The Memphis Mayoral Election: Character Won

th (39)History was made in my Hometown of Memphis, Tennessee on Thursday Night.

The Commercial Appeal has the story:

Voters in majority-black Memphis on Thursday elected the city’s first white mayor in 24 years as City Councilman Jim Strickland’s message of change propelled him over incumbent A C Wharton.

Although a glitch caused a delay of several hours in tallying the vote, Wharton conceded to Strickland shortly after 10 p.m., saying he had no regrets about the race. Strickland declared victory a few minutes later.

Complete but unofficial returns showed Strickland took 42 percent of the vote to Wharton’s 22 percent. Harold Collins captured 18 percent and Mike Williams had 16 percent. Six other candidates stood at less than 1 percent each. There is no runoff in the mayor’s race.

Strickland was the only white contender among the four major candidates.

It was a rare victory for a challenger against an incumbent — the most recent was Willie Herenton’s historic 1991 win over Dick Hackett — and the first time a council member will move into the city’s top job since 1972.

“Today the people of Memphis spoke loudly and clearly. You want a new direction for this city,” Strickland told a crowd at the Memphis Botanic Garden. “Today, the people of Memphis — you — said we want change.”

Wharton conceded to Strickland in an upbeat concession speech to supporters.

“This is Memphis, Tennessee, known for its graciousness and its hospitality. And I’ve tried to epitomize that throughout all my public service and nothing is going to change,” Wharton said. “That’s just the way I roll.”

Watching Wharton’s speech on a borrowed cell phone, Strickland was asked by an aide how he felt. “Good,” he simply said.

In his victory speech a few moments later to deafening cheers, Strickland said he would be the mayor for all Memphis — including the people who didn’t vote for him. He said he would spend the next four years trying to win them over as well.

The crowd included well-known names from Memphis: Convention & Visitors Bureau chief Kevin Kane, County Commissioner Steve Basar, and friend and fellow City Council member Alan Crone. And joining him in the back, shortly before Wharton made the call, was County Mayor Mark Luttrell.

Strickland called Wharton “an outstanding ambassador for the city of Memphis” and thanked him for his service.

For Wharton, toward the end of the evening, none of it — the 510 colorful balloons, the skewered chicken and crab cakes, the overpowering live band, or even the cash bar — could lift the watch party’s spirits or candidate Wharton to a victory Thursday night.

Ultimately, Wharton descended from his Holiday Inn-University of Memphis hotel room to deliver an upbeat, undaunted concession speech.

“It’s been a good run,” the smiling 71-year-old said as 15 of his family members stood behind him on the stage.

Not for Memphis, it hasn’t, A.C.

Immediately after the controversial Mayoral Election referenced in the article, in which Former Controversial School Board President W.W. Herenton was elected Mayor, in an election, which by any measure, should have been investigated for chicanery, the demographics of Memphis, Tennessee, slowly and irrevocably began to change.

As with any major American City, more and more suburbs began to be built, to accommodate the movement of Memphians seeking to leave the city proper.

By 1997, I was one of them.

In what has become almost stereotypical, the City of Memphis began to decline under the leadership, more accurately, lack thereof, of its first Black Democratic Mayor.

And, while taxpayers left, the size of Memphis City Government expanded, like Rosie O’ Donnell at an all-you-can-eat buffet, while cronyism flourished, leading to hundreds of new City Employees, “working” in dozens of new departments, with such euphemistic “duties” as teaching the citizenry how to “Dress For Success”.

I’m not kiddin’.

While the Memphis City Government was expanding and the taxpayers were leaving, Herenton was raising property taxes and any other kind of taxes he could raise.

If you wanted to see “King Willie”, you could find him every evening, hanging out at the magnificent Lobby Bar of the historic Peabody Hotel.

Here’s a clue: Hizzoner wasn’t there to watch the Peabody Ducks. He was interested in other “birds”.

Anyway, eventually, King Willie was forced out of office by a FBI Probe, which led to the coronation of A.C. Wharton.

Instead of turning around the Bluff City’s Downhill Spiral, Wharton succeeded in putting the pedal to the metal and actually accelerating it, keeping all of Herenton’s “appointees” and adding his own, chasing even more taxpayers out of the city, through his inability to stop the burgeoning crime rate, which has led to a reluctance of major corporations to relocate to the Memphis Area.

