Charles Michener: Social Director, or Social Conscience?

There's a tale about an Old West judge who would listen so sympathetically to the person on trial, empathizing so much with their plight, that even when the orneriest, downright meanest man in the territory was on trial for murder, the judge was so kind to the scoundrel during the proceedings that, when he sentenced the man to hang, the galoot -- to everyone's astonishment -- said, "Thank you, your honor." The moral of this tale is, it's all in the delivery... how the message is served up.

And my good friend Charles Michener served up a humdinger of a message at the Cleveland City Club last Wednesday afternoon. He praised the city's strengths, and then stated some simple, profound truths that, if taken to heart by the local citizenry, would greatly assist the region in bouncing back -- in lifting ourselves out the doldrums we've been mired in for seemingly forever now. However, there was a universality to his comments that make them applicable to virtually any large Midwestern city or region going through tough times -- and which one isn't? The key, of course, is to be as courageous in taking these truths to heart and implementing them as Michener was in delivering them -- in the kindest, but most honest and straightforward manner.

After reminiscing about how his banker father migrated from Philadelphia to Cleveland in 1939 and started a diaper service business that boomed right along with the infants now known as Baby Boomers, he lamented growing up in one of the more exclusive areas of the county because it was so far removed from everything. However, as a teenager he needed braces, and the dentist’s office was in the heart of downtown Cleveland. After his appointments, he had hours and hours in which to explore the city … falling in love with it in the process. Boys going through puberty are curious about any and everything — and thinking back over 50-plus years, I think I recall standing in front of the Roxy Burlesque Theater (which was located on 9th Street near Short Vincent) next to a scrawny white kid a few years older than myself, both of us looking at the tantalizing photos of the strippers, and wondering if we looked old enough to get in. We didn’t, but I do believe I now know who that kid was. Downtown Cleveland was really something back then … and, according to Michener, can be something again.

Michener told of going away to school and not really thinking about returning to Cleveland since his parents and siblings no longer resided in the area. Armed with a degree in journalism from Colombia, and gifted with a faculty and love of the written word, he established a career for himself at the top echelon of his profession in the most exciting place to ply his trade: New York City. Among his many journalistic accomplishments was a long stint as a senior editor at The New Yorker — the absolute top of the magazine food chain

However, after retiring, Michener — for some reason — moved back to Cleveland. I’ve never asked him why he returned; many similarly situated individuals (who’ve traveled widely and are comfortable virtually anywhere on the globe) often retire to the south of France or some other exotic, exciting locale. I suspect that I got my answer recently from a young man just starting out in life.

Andrew Samtoy is a 2008 Case-Western law school graduate from San Diego whose only ties to greater Cleveland is that his father briefly practiced medicine in Lorain County some years ago. Samtoy, like Michener, is widely traveled, has lived abroad, and with his brains and training could be successful anywhere in the world. He decided to stay on in Cleveland — much to the surprise of many of his contemporaries — because he feels he’s “needed.” Making rich cities richer (and himself in the process) holds no interest for him. “I want to use my skills to really do something, to help turn a depressed area around, to make a difference in the world.”

Michener’s way of making a difference at this juncture in his life is to write a book, tentatively titled “Cleveland: A Hidden City,” and as a visiting professor, teaching a course at Case-Western that concerns itself with how to use new journalism to uplift an area. The City Club speech probably was prompted by some of his initial research findings for the book.

The book project is how we initially met almost a year ago. I’d written something in one of my Cool Cleveland columns that caught his eye, and he added me to the list of people he wanted to interview. Due to our proximity of age, profession, and optimistic worldview, we’ve become fast friends. Who would have “thunk” it … an intellectual and an ex-con becoming friends?

Many doors around town have been opened to the incisively inquisitive Michener, and one of them was to the Cleveland Cavaliers new training facility. General Manager Danny Ferry showed him into the room where Coach Mike Brown meets with the players. He opened one of those writable wall panels to reveal the word “Trust.” He then told Michener that the Cavs have one of the best records in the NBA because Coach Brown stays on message regarding trust and has gotten the members of his team to buy into it.

Many sports franchises mirror society, where there are racially separate groups and cliques on the same team. Brown has convinced his players that they have to eschew breaking up into those kinds of groups, they have to trust, like, break bread with, and get along well with each other if they really want to win championships. Simple isn’t it? But it’s working, just look at their record this year.

At one point in his presentation Michener said that what we probably need in Cleveland is a social director. He’s noticed, like I and others have over the years, that when there is a large social gathering or function, say for a health organization’s annual dinner or fundraiser — diabetes, heart, lung, cancer, you name it — the audience is almost always divided: Blacks at some tables, whites at others.

Just take a look the next time you attend such an event. A brave social director would announce that everyone would have to change seats, and that no couple could sit next to a couple of the same race; this is how people get to know each other … how walls and barriers are broken down. Again, simple, isn’t it? But if someone doesn’t make it happen it won’t — and in Cleveland no one (at least to this point) makes things like this happen. But now, thanks to Michener, at least it’s now out in the open. Changing is up to us.

These “silos,” as Michener calls them, are prevalent and obvious in so many other aspects of Greater Cleveland life and culture. Older folks don’t care to get to know younger folks and bring them into the fabric of life and corridors of power — the same select people run damn near everything in town — and they seemingly want to keep it that way. Additionally, the Eastside versus Westside thing just won’t go away, and continues to hold us back in so many untold ways.

