Gary,
First, you might not know it, but this is a love letter, a letter of hope in the way that hope lives in the places where we hold each other accountable, ask the hard questions, and tell the truth about disappointment. So I am writing this letter to you, because I am disappointed. I am completely open to talking about this after you have received it.
Last weekend, you publicly announced you were running for City Councilmember, Alondra Cano’s, seat in Ward 9. You have not yet officially launched your campaign and, at the time of this writing, you don’t have a campaign website so the language we are getting is from the Star Tribune. Despite not formally launching, your message is clear. It’s even repeated on the meme your campaign is sending around, vote for Gary as he runs for his “old seat in Ward 9.”
I am tired of the self-centered approach to US politics, Gary. I am tired of feeling like everything I read is designed to make me react in a particular way. It’s the reason why the only politics I trust are local politics. I have known Councilmember Cano for six years. And I have known you, Gary, for about 23 years. Since you were, I think, 19 or maybe 20.
You are a white man running for elected office at a moment of intense division in this country, particularly around race and white supremacy. You are choosing to put yourself forward against a Latina, an immigrant. You will be looking for ways to counter Councilmember Cano’s work, while at the same time attempt to shield your actions from anything that might obviously refer to your racial differences. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do to try and get around this. As a white man choosing to run at this moment, you have agreed to participate in this moment of deep racial pain and divide.
When I read the phrase, “Running for his old seat in ward 9,” I heard echoes of “make America great again,” There is no innocence in this game. In this particular moment where white supremacy is continually affirmed at the federal level, as much in progressive ward 9 as anywhere else in the country, it is not possible to make a statement like that and not immediately play into white fear.
The problem with racism and white supremacy is that it is interwoven with the survival systems of those who were raised to be white in this country. This means that it is always a tool, lying just out of reach, to use in subtle and overt ways when, for whatever reason, a sense of personal survival or safety feels at risk for those who are white. I can’t help but wonder, Gary, if you are more invested in being a career politician than working for the residents of ward 9. Last election, you ran for the mayoral race and lost. Word on the street was that you were thinking about running for Senator Keith Ellison’s chair. When all other political doors seem to be closed, you now go after the position that is most likely to ensure your political survival, to make ward 9 “great again," for yourself and those who have been riled or made uncomfortable by Council Member Cano’s leadership.
I don’t understand why someone with your experience and relationships doesn’t immediately say to Council Member Cano, “it matters deeply to me that you are successful in your role on the city council. We all need you to be successful. Tell me how I can help, tell me what you need from me, tell me how I can support your leadership.” Instead, you think you have a better idea for what needs to be done.
Gary, I first met you when you were 19. You were a student at the LGBT Programs Office and I was staff. When I first met you, I felt kindness towards you. You were dating someone I liked a lot. I knew that your family had had a hard time with your gayness. You were arrogant as hell but it felt like a particular flavor of young. I remember you coming in with a whole bunch of ideas for how to make the LGBT Programs Office and other LGBT student activities better stronger faster. I listened to you and said something like, you should find out what others are doing first, see what others have tried, build some good relationships and then see what you can do together. You smirked at me (literally) and said that you already knew what needed to be done.
When you were first running for city council, you called me for an endorsement. Embarrassing as it is, I didn’t understand what it meant to endorse someone. And so, months later, someone I knew who was also running for your seat came and asked me to endorse him. I trusted his work so I said sure, put my name on your flyer. After you saw his flyer, you called me. You were furious. You wanted to know why I had endorsed him. Again, I was embarrassed. I explained that I hadn’t fully understood the endorsing process and that you only had the one chance and that I hadn’t thought it through about this candidate versus you or anyone else. You said to me, you realize he is only reaching out to you to get to me. I said, this man is running for a ward with a high LGBT population. Of course he is talking to LGBT people to garner their support and to show that he gets our issues. You repeated that I was naïve and he was doing this to get to you. That it was personal. You hung up, furious at me.
Gary, you have long struck me as being the progressive south Minneapolis version of the same line of political posturing that includes Bill Clinton and possibly even, at its most extreme end, Donald Trump. Remember what I said: white supremacy hijacks the body’s survival systems and so will use whatever is necessary to make sure that the body feels ok, settled, and empowered. While the political differences between the three of you are huge and I would never say that you are the same nor do you represent the same communities, interests or issues, I would say that there is similarity in terms of how you play the fields, the communities, you are trying to reach. It’s this self-interest, the ways that in moments of stress you can pull on whiteness to lift your own body over others, this ignorance of how you contradict your own spoken values when you do this, that makes me disappointed in you.
Right now is there is an astonishing and powerful coalition of POC and white candidates who are emerging to run for new ward seats who will work together including with councilmember Cano. This is what collective politics as opposed to self-interest politics looks like. This is what it looks like to say our electoral campaigns are about changing the patterns of control and pain that keep putting us right back in the same place of deep inequality. Gary, many of us are looking for people who are going to ask communities who are struggling right now with more things that get in the way of a liberated life, how can I best have your back? How can I most support your leadership and vision for change? I wish you would ask that question, Gary, in service to those who have not been represented by US political history rather than what seems to be service to your own career. It would make me think that 19 year old boy had finally grown up.
Sincerely, Susan Raffo, 9th Ward resident
(This was posted in February 2017 as a Facebook note)
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