Towns Has A Challenger

    Back in September, I wrote about Two-Faced Towns: Rep. Ed Towns of New York (Brooklyn) who became one of the 15 so-called Democrats who voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement. We honored him by inducting him into the CAFTA 15 project.

    And now Towns has one declared primary opponent: City Councilman Charles Barron. I've known Barron since he first ran for the city council and he would certainly be a huge improvement when it comes to labor issues. Towns may face more than one primary opponent and his defeat would be a welcome development: politicians who don't represent the principles of their constituents don't deserve re-election.

Comments

[Brennan Griffin]

This could be interesting. Barron's got real potential and a real base, or he did a few years ago in Brooklyn when I was there. He's a good speaker, and while I don't agree with him on all things, its a definite improvement over the last semi-serious challenger Towns facedin 1999 (Barry Ford, I think). Ford got trounced in the primary, despite having raised a decent amount of money.

Brennan

[UrbanMom]

I'm not sure that a racist is the person you'd want to send to Congress. A March 1st issue of the NY Sun article quotes Barron:

"Charles Barron, the fiery City Council member who made national news nearly four years ago when he said at a rally for slavery reparations that he would like to go up to the closest white person and say: "'You can't understand this, it's a black thing,' and then slap him, just for my mental health," is off to an aggressive start in his run for Congress."

In addition to the fact that he hasn't delivered much to his community and isn't known for his ability to build coalitions and work with others which is a requirement for a freshman congressman with no seniority clout.

[Another Urban Mom]

let's just differentiate here between the kind of racism that had millions of africans and several generations of their decendents captured, tortured, starved, worked to death, beaten to death, raped, separated from their children, deprived of property, and humiliated from the kind of "racism" you accuse mr. barron of.

[Jungle]

Urbanmom.. glad for you to blame generations that had nothing to do with it. Have you ever thought that alot of racism against blacks now is from whites, day after day, having to hear the whinning, the gimme gimme gimme, the woe is me, the you owe us back, etc..etc.. etc.. .

It seems to me that many black people think that just because racism was played against them in history, they have free right to be racist themselves. Well, I had nothing to do with the slavery, neither did my forefathers, but, I get pursecuted just the same. So, does that give me free rain to do the things you do? No, because it solves nothing. Perhaps you should learn that.

[Jungle]

Urbanmom.. glad for you to blame generations that had nothing to do with it. Have you ever thought that alot of racism against blacks now is from whites, day after day, having to hear the whinning, the gimme gimme gimme, the woe is me, the you owe us back, etc..etc.. etc.. .

It seems to me that many black people think that just because racism was played against them in history, they have free right to be racist themselves. Well, I had nothing to do with the slavery, neither did my forefathers, but, I get pursecuted just the same. So, does that give me free rain to do the things you do? No, because it solves nothing. Perhaps you should learn that.