienating a governor who was no friend of Hartford? What I did not sufficiently grasp is that those blacks who aspire to be mayors of impoverished cities like Hartford still like to be included in all of the symbolic trappings of power including supposed access to the Governor, etc. In my naiveté, I underestimated the status desires of this black political figure.