Michener showed his bravery by broaching a well-known subject that is virtually taboo to mention in Cleveland: The childish rivalry between the two major healthcare organizations in town, which, if put aside, would make Cleveland, hands down, the unchallengeable world leader in the health field. Aren’t doctors supposed to be too smart to shoot themselves (and each other) in the foot? Evidently not here in Cleveland.

He then slaughtered another sacred cow: The silliness of The Greater Cleveland Partnership’s “Cleveland Plus” marketing campaign. The theme is Cleveland, Plus Akron, Canton and Youngstown “Have it all … together.” Huh? This corridor is virtually the buckle on the Rust Belt and we want to try to convince the world how “together” we have it? Any logical potential investor would have to wonder what we are smoking in the region.

Now, if the sloganeers had only said that “We’re Getting it all together” that would have been more honest, more in line with reality, and created more trust in us— ah, there’s that word again.

The problem is, with all of these divisions and silos — new, creative, honest ideas have trouble bubbling up to the surface. Michener knows that innovation and change is largely the province of younger folks, and we have to begin to learn from and listen to them — and gently make suggestions when the go off message.

Michener also -- without naming names -- lamented the bickering between bailiwicks and the fear petty politicians have in regards to losing power over the own little fiefdoms. This kind of mindset keeps the region from moving forward in an innovative and sustained manner, and again, the culprit is a lack of honest dialogue... which leads to trust. The core of Charles Michener’s message was that learning to trust each other is a good place for us to start -- and probably the only logical place if we are to be successful in turning Cleveland around. Now, we can all stick our heads back in the sand.

Michael Eric Dyson for Secretary of... Something!

Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, a Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University, is — at least to my mind (and probably many others who are familiar with his work) — arguably the brightest person in the United States. You'll notice I did not say "the brightest Black person" and that's because I sincerely mean that he is arguably the brightest person in the country, period. And, since he already lives in Washington, D.C., he seemingly would be a perfect for a high position in the Obama administration, right? Wrong.

Internet chatter, from people of color and progressives alike, is increasingly of the fault-finding variety in regards to President-elect Obama's selections so far. His failure to include more minorities and "true" liberals (their terminology) in his cabinet and other high-ranking positions is a growing cause of concern in some sectors. "This Wasn't Quite the Change We Envisioned," blared one headline in one iconic progressive publication. And I have to admit that I too find the lack of a higher number of progressives and people of color represented in his selections to be disturbing, but for another reason entirely.

While Dyson fits the bill as both a person of color and a true progressive (he has a Ph.D. in religion from Princeton University, is an ordained Baptist minister, has taught at a number of prestigious institutions of higher learning, was the host of his own highly-rated radio show, is a regular commentator on National Public Radio, CNN, and the HBO TV program Real Time with Bill Maher and can probably outtalk anyone in America with his steel-trap mind and rapid-fire delivery of his brilliant posits) he still would probably not do well in a high government position. For all of his accomplishments, he lacks credentials.

A few other incoming presidents, most recently and notably Jimmy Carter, brought in new outsiders with him, but lived to regret it. It’s not that the people he brought to Washington weren’t bright, it’s just that they were, well, outsiders … and Washington, for better or worse, is the ultimate insiders’ town. If you don’t really know your way around — and have long experience and solid relationships with the bureaucrats that actually run things — you’re not going to be able to get much done.

In fact, you’re going to get eaten alive. The surest way for Obama to fail is to listen to the chorus of people calling for him to put liberal creds and color above all else in making his decisions regarding high-ranking personnel and cabinet members.

It’s not that the country lacks for brilliant liberals and people of color; we have plenty of people like Dyson, and Hispanic community organizer Antonio Gonzalez of the William C. Velasquez Institute. The problem is, past administrations have not worked to assure that the people coming into government looked like America. No less a person than Secretary of State "Condi" Rice recently lamented the lack of people of color working at every level of the State Department, and I can imagine that progressives also have trouble getting their feet in the door.

I know that it won’t satisfy the people who want the immediate gratification of more of “their” type of people appointed right now, this minute — but what Obama has to do is something that his predecessors failed to do: Start recruiting a broader range of people into government straight out of college, and assure there is a slot for them.

If Bill Clinton had done this more effectively when he first came into office, there would now be a cadre of people of the right color and credentials, and with the requisite experience, to move up to the top tier of government.

Sure, starting now it will take a couple of decades to have any real effect in terms of numbers, but at this critical juncture in our nation’s history, to base appointments on anything other than who can best get the job done would be beyond foolhardy, it would border on the criminal.

Some people of color, similar to some people on the far left, are not going to be satisfied no matter what Obama does; that goes with being president. They want radical — not gradual — changes, and are going to accuse Obama of abandoning his core campaign promises when he doesn’t move to the left at the pace they want.

What they fail to realize is that it’s Obama himself, not his cabinet, that represents the change he was speaking of during his campaign and he should be allowed to demonstrate what changes he can accomplish using the old Washington hands that he is assembling. If the fringe radicals want to demand something, they should demand more diversity at the entry level of national government, not at the top.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com

Read Mansfield's book From Behind the Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race, and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate. It is available again in hardcover through the author. Visit him online at http://www.frombehindthewall.com.
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