Senator Robert Brown’s name just keeps popping up. The Democrat from Macon leads his party in the State Senate and recently has caused a degree of controversy by suggesting that Democrats who switched parties had meetings at night involving white sheets. That comment refers to Republican/Lobbyists trysts and not a white supremacist group – just so there is no confusion.
At a recent forum on the subject of race and politics, Senator Brown said “We are not being honest with one another.” And he is absolutely right. We are not. Among those not being honest is Senator Brown. His comments after Bubber Epps switched parties are most reasonably interpreted as Brown alleging that a Klan meeting was taking place. Brown didn’t say those meetings happened in mauve sheets nor satin sheets. He said white sheets. If Brown really wanted to reference Republican/ lobbyists trysts he could have picked a better choice of words. Everyone at some point in time has misspoken.
The difference between everyone and Senator Brown is that a majority of people would apologize for misstating themselves. Pull out the “Mea Culpa” card and use a mulligan. But not Senator Brown. How Brown has managed to remain as the leader of the Democrats in the Georgia State Senate is a mystery to me.
But let’s be honest. Senator Brown won’t apologize and simply move on – his political grandstanding has a purpose. Senator Brown is going to make a run to be Mayor of Macon. A three way battle between him, C. Jack Ellis, and Mayor Reichert is just what the city needs. Mayor Reichet has done a great job given what he has had to work with. Being the Mayor of Macon is a job where there are no-win scenarios. The City is in trouble and needs help.
Of course one idea to help the City is for the Bibb County and Macon City government to merge. Merging the two entities has been a controversial subject for years. When asked at the forum about such a merger, Senator Brown suggested that institutional racism and a fear that African American officials would lose power were possible hindrances - although he did not object to the merger.
Honestly, Macon will not survive unless something major happens. I believe merging the two governments is perhaps the best solution. Getting rid of the partisan election model would not hurt either – it has done nothing but cause divides to increase between communities. Macon needs to swallow a bitter pill and do what is best for Macon – if that means losing power, fixing the I-16/I-75 interchange, toning down the inflammatory rhetoric, or giving up on the hypocritical reasons for halting progress.
Let us be honest, there can be no unity until people are willing to take the good with the bad. We can not hold on to silly stipulations. Unity is not about worrying how one community might lose positions of leadership, but rather about coming together as ONE community. Everyone working together. Regardless of party. Regardless of race. Regardless of education level. Regardless of the jobs they hold. That is how unity works. And if Macon is to survive people have to learn to come together and unite.
Otherwise Macon could very well be the real world prototype of Detroit/Delta City seen in Robocop.
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I couldn’t agree more, Ron. Just curious, who has the best chance of winning the mayoral race in that three-way matchup at this point?
I hear that Seantro Brown was seen at a GTLA function last week. Supposedly one of his first ventures out in a long time. Also- Ron, tell Sen. Staton hello from way down here in SE Georgia. I know he appreciates this effort.
Oy veh! I guess this falls under the “Don’t interrupt your opponents when they are busy destructing themselves” rule. Too bad that Sen. Brown can’t keep his foot out of his mouth long enough to actually lead the Senate Democrats forward.
+1
Well, even though I’m a democrat, I called on him to apologize. His refusal to do so makes me think the needs to be removed from leadership.
I think most people either think he ought to apologize or at least infer that his remark was in reference to the KKK rather than lobbyists.
I think that if your party is to move forward in this state sooner rather than later, that people who want to throw grenades like Brown need to be minimized. Sitting back and throwing grenades does some good in the long term – but it’s certainly not the fast track back to relevancy.
Oh HELL NO Macon and Bibb don’t need to merge – I’m moving to Bibb and staying outside the Macon City Limits for the very reason that I DON’T want to be part of that mess! Couple of the complexes I looked at inside the City of Macon felt like you needed tanks to drive through safely, and I’m not exactly an overly cautious guy.
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