By Lafe Tolliver, Esq
Guest Column
A few random thoughts at large.
(1) When I read where the erstwhile politico candidate Carty Finkbeiner was dusting off his blue and gold political tap-dancing shoes for another chance to be called, “Da Maya”, I thought back to his prior campaigns and involuntarily shuddered when I recalled the nigh shameless manner in which some Black pastors swooned over Carty.
I mean, if you did not know better, you would have thunk that Carty was handing out genuine gold doubloons to all the wide-eyed pastors that followed his every footstep. I remember times when Carty would call a press conference and invite the local Black pastors, and they would flock in mass to City Hall and breathlessly await his word from on high.
I mean, there were times when Carty passed by some Black pastors, that if they could touch the hem of his clearance sale JC Penney suit, they would have gladly suffered being trampled over by others in their efforts to reach him.
I mean, when Carty was around some Black pastors, causing them to be giddy and supercharged, it was akin to a teenage girl meeting the Beatles for the first time. It was a sight to behold!
I mean, when the call went out to some Black pastors to make the pilgrimage to sit at Carty’s feet at City Hall, if that meant they would have to drop their mike midway during their Sunday sermon and rush out the door, so be it.
Now, I hope that those same pastors (some of whom have gone on to their eternal reward) have acquired some gravitas and a grip on their political emotions so when Carty calls them, (as sure as he will, just as sure as ice is cold and fire is hot), they will display a modicum of decorum and resist the urge to rush the stage when he presents himself with that saccharine Carty smile.
As for me? My vote is for Jan Scotland. I plan to vote early and to vote often!
(2) I said it before, and I will dare say it again. One tactical tool that is needed to tamp down Black on Black crime is for the Black churches in Toledo to have their pastors and their congregations patrol, on foot, the so called, “central city.”
Yes, we need to see the Black pastors walking the beat at 1 and 3 AM in the morning along with their deacons, congregants, choir members and trustees to dissuade any criminal element from carrying out any nefarious deeds.
Criminals do not like witnesses and if they were to see Pastor Bunson and his eight deacons walking down Nesslewood, Batavia, Machen or Oakwood Avenue at midnight or at 2 AM, that would be a wonder to behold. Much less the positive conversations they could engage in with people out at that time of night.
My motto? Nothing good comes from people being out in the streets so late at night unless you are going to or from a jobsite. Nothing. You get my drift?
With great shame, we must concede that “we” are the ones that are doing harm to each other and the blame cannot be shifted to “others.” You can be poor as church mouse and that is not cause to create mayhem and to do drive by shootings!
If the local churches were to plan and plot such nightly (Yeah, every night!) excursions for the next three years, 10 dollars to a donut, you would see a radical decrease in crime. But how many churches are willing to put their Christianity on the line and road test the tenets of the gospel? I see those hands!
(3) Be All You Can Be! That is what I would tell the minority city council members if they were to obtain a majority on the upcoming city council races. They need to pow-wow together and formulate an agenda and a budget to support that agenda and pass it through city council.
So what if others say they have a narrow casting vision for projects that skew towards the down and out and with an emphasis on gun control and entrepreneurship programs.
Go where the need it and tell any Blade editorial which does not like it, to step off! What good is political power if you have a chance to flex it and you do not use it for fear of negative commentary from the Block Family at the Toledo Blade?
Quit shivering at your own shadows and firmly take the levers of power and pull them. The worse that they can do to you, is to talk about you. And, so what! The results will justify a pragmatic approach to problems that were previously not tackled due to concerns of negative blow back. You can thank me later.
Nothing ventured…nothing gained.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at tolliver@juno.com