APN broke major story yesterday, now a national sensation
Not that anyone gave us credit (besides WABE radio), but our readers know where they read it first. Yes, APN was the first to report on the scandal of some in the Black activist community saying that Black voters should unite around Lisa Borders in order to prevent a White candidate, Mary Norwood, from getting elected.
I woke up yesterday to a call from WSB Channel 2 at like 9am asking to see the emails. By noon, two press conferences were announced by the Reed and Borders campaigns. I literally ran from my house to Reed’s campaign office to get to his press conference in time and showed up all sweating and hyperventiling. THEN- he didn’t really answer my question, but I’ll make that a separate post in a second.
But yeah, the story went national; today it appeared in the Wall Street Journal!
I should make a clarification, though. I referred in the story to both an email from Aaron Turpeau as well as a report circulated by Newsmakers Live that was said to also have been circulated originally by Turpeau. Turpeau denied to Channel 2 writing the report. APN yesterday obtained a copy of the original report issued by the Black Leadership Forum and emailed out by Turpeau. In that email, he states that the report was actually written by political scientists at Clark Atlanta University, but that he agrees with the report.
Observations:
-Lisa Borders is the least progressive candidate in this race so it is a major disappointment the BLF would suggest the Black community get behind her (as opposed to Reed, who is Black but less of a developers’ puppet).
-Lisa Borders failed to renounce the support of the BLF and this could harm her going forward.
-The way this has been playing out as I’ve been reading other media reports and blogs and having numerous conversations throughout the community is that this could actually benefit Mary Norwood. It will possibly cause many people to give her a real substantive look because people don’t like being told who to vote for or to be accused of playing racial identity politics in our supposed color-blind society. It may also alienate White voters from Borders.
-Dwanda Farmer, who also issued a statement opposing the BLF report, posed this question to me- Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and it was a White activist saying we need to rally behind a White candidate to prevent a Black Mayor from being elected? There would be protests in the streets.
-I believe Reed will also be hurt by this story. While some may feel sorry for him that the BLF would put it out there that he’s non-viable and almost a non-entity, having that message out there in such a solidifed manner being repeated over and over again could harm him, no matter how much people may disagree with other parts of the BLF memo.
-Mary Norwood hasn’t been saying a word about the whole thing except that she’s focused on the issues, and good for her. She’s basically sitting pretty.
-As the good En Vogue said, Free your mind and the rest will follow; be color blind, don’t be so shallow.