David Paterson’s Dilemma
Black solidarity no longer trumps all.
Gus Savage is not someone who normally springs to my mind. The onetime Chicago congressman lost his seat in 1992 and quickly vanished from the national scene. But as scandal threatens to consume New York Gov. David Paterson, I find myself reflecting on Savage.
Not that Savage has much in common with Paterson. The New York governor is a charming, self-deprecating baby boomer, while Savage, born in 1925, was a raging loose cannon who excelled at the politics of racial polarization. When a young Peace Corps volunteer in then-Zaire accused Savage of fondling her and demanding sex in 1989 (a claim subsequently sustained by the House ethics committee), he denounced the woman as a traitor to the black community. He also attacked the "racist" news media for airing the allegation. In fact, whenever challenged or under attack, Savage blamed racism. The act played well enough in his South Side district that, despite a record of meager accomplishment, his constituents rallied around him time and again. For they were loath to see a strong black man brought low. He won six straight terms, beginning in 1980, and finally lost to Mel Reynolds, a Harvard-educated Rhodes scholar seen as the face of the future.
Paterson, of course, is not accused of sexually harassing anyone. He is alleged to have gone out of his way (and perhaps abused his authority in the process) to protect an aide who, some say, had a habit of manhandling women he was involved with. In another age—in Savage's age—black notables would have automatically rallied around Paterson. They would have dismissed the allegations as nothing more than propaganda from a racist establishment intent on bringing a powerful black man to his knees. That has not happened for several reasons, one being that even those who once considered themselves Paterson's intimates are not sure what to make of the situation. Given the pattern of ever more damning revelations, they are not convinced that he has been totally straight with them—and are unwilling to put themselves on the line for fear his actions may turn out to be worse than he has let on.
But there is also something else at play. The symbolism of having a trailblazer like Paterson in office is not quite as compelling as it once was. The very visible increase in the number of blacks and other people of color holding political power (including, most notably, Barack Obama) has alleviated some of the insecurity that minority communities have always felt in America. "Black empowerment" is no longer a sufficient rationale for a political candidacy, says the Rev. Al Sharpton: "Today you have to come with something that really matters."
Sharpton, the civil-rights crusader and former presidential candidate, has become an important player in New York politics. After the governor announced he was suspending his re-election campaign, Sharpton brought together a number of Paterson's allies to ponder what they should do. When we spoke shortly afterward, Sharpton seemed determined to put the best face on things. It was impossible to know, he conceded, whether Paterson could serve out his term. That largely depended on what comes out as a result of the state attorney general's investigation of Paterson and those around him. But ideally, Paterson could use this crisis to redefine himself and his administration. Liberated of the need to play the sort of politics a governor seeking reelection would have to play, and sitting at the helm of a state facing the worst deficit in its history, Paterson could turn crisis into opportunity, said Sharpton: "He could do some good things for the state." He could endeavor, in the time he has left, to become what he apparently always hoped to be—a fierce voice for compassionate, responsible governance.
Whatever path the governor of New York takes, it is clear we are in a very different age from the time of Gus Savage. Not to say that change invariably goes well. I should note that Savage's Ivy League successor left Congress in disgrace. Reynolds was indicted, in 1994, on charges stemming from a sexual relationship he'd had with a 16-year-old campaign worker. He was convicted the following year and subsequently sent to prison. Still, despite his ultimate humiliation, Reynolds was an important figure of the time, helping one community to see that it did not have to settle for mediocrity. That lesson held, even if Reynolds's pristine reputation did not. The lesson of the Paterson imbroglio—that accountability is more important than racial symbolism—will likely hold as well.
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Ellis Cose, author, columnist and contributing editor (since 1993) for Newsweek magazine and former chairman of the editorial board and editorial page editor of the New York Daily News, began his journalism career as a weekly columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times—becoming, at the age of 19, the youngest editorial page columnist ever employed by a major Chicago daily. Cose, who is also an independent radio producer, is a popular campus lecturer and public speaker.
In addition to serving as a columnist, editor and national correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, Cose has been a contributor and press critic for Time magazine, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Journalism Education, chief writer on management and workplace issues for USA Today (where he has also served as an occasional columnist and member of the board of contributors) and a member of the editorial board of the Detroit Free Press. He has also been a fellow at the Gannett Center for Media Studies at Columbia University, at the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences, a senior fellow and director of energy policy studies at the Washington-based Joint Center for Political Studies, and a consultant to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.
Cose's Bone to Pick: On Forgiveness, Reconciliation, Reparation and Revenge, was published by Atria (a Simon and Schuster imprint) in April 2004. The book is a wide-ranging look at a number of societies—the United States, Ghana, South Africa, East Timor, and Peru among them—and their ways of coping with cruelty and pain. The Washington Post had this to say: "The complex questions surrounding 'forgiveness, reconciliation, reparation, and revenge' probably require a scholarship of jurisprudence, philosophy, psychology, history and literature. This is the kind of ambitious enterprise that the world's great religions deal with. But Cose meets the challenge, and Bone to Pick ranges over centuries of contested histories, across five continents, spinning individual tragedies in and out of collective traumas, seeking the nature of 'forgiveness, albeit as a proxy for a larger set of values.' … The truth may be a prized (and politicized) commodity in the quest for social justice, but as Cose observes, quoting Czech novelist Milan Kundera, 'The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.' Bone to Pick is a timely reminder of that axiom and a useful addition to the canon of that struggle."
