Power struggle reveals racism

Last Monday, on Martin Luther King Day, a crowd of people in Ellwood City cheered on their… Last Monday, on Martin Luther King Day, a crowd of people in Ellwood City cheered on their police chief, the first black member of the town’s police department. The occasion was not just a moment of appreciation, however. It was also one of victory. The Borough Council had just reaffirmed Richard McDonald’s position as the chief of police after a lengthy battle with the mayor, who recently tried to strip him of his duties.

An article in Sunday’s Post-Gazette (“Is Ellwood City standoff about power, race or both?”) lays out the narrative: Last year, the council hired McDonald, an award-winning homicide detective formerly from Pittsburgh, to be chief of police. Ellwood City’s mayor, Don Clyde, did not prefer McDonald for the job.

When McDonald accepted the position, he agreed to reapply for the state’s police officer certification, which he lost following a car accident that rendered him inactive for two years.

He reapplied but was denied – the state considered his injuries permanent. According to the Post-Gazette, he could not carry a gun or make arrests without the certification, though all of the administrative powers of the position were intact. McDonald vowed to reapply for certification, but Mayor Clyde wasted no time in firing him.

For Clyde, it was a sweet opportunity to take revenge on a powerful foe. Three weeks after McDonald arrived on the force, the two men got into an argument over Clyde’s wish to change police procedure regarding video cameras in police vehicles.

The argument got heated and resulted in McDonald’s fist cracking the glass cover on Clyde’s desk. Worried that the mayor was abusing his powers, McDonald ordered the locks changed at the police department. And in one shocking conversation, Clyde revealed his racist attitude by dropping the N-bomb. McDonald tells it best: “He said, ‘We use the word here and we use it a lot, so you’re going to hear it and that’s something you need to get used to.'”

Unsurprisingly, McDonald was not amused. But the alacrity with which Clyde admitted his racism to the Post-Gazette was perhaps most stunning of all. He told one of its reporters, “It possibly can be [a racist term] but not really. I’m from the old school. It was a word that was commonly used when I grew up. It referred mostly to all blacks and it didn’t mean good [nor] bad.”

Exactly whose school Clyde was referring to (Strom Thurmond’s? Jim Crow’s?) remains unclear. And though it’s entirely naive, it’s so easy to forget in the liberal enclave of a university that there are people like Don Clyde in positions of power, in towns just a little more than a half an hour away – that racism exists, not just, as we might sometimes condescendingly imagine, in little Southern backwaters long and far away.

McDonald – who’s set to graduate from Pitt this spring with a degree in psychology – aptly noted that something heartening has come out of this regrettable event: Residents, council members and fellow police officers have rallied around him in support. From the Post-Gazette’s reporting, it does appear that the townspeople are happy with the job McDonald is doing. They seem to think he’s making the community safer.

I called Mayor Clyde yesterday to see which candidate he’s endorsing for the Democratic Primary (yes, he’s a Democrat), but he declined to comment.

On Wednesday, John Edwards ended his campaign for the presidency, though he has yet to endorse. All signs point to an endorsement of Obama – which could mean a huge boost for him in the polls – but it’s not entirely clear which way his supporters will go. One of Edwards’ long-touted strengths was that he was able to appeal to rural voters (the subtle implication being voters who would prefer not to vote for a woman or a black man.)

In Barack Obama’s South Carolina victory speech last week, perhaps his best speech yet, he noted an elderly woman on his campaign who had formerly worked for Strom Thurmond.

It’s someone like McDonald who, with competency and talent for leadership, does the best job of breaking down the tired, persistent vestiges of racism. The same opportunities are presented by Barack Obama’s campaign.

That’s probably not a sufficient reason to vote for him in and of itself. But it’s a nice complement and to the benefit of all.

Sound off to Marin at mec45@pitt.edu.