Ward 6 and the Rebirth of the Minstrel Show

“Intelligent people talk about ideas; average people talk about things; small people talk about other people” — Attributed to various authors

I’ve never met John Boyd face-to-face, but we have a number of things in common: We both are formerly incarcerated persons; we both have strived mightily to turn our lives around since exiting prison, and we both are persons of color. Just in case you’ve been residing on the moon for the last couple of years, prisoner reentry — how to ameliorate the negative impact of the close to 700,000 individuals who return home from prison in the US annually — is one of the hottest topics on the American agenda; and for good reason: Keeping formerly incarcerated persons locked out of employment, housing, and all of the other requisites for stable living will cost American taxpayers billions of dollars over the coming decade. By not allowing for second (and in some cases third) chances we force people back into lives of crime... which impacts greatly on public safety, as well as breaking state budgets.

So it’s not surprising that when Boyd came in second in a six-way special election contest to permanently fill the City Council seat in Ward 6, the Greater Cleveland reentry community (of which I am an active member of) took notice. Everyone was of the opinion that individuals with felony records could not hold political office in the State of Ohio ... everyone but John Boyd that is. After doing some research, he concluded that the Ohio Revised Code was cloudy and in conflict on the issue, and any first year law student can tell you that when the law is at odds with itself, the “push” goes to the individual, not the State. If Boyd were to win the April 22 runoff, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason would have to seek a ruling from Attorney General Marc Dann’s office in regards to whether Boyd can serve or not.

Those of us who work in the fields of civil, human and reentry rights are well aware that after Emancipation, Southerners found other means of keeping Blacks oppressed. The method they used (and continue to use to this day) is felon disenfranchisement. They enacted specious laws to convict Blacks of petty or non-existent crimes so they can forever take away their right to vote. The dirty political trick worked: If felons’ voting rights were restored in Southern states (as they are in most states in the north) George Bush would not have been able to steal the 2000 election. There are over a million disenfranchised formerly incarcerated persons in Florida alone, and guess what race most of them happen to be.

Full restoration of all rights for those with felony convictions is in everyone’s best interest, but especially people of color. We say we want people to reform, but then refuse to acknowledge that reformation when it takes place by restoring all rights. The only group that disagrees with the notion of allowing the formerly incarcerated fully back into society is right-wing conservatives and bigots ... oh, and some residents of Ward 6. Unfortunately, some idiots in Fairfax are so bent on winning at any and all costs, so determined to disrespect John Boyd ... they care nothing for fairness and have no concern about the damage they are doing to their own felon family members. You see, everyone, and I do mean everyone, in Ward 6 (just like the rest of Cleveland) has a family member who has run afoul of the criminal justice system at some point and is being held back by a felony conviction.

These few individuals have allowed this election to drive them into moral bankruptcy as they mount a sustained, vicious and anonymous attack on John Boyd because of his criminal convictions; one email even went so far as to hope and pray that a church which hosted a “Candidates’ Night” that Boyd took part in burns down. These are people that claim to be Christians mind you, yet are engaging in the most scurrilous tactics anyone can ever recall witnessing ... even in a ward noted for hardball, gutter politics. Among the poorest wards in the State of Ohio and faced with myriad social, housing and infrastructure problems ... and what do these clowns want to focus on? Someone’s past tribulations.

Certainly John Boyd’s past convictions are fair game for voter scrutiny; they should not be off-limits for discussion. Perhaps his crimes are too off-putting for some of the electorate of Ward 6. But, nonetheless, in a community so impacted with crime and poverty, the focus should be on issues such as preserving the housing stock and creating employment, not on character assassination by “throwing a rock and hiding your hand.”

Maybe, just maybe, Boyd’s life experiences have taught him some lessons that could be useful in terms of helping the thousand or so people who return to Fairfax every year from prison. Maybe he could help solve some of the neighborhood problems that have gone ignored for years. At least he would understand the plight of many of his fellow Ward 6 citizens ... and not look down his nose at them.

In place of intelligent debate the Ward 6 race has degenerated into little more than a minstrel show of name calling. These cowards without consciences, these latter-day coons with keyboards, are too dense to comprehend the collateral damage they are doing to their own family members as they attack Boyd. They’re too busy buck-dancing for their puppet masters. But this issue of the rights of the formerly incarcerated is much, much bigger than just John Boyd; it’s about the millions upon millions of people that remain locked outside the democratic process.

These cowards don’t have the guts to raise their issues or concerns in a legitimate, open forum or meeting... they do their vile dirty work under the cloak of darkness and from untraceable (or so they think) email accounts. You would expect that someone in a leadership position on City Council would decry these foul tactics and tell these morons to tone down their vitriolic rhetoric, but “leadership,” as it applies to this body, is increasingly becoming an oxymoron.

One could make the argument that I’ve been as hard on the cowardly residents of Ward 6 as I’ve accused them of being on John Boyd — if not for one glaring difference: I’ve got the courage to put my name on my work. Maybe next week I’ll put their names in my work.

From Cool Cleveland contributor Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com
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