White isn't the bad guy in Roland Burris turmoil
Black leaders need to cut him some slack for standing up to gov
This is what happens in Illinois when a black man leaves a powerful political seat without anointing a successor.
Black people start tearing each other apart.
(AP)
Gov. Blagojevich is the person who created the situation that has led to a tainted process to fill President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat.
Yet it is Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White who is taking the most heat. Because White disagreed with Blagojevich's defiant decision to appoint a successor to Obama, White's the bad guy?
Blagojevich has been accused of holding up Medicaid payments to a hospital that black folks depend upon in a shakedown attempt for political contributions, and White's the bad guy?
Blagojevich has been accused of trying to sell Obama's Senate seat to the highest bidder, and White's the bad guy?
In declining to certify Blagojevich's pick, White followed the lead of Illinois' top political leaders who urged Blagojevich to step aside and let someone else make the appointment.
Now, some Burris supporters are calling White out of his name, and protesters are picketing at least one motor vehicle facility.
A flier that is circulating in black neighborhoods claims White is "on the wrong side of history."
The Rev. Ira Acree, a member of a coalition of clergy vocally supporting Burris by demanding the Senate seat him immediately, said a lot of people in the African-American community believe White has "deep-sixed" them.
"Unfortunately, I think he has done some damage to his political career. He may have done some irreparable damage," Acree said.
"Why not just go ahead and sign the certificate?" I asked White.
"I stood before 150 cameras, and the print media and indicated that I would not change my mind," White said.
"[Burris] is a decent human being, and I'm saddened by the fact he is in this particular position," White said.
"I'll think about it, but I don't know how I can [sign the certificate] and keep my word."
A decision from the Illinois Supreme Court that concludes that White's signature is required on the certificate would give White an out.
But the damage is done.
After being turned away from the Senate on Tuesday, Burris had a chance to show leadership by rejecting race from the process.
He had a chance to downplay claims by Rep. Bobby Rush that "racism" is at the heart of the controversy, rather than Blagojevich's problems.
Rush, a longtime congressman who is a former Black Panther, also referred to the U.S. Senate as the "last bastion of plantation politics."
That may very well be.
But Rush must have forgotten that when Obama ran for the seat, Rush supported the wealthy white candidate.
Burris had another chance to get rid of the race angle when he appeared with Senate leaders Wednesday, but he also took a pass.
After his meeting with Sen. Dick Durbin and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Burris left it to Durbin and Reid to explain that he does not believe he was banned from the Senate because of his race.
As a lifelong Chicagoan, I'm familiar with dirty politics and political drama.
But black leaders should have learned how to play this game without throwing black politicians like White under the bus.
Many of the activists who are agitating for Burris to be seated in the U.S. Senate should still remember the bitter battle that was waged between now-Chief Judge Timothy Evans and the late Eugene Sawyer, when Mayor Harold Washington suddenly died.
Although Sawyer prevailed in that fight, the seat was ultimately won by Mayor Daley in 1989, and a viable black challenger has yet to emerge.
Twenty years later, black leaders are making the same mistakes.
Blagojevich should not have been able to divert attention from his own scandal by pitting one black man against another.
White, who was among the leaders calling for Blagojevich to stand down, didn't have much of a choice in this one.
Cutting White some slack will go a long way toward making sure history doesn't repeat itself.