Month: March 2007

by JACKSON BAKER

One of the first
things a would-be opponent of incumbent Memphis mayor Willie Herenton will
discover is that he or she is in for a mauling — figurative or maybe even
otherwise. As for the latter, just ask retiring councilman Brent Taylor, who
was asked outside by the mayor, or Channel 24’s Cameron Harper, who while
persisting in an interview attempt was warned to get his hands off…or else.

Most of the
abuse, though, is verbal — the kind of extreme stuff you might expect from a
proud Alpha male and former fighter who happens to be undefeated both in the
boxing ring and in the political arena. Mayoral opponent Carol Chumney got a
whiff of that last week when, without really having said much about the current
MLGW mess and Herenton protégé Joseph Lee, she nevertheless got relegated by
Herenton to an “array of evil” — right up there with fellow council members who
have called for Lee’s resignation as MLGW head, and, presumably, with
North Korea and Iran.

But the real
rough stuff is what Herenton aims at fellow black politicians who, whether
declared adversaries or not, get on his wrong side. Our friend Richard Thompson
at the indispensable Mediaverse blog is resistant to ‘hood-based etymologies and
might object to this characterization, but what the mayor is doing has been
known historically in Memphis’ black neighborhoods as Doing the Dozens.

That’s the
confrontational practice of trading insults which get rougher and rougher (up to
the nuclear threshold of 12, hence the name) until somebody either gives up or
one of the contestants is, one way or another, acknowledged the winner,
or…things get out of control. Out on the street, people have gotten killed.
Dozens and dozens of them.

In a political
contest, things are unlikely to get that far. But the mayor, who proudly boasts
his rough-and-tumble origins, has demonstrated time and again that he is not
loath to administer psychic wounds that, in the macho-conscious African-American
community, especially, can be crippling.

A case in point
was his statement last week in a WDIA radio interview aimed at another rival for
the mayoralty, former MLGW head Herman Morris, who had but just announced his candidacy. Herenton’s response? “I want the world to know, there’s a man up in here
in City Hall. If they’re looking for a boy, they identified one in Herman
Morris, but he ain’t going to enter this gate.”

The venue, on an
historic black station, was no accident. Nor was the insult. Herenton has aimed
that same barb before — at least twice to real or putative mayoral opponents.
Back in early 1999 when it appeared likely that then county commissioner Shep
Wilbun would be running for mayor that year, Herenton entertained this reporter
in his penthouse office at City Hall and pointed out a vintage photograph from
his first election-night celebration in 1991.

Wilbun, the
mayor noted, was in a back row of the jammed entourage on stage, straining to
get into the picture. “Look at that boy!” said a literally gleeful Herenton, who
went on to declare that Wilbun’s chances of getting into the foreground were no
better in 1999 than they had been eight years before.

For his part,
the injured Wilbun was moved to write an op-ed for the Flyer in which he
focused on the slur and attempted to make the case that it typified a dangerous
and overweening arrogance on Herenton’s part.

Another Herenton
opponent that year was Joe Ford, then a well-liked city councilman, and, as a
member of the prominent Ford political clan, regarded as the best bet to upset
the mayor in a crowded field. In the very first forum involving the two of them,
Herenton waited until Joe Ford seemed hesitant on an answer to someone’s
question and then called out to the candidate’s brother, former congressman
Harold Ford Sr., in the audience: “Harold,
you got to do a better job of getting this boy ready!”

Candidate Ford
seemed flustered and never quite recovered his aplomb in that race. Both he and
Wilbun went down hard, along with the rest of a generally accomplished field
whom the mayor, in his election post-mortem with the Flyer, dismissed as
“clowns.”

In no sense,
literal or metaphorical, is Herman Morris, a former star athlete and a
middle-aged man of ample professional experience, a”boy.” But he and Chumney and
John Willingham and whoever else ventures to run against Willie Herenton this
year can expect that kind of verbal treatment — and worse.

In his
exhibition last year against a gallant but used-up Joe Frazier, Herenton boxed
circles around the onetime world champion, but he made sure to pull every
punch. His mayoral opponents this year won’t be so lucky.

So it would seem after Saturday’s preliminary caucus, in which a record crowd showed up at Airways Junior High to elect delegates for the party convention on March 31. Current chairman Matt Kuhn is not seeking reelection, and things are shaping up for a two-man race between lawyer Jay Bailey (left) and minister Keith Norman.

Bailey is supported by David Upton and some, but not all, members of the party’s old Ford faction, as well as by the activist Grant brothers (Greg and Alonzo), Del Gill, and blogger Thaddeus Matthews. Norman has emerged as the candidate of the Sidney Chism faction and is likely also to be supported by Desi Franklin of the MidSouth Democrats in Action reform group.

it should be noted that other Democrats — including longtime activist Jody Patterson, who says she will run — may also launch candidacies before March 31.

–Jackson Baker