The Hip-Hop Mayor

Detroit's Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has just been charged with several counts of criminal misconduct and is the headline news story on The Drudge Report; he should at least be proud of that fact. As I was watching the aftermath of Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s announcement, I was pleasantly surprised by the city’s response. After living though what seemed like a lifetime of Coleman Young in office, like many of you I doubted the city’s ability to be objective in looking out for its own self-interest. It would seem that the city and quite frankly all of us who live in the state of Michigan are behind the Prosecutor’s decision to press charges. If you are having a tough time with life right now, these are exciting times to be alive in Michigan, because no matter how bad you think your lot is in life, at least you are not the mayor. Shortly after, the Mayor had his own press-conference; his Lawyer did most of the talking and maintained the complete innocence of his client, our beloved Mayor. Furthermore, the Mayor would remain in office.

Like many of you, I watched these announcements with a group of people. My group was quite diverse; male, female, black, white, Detroiters, non-Detroiters, republicans and Democrats (mostly Democrats). So I took the opportunity to not only observe the comments being made on the television but also the ones being made in the room. The following is what I observed:

1.When the prosecutor announced she would bring charges against the mayor, everyone, without exception, was pleased with the decision and some even did a fist pump (no I was not one of fist ‘pumpers’).
2.While the charges were being read, everyone speculated the mayor would be undaunted by what has happened.
3.One person (not me) remained objective and was able to not pass judgment until a verdict is handed down in court.
4.The Kwame Supporters (and by that I mean those who supported him in the past) became even more staunch in their disapproval of him when it became clear he would not step down.
5.While the mayor’s lawyer spoke, people’s impatience grew, across the board. The audience believed Kwame’s lawyer’s arguments were weak; they were able to see right through the lawyer’s defense, as they saw it.

I thought his lawyer said something that was just flat out wrong; he said, if the mayor were to leave office now, WE would be penalizing him before his day in court, actually he said, we would be penalizing an innocent man. Do you know what this tells me; this tells me the Mayor is not motivated by love for Detroit. In any case, what is my conclusion after observing this very diverse group of people? I honestly don’t know, if the O.J. Simpson trial and decades of Coleman A. Young in office have taught me anything it is that compelling evidence against a popular celebrity does not necessarily mean compelling evidence against that person and that blacks can be rather forgiving of one of their own as long as he plays by the Democrat play book and Kwame knows this play book well, in fact I think he wrote the Foreword. Look for Kwame to play the race card hard and often, I just hope a jury of his peers will be able to see right through this. One thing is sure however, the Mayor is in for a tough battle and I am afraid that the city of Detroit will be one of the casualties. Who knows, perhaps seeing the city suffer, as it will, will spark some empathy within the mayor’s heart to the point where he will go from being the Hip-Hop mayor to more of a traditional Jazz type Mayor. And maybe if God chooses to smile on this city, Kwame Kilpatrick will not be mayor at all and a conservative republican will take his place.

Yes, I dare to dream.

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