Cose's The Envy of the World, an in-depth essay on the state of black men in America, was published by Washington Square Press (an imprint of Simon and Schuster) in 2002 and has appeared on several best-seller lists, including the Essence magazine list, where it was number one. Newsweek featured the book on its cover and National Public Radio produced a special a program based on it. Kirkus Reviews called The Envy of the World, "A slender volume with a substantial and significant message." The Washington Post described it as "lucid, eloquent and deeply personal book." The Chicago Tribune called its author "a gifted, rhapsodic essayist." "Cose charts both an urgently argued history of black masculinity and a moving and nuanced snapshot of where it is now," declared Publishers' Weekly. The paperback edition was published in January 2003.
In May 2004 the Rockefeller Foundation issued Beyond Brown v. Board: The Final Battle for Excellence in American Education—a major report authored by Cose on the legacy of the historic Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision and the current challenges facing American educators. The report was the basis of a Newsweek cover feature and for a David Broder column and other stories in the national press. In November 2006, the Institute for Justice and Journalism at USC's Annenberg School published Cose's Killing Affirmative Action: Would ending it really result in a better, more perfect Union? That report, featured in several newspaper and in Newsweek magazine, examined California's 10-year experience living with Proposition 209, the measure that ended affirmative action in the public sector in California.
Cose's best-selling The Rage of a Privileged Class, a book-length essay on race in America, was published by HarperCollins in January 1994. It was featured as a Newsweek cover story and described by The New York Times Book Review as a "disciplined, graceful exposition of a neglected aspect of the subject of race in America." His A Man's World (published by HarperCollins in June 1995), was featured in a front page review in The New York Times Book Review. The Washington Post called it "a valuable, cogent and well-written contribution to an enormously complex subject."
Color-Blind: Seeing Beyond Race in a Race-Obsessed World (published in January 1997 and also excerpted in Newsweek) explored America's continuing obsession with race. The New York Times Book Review called it "a book this country desperately needs, one with genuine healing potential," and included Color-Blind among its best book of the year recommendations for 1997. Cose edited an essay collection entitled The Darden Dilemma published by HarperCollins in March 1997. His debut novel, The Best Defense, was published by HarperCollins in September 1998 ("a formidable first novel...crisp, fast-paced and engaging. In a genre glutted with lightweight fare, The Best Defense reaches higher"— The Seattle Times).
Cose is also the author of A Nation of Strangers, a history of American immigration, published by William Morrow and Co. in 1992 and of The Press, published by Morrow in 1989. He is the author of Energy and the Urban Crisis (1979) and the editor of Energy and Equity: Some Social Concerns (1978), both published by the Joint Center for Political Studies. He also wrote The Rebirth of Community Power, published by Westview Press: 1983.
At the Institute for Journalism Education (at the University of California, Berkeley), Cose designed and directed a widely quoted study on journalism careers published by IJE: The Quiet Crisis: Minority Journalists and Newsroom Opportunity (1985). He also instituted and served as inaugural director of IJE's Management Training Center at Northwestern University.
In his capacity as president of Ellis Cose, Inc. Cose has produced, written and hosted the pilot for a multimedia documentary series: "Against the Odds." The radio project (which has received funding from the Ford Foundation and will be distributed by Public Radio International) profiles individuals who have overcome tremendous adversity. It aspires to provide continuing and better coverage—in public radio but also on the web and in other media, including print—of people and communities often relegated to the margins of society. It also aims to stimulate thinking on how they, and their respective societies, can overcome that marginalization. The pilot focuses on a young man from a refugee camp in northern Kenya who, studying by the light of a rechargeable lamp, managed to get himself into Princeton University.
Cose has appeared on The Today Show, Nightline, Dateline, ABC Evening News, Good Morning America, the PBS "Time to Choose" election special, Charlie Rose, CNN's Talk Back Live, and a variety of other nationally televised and local programs. He has been interviewed for British, Brazilian and Canadian television. He is also a judge for the New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. Cose has received fellowships or individual grants from the Ford Foundation, The Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, and numerous journalism awards—including the University of Missouri medal for career excellence and distinguished service in journalism, two Clarion awards, and four National Association of Black Journalists first place awards. He was also named the 2002 winner of the New York Association of Black Journalists' lifetime achievement award, winner of the 2003 award for best magazine feature from the National Association of Black Journalists as well as the winner of two New York Association of Black Journalists' first place 2003 awards for commentary and magazine features. In 2004 Cose was named the first recipient of the newly inaugurated annual Vision Award from the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education. In 2006 he won a Unity award for commentary and also shared in a first place award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
A Chicago native, Cose holds a master's degree in Science, Technology and Public Policy from George Washington University. He is married to Lee Llambelis, former legal director for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and current director of intergovernmental relations for the Attorney General of New York. He has a daughter, Elisa Maria.
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