Say it loud?

Some of my best friends ...

I think just about everybody was surprised by the relatively low turnout on Election Day this week. Turns out the low turnout helps the incumbent. Who knew? But seriously folks … Some of us were counting on a higher turnout of undecided and black voters. (Not that the two are mutually exclusive.) That didn’t happen. And it especially didn’t happen in the black parts of town in wards A and F.

Not only did African-American voters mostly stay home (like the rest of us) but those who did come out, seemed to be splitting their votes among Smith, Manzo, Webb and even Healy. (Yes, I’m sure some black people voted for Dan Levin, too; just in case you were wondering.) All of the pundits – although, really, who’s a bona fide pundit around these parts any more? – were saying that the black vote would never go to Healy and that it was going to propel someone (Harvey?) into the runoff against him. Surely, they reasoned, Healy’s been no friend of black people in Ward A and/or F. Conditions in the ‘hood are at a crisis. Right?

Well, yes. Conditions in the ‘hood are at a crisis, but, frankly, when haven’t they been? Maybe back in the old Jackson Avenue days,  (Look it up.) but anybody who remembers those days will very likely tell you that black folks were catching a more hellacious kinda Hell back in that day, plus no jobs and really racist cops.  In the end, even I have to admit that Healy’s supposed assault on black Jersey City is no worse than McCann’s or Schundler’s or Jordan’s or any other JC mayor’s. Healy had his black allies (and they weren’t any more or less a sell out than the blacks who ran with McCann back in the day, or with Manzo this time around.)

I heard some say that blacks should’ve gone for Harvey because he was the black guy, (as opposed to Phil Webb, who was the black guy who couldn’t win.) A black man is certainly gonna be down with black people in A and F and B, right? Maybe that’s true, in theory, but Mayor Glenn Cunningham was a black guy and when he left us, black folks in JC weren’t any better off than they were the day he became mayor.

The conventional wisdom is that a diluted black vote (and an equally diluted Latino vote, for that matter) will mean less for JC blacks and Latinos. (Less what? Jobs? Apartments? Rehab slots?) That may be true, but, given the history, how would they tell the difference? It’s no wonder the colored people stayed home. This election had, ultimately, very little to do with them.