According to the FBI, in 2014, in Memphis,

11,399 violent crimes were logged compared to 10,894 in 2013;

Homicides increased from 124 in 2013 to 140 in 2014;

501 rapes were reported in 2014 and 437 in 2013.

Property crimes declined nearly 2 percent;

Motor-vehicle thefts were up 11 percent, an anomaly in the overall drop in property crimes.

Notable among the crimes in Memphis in 2014, was the outbreak of violence committed by “Youth Mobs”, which made Memphis the object of local and national news.

Last September, I wrote that

My beloved hometown of Memphis, Tennessee has been gutted by decades of poor financial stewardship and corrupt Black Democratic Leadership, who never saw a dollar they couldn’t spend, or a relative or friend that they couldn’t give a job with the city to.

And now, Memphis’ chickens have come home… to roost…brought about by a failed school system which turned in its charter in a successful scheme to take over the more affluent county school system, only to see the county municipalities start their own individual systems, Memphis’ black citizens murdering each other every night, and gangs of black teenagers beating the snot out of innocent people, simply because they’re bored, they have no parental guidance, and they know, as “juvenile offenders”, that nothing will happen to them.

Wharton’s solution was to open the community centers until Midnight, so that the “troubled youths” could play basketball.

Sheesh.

As I reported earlier in the week, the final nail in the coffin in the re-election bid of Memphis Mayor A.C. Wharton came when it was discovered that there some more corruption in his Administration involving an

$880,000 deal between the maker of MPD’s body cameras and his campaign manager. The city required TASER International to hire a woman or minority PR company to educate the public about their new body cameras for MPD.TASER chose Deidre Malone, who also runs Wharton’s re-election campaign.

“It’s my understanding that Taser and Ms Malone by mutual consent agreed to cancel that contract,” said Wharton.

TASER said it was “disappointed” Malone didn’t tell them about her connection, and they’re committed to ethical business practices.

The mayor said he didn’t see the deal but didn’t think there was anything legally or ethically wrong with it, and apparently neither did his inner circle.

Everyone from his campaign manager, chief administrators, lawyers, and police leaders were aware of the issue.

“Had I wished I’d known before there was communication so I could say don’t do that, but it didn’t happen, and I’ll move on,” said Wharton.

The city said the money wasn’t all profit but to pay for billboards and TV ad’s, but it’s unclear how much.

Wharton said someone else will get the job, and they’ll be a minority too.

Now that the dust has cleared from Thursday Night’s Historic Election, Jim Strickland will begin the process of assembling a team, through which to attempt to undo, or at least begin to make a dent in 24 years of a level of corruption in Memphis City Government that the legendary Memphis Mayor “Boss” Crump could have never even have conceived of.

The Memphis Mayoral Election made the National News because of the fact that Jim Strickland, who happens to be White, defeated a Black Sitting Mayor in Memphis, Tennessee, a city which is almost 75% Black.

What it all boils down to is this:

The citizens of Memphis did not elect Jim Strickland based on the color of his skin…but, rather, the content of his character.

Until He Comes,

KJ

The Memphis Gas Station Mob Attack: A Black Eye for the Bluff City

thXNI8AGNLAs we approach the annual Memphis Summer Celebration of Memphis in May, featuring the World-renown Barbeque Championship Cook-off and following in June, the nationally-televised St. Jude PGA Golf Tournament, my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee has been in the National News again, and not in a good way.

Memphis’ local NBC Affiliate, WMC-TV-Action News 5, reports that

Nine teenagers were arrested after a group of students from Northwest Prep Academy attacked a man last Friday at the BP gas station on Poplar Avenue as he helped a frightened woman to her car. with the attack at the BP gas station in Memphis. At least four of them are being charged as adults.

Denizell Gladney, 19, Devin Hulbert, 19, Darion Milken, 18, and Joe Brittman, 19, were arrested and charged with aggravated riot, and assault, among other charges.

Five other teenagers, who are younger than 18, are also charged with aggravated riot. In addition to aggravated riot, two of the teens are charged with vandalism and one is charged with burglary of a motor vehicle.”Just let them think about the consequences of their actions,” said the attack victim, Orrden Williams. “Maybe you need to be sitting in jail while everyone else is going to prom.”
 
However, Judge Gerald Skahan felt differently.

Gladney’s bond was reduced to $30,000. He has a prior criminal history that involves marijuana and aggravated robbery charges.

