Kwame me, me, me, me, me

Posted by hpayne on March 11, 2013

In the autumn of 2003, Kwame Kilpatrick swept into our Detroit News editorial offices as  we had come to expect – with swagger and purpose.  Young, tailored, and charismatic, he instantly took charge of the room. With a beautiful wife and family, he represented a new generation of Detroiters focused – not on refighting  the old civil rights wars – but the new challenges of broken schools and broken families.

But that day he gave a preview of the selfish pol that would ultimately self-combust in today’s 24-count racketeering conviction. Robert Thompson, a Metro Detroit construction millionaire-turned philanthropist, had offered the city $200 million in 2003 to build 15 charter schools promising Detroit families more education choice. But city unions resisted the competition. They held protests in Lansing and staged a work stoppage in Detroit. City Council, ever in Big Labor’s pocket, resisted Thompson’s generosity. Now was the moment for the young mayor to send a message that Detroit must stand for its kids, not the politics of the past.

“We don’t need anyone on a white horse riding in to save Detroit,” sneered Kilpatrick to The Detroit News editorial board.

Our hearts sank. Despite having two kids of his own in charter school. Despite a quarter of a billion dollar education gift. Despite a chance to build bridges with a Michigan businessman. . . Kwame chose the easy racial exit.

And so it would be for years to come. With him that day was his Chief-of-Staff Christine Beatty, though we did not yet know that she was his mistress in a text scandal that would send him to jail. Nor did we know of the criminal enterprise he was building with Bobby Ferguson that would rob the city – one of America’s poorest – of millions of dollars. But we did know then of his penchant for excess – for example, the outsized entourage that he liked to bring with him on such media visits.

Ultimately, Kwame Kilpatrick was about Kwame Kilpatrick. Not the people he was elected to serve.

The smart money was on Kilpatrick being acquitted today. The feds RICO case had reached for too much, the experts said. A hung Detroit jury wouldn’t convict one of their own, the pundits opined. But this 8 woman, 4 man, half-minority jury showed that a jury of one’s peers works. Call it Kwame fatigue, but his peers were disgusted at hearing a mayor steal from them – a bankrupt city.

“I thought that he could be a good leader,” said one juror after today’s unanimous verdict, “and sitting here on trial for the past six months I saw a lot that really, really turned my stomach and I couldn’t believe these things were going on.”

Her words echo those of a city that thought Kwame Kilpatrick represented the the future – only to reinforce the caricature of its past.

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