PRESS RELEASE
October 29, 2007 Contact person: Gary James 212.281.8457
www.garyjames.info email: garyjamesusa@netscape.net
BLACK NEW YORKER’S FOR GIULIANI TO DELIVER 25%
“The absolute predictability of the Black American vote has rendered the Black community a political weakling among all other ethnic and political minorities. Black elected officials out number politicians of all other ethnic and political minorities yet Black Americans have comparatively no political leverage.”
This was the mantra articulated by Gary James, a longtime political organizer, analyst and author, during a booking signing event at the Barnes & Nobel bookstore located at Co-Op in the Bronx on Thursday September 27, 2007. The event was sponsored by a local health and fitness group comprised of women entrepreneurs.
Following his animated presentation critiquing Black political leadership and the efficacy of political correctness and traditional civil rights tactics, James discussed his intention to volunteer to help the Giuliani campaign in the February primary and November 2008 general election, should he prevail.
James said, “In the framework of Black New Yorker’s for Giuliani we will promote the need to develop ‘political leverage’ and work to deliver 25% of the Black vote in the general election. In the meantime we will we work on his behalf to win the GOP primary election on February 5, 2007.”
James continued, “25% of the Black vote going to the GOP candidate will unequivocally establish that the Black vote is now ‘unpredictable’ thereby establishing a degree of political leverage. A 25% walk-out by Black voters from the Democratic Party will constitute a paradigm shift that will move the Black community beyond the political stagnation that is the result of a failing Black political leadership orthodoxy.”
“Hopefully, we Black folk have learned that electoral politics embodies advancing the permanent interests of the community, and is not a fraternity of partisan friends verses racist enemies. We must not forget the political lessons of the 1960’s, which includes infiltrating adversary political forces from within as well strategic and tactical applications from without the process in order to achieve meaningful political and economic remediation.”
During the Q & A period, the point was mentioned to James that the Republican Party has a poor record with Black voters in general. In addition, the numerical advantage of Democrats in New York may constitute a mission impossible. This problem would be compounded should Mayor Giuliani be the Republican Party nominee in view of his record in the Black community, which is perceived as racist.
“The task for the GOP in New York is tough, but victory is not unprecedented. My organization helped President Reagan carry New York in 1984, during his re-election campaign. And Calvin Coolidge carried the state in 1924. As for Giuliani’s baggage with the Black community, I suspect that we may have substantially moved beyond the limitations of personally politics, and the racialized political paradigm. Whether we like a candidate or not, or whether he/she did this or that may not be politically irrelevant in 21st century black power politics. The real-time question is to what extent you are politically organized as a community to require the elected official to respond to your interests, who ever they are, and where ever they stand in the power equation. It’s about ‘how to’ be successful in accessing and sustaining political leverage.” James concluded.
Eracism, Author of the book Gary James.
For information: www.garyjames.info or email garyjamesusa@netscape.net