Milken and Brittman’s bonds were both reduced to $5,000. Neither of them have prior criminal history.

“I’m disappointed that their bonds were reduced,” said Williams.

None of their parents or guardians appeared in court.  However, defense attorney Michael Working commented on the judge’s decision.

“At 18 or 19, they are still quite impressionable,” said Working. “Who do we want them learning from? Do we wanted them learning from teachers in our school systems, or do we want them learning from other bad guys who do bad things?”

All three men were given a 6 p.m. curfew and are banned from the BP gas station.  Skahan said, however, that he’d rather see them in school than behind bars.

Working says a good percentage of the people behind bars are high school dropouts.

“So if there’s a way to avoid making people a statistic, that’s probably why the judge would do that,” Working explained.

They will be back in court on April 24, and have to report to pretrial services every day when they are released from jail per the judge’s orders.

“I think it’ll show Northwest Prep and the rest of the students that I can beat a man up in broad daylight and terrorize his family, and I can come home for $500,” Williams commented.

However, in juvenile court, a different judge said two students in his court should stay locked up.

“Some of these people are people you say made physical contact with this man, but you can’t release the children to parents,” said one of the students’ grandmother.

Two other minors were released without having to post any bond.

The grandmother says the situation is unfair, since the court will not release her 16-year-old grandson to his family.  Though he is only charged with aggravated riot, he has three other pending cases against him.  The court says his record was so bad, he had to be detained.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong spoke Thursday about keeping the people responsible for recent crimes behind bars.

“Certainly, we have very little influence over bonds,” Armstrong said. “It’s frustrating to us, as well as these victims.”

Williams says he wants all of the teenagers responsible for beating him up to pay for their actions.

“They were swinging over my baby,” he added. “I have no hope for them. I want them to suffer the punishment for their actions.”

Memphis police are still investigating and trying to identify the other teens involved in the attack. They believe there are approximately 50 total teenagers involved.

This “incident” has been in the National News all week. Of course, it is not the first time that a bunch of black “yutes” have acted in a barbaric manner in my hometown of Memphis, TN. There have now been several instances of these sort of attacks, beginning with the now-infamous “Flash Mob Attack” at the Kroger Grocery Story, located in the heart of East Memphis, on the busy thoroughfare of Poplar Avenue.

In that instance, a mob of kids, for no apparent reason at all, attacked a couple of innocent people, smashing a huge pumpkin over a teenage store clerk’s head, resulting in hospitalization.

There have been several instances since then, with the Memphis Mayor and the City Council deciding that the solution to these barbaric mobs behavior was to reward them by opening up Youth Basketball Centers, which will stay open until after Midnight, in order to attempt to keep the little angels off the streets of my hometown.

The only problem with Mayor AC Wharton’s ingenious plan, is the fact that it would only work if these kids were raised right to begin with, and respected authority enough to go play basketball, instead of roaming the streets like a bunch of feral cats.

As I have written in the past, the trouble which American society is now experiencing, regarding the Black Youth Subculture, begins at home.

With a history of 74% of Black Americans being born out of wedlock, the problem of Black “Yutes” growing up without strong role models has now become generational…and, a vicious cycle.

Last night, my bride and I were at a stir fry restaurant in a suburb of Memphis. As we processed in the line, filling our little metal bowls with our own personal ingredients for our stir fries, a young black woman started skipping line, like no one mattered but herself.

It was as if she was daring those of us who were following the rules to say something to her about her outrageous behavior, so that she could act aggrieved by our “racism”.

I believe that we are experiencing the results of LBJ’s “Great Society”, in which the Almighty Federal Government has eliminated both the concept of moral absolutes and individual responsibility.

These “yutes” who are acting like wild animals have been raised as such, literally abandoned by irresponsible parents to fend for themselves and to make up their own rules as they go along.

What we are witnessing, boys and girls, is a Generation of Sociopaths, with no concept of morality, ethics, or personal responsibility.

They are doing what feels good to them…and what popular culture, which has become both their “god” and their “parental authority figure” has told them is cool.

Until Memphis’ Community and Civic leaders show these young savages that they will face SEVERE consequences for their barbaric behavior, these mob attacks will continue…until one of these young people are shot dead, when they pick a victim with a Concealed Carry Permit.

And, then “the community” will have no one to blame, but themselves.

Until He Comes,

KJ