Four Ways Racism Did In Gene Locke

Houston, Texas has become the first major metropolitan city to elect an openly gay mayor, Annise Parker. Parker, former co-owner (with KPFT stalwart Pokey Anderson) of the late feminist bookstore Inklings and a longtime GLBT activist, accomplished something Montrose institution Ray Hill said he’d waited 40 years to see. And much will be made of Saturday’s ugly election, in which Parker accomplished in Texas what most on the coasts would scoff at happening here. Just as much may be made of where Gene Locke went wrong.

Less on the radar will be the role of race.

While I am certainly a fan of Annise Parker, I admit liking Gene Locke a lot at first blush. Here was a committed guy, with initial support reportedly from labor and civil rights groups. In Houston’s contemporary history, Gene Locke is a student organizing legend. He founded Afro Americans for Black Liberation at my alma mater, the University of Houston, in the 1960s and fought to change the school’s culture at a time when segregation and institutional racism were far more raw than they are now. But even beyond that, Locke was a formidable candidate in anyone’s book — City Hall insider, reputation for brokering deals, a skill for moving effortlessly through all kinds of circles. In spite of firing an effective fundraiser during the campaign, Locke used his solid organization to score him a better than expected showing in November, when most counted him out. Gene Locke had the kind of poise and credentials people expected of a future mayor.

Only Gene Locke will know why he decided to drift to the right in the runoff, staining his political history in the process — as much by what he did as what he did not do related to the religious right. Surely that decision couldn’t have been due to the fates of prominent Republicans Rob Mosbacher and Orlando Sanchez, who both ran for mayor as perceptibly right-leaning candidates and lost. Yet there was the former activist who once decried police abuse, going to the well with slams of Parker being soft on crime and declaring an intent to have police check immigration status of ‘criminals.’ Rush Limbaugh would find it deliciously ironic. I found it tragic.

Although I believe the alliance the Locke camp by most accounts sought was objectionable and Locke’s mistakes many, one has to wonder if the base of the conservative factions Locke reached out to might have been more energized if the candidate had been white.

Racism in Texas elections? Say it isn’t so.

Four major issues related to race — some mistakes by Locke, others out of his hands — only worked against him as a Black candidate in a town that struggles more with racism than it admits.

First was flat-out racial preference in voting.

The Houston Chronicle’s Rick Casey reminded people that Locke came out in recently polling with a commanding percentage of the Black vote, Parker taking about a quarter of that pie. Sounds impressive, until one remembers Houston’s population is about 25 percent Black, while whites are nearly double that number. Among whites, Parker held a 2-1 margin of support. Race by the numbers plays a role. Although Casey chalked it up more to people voting for those who looked like them, voting on Texas still happens based on race.

Second was the ultra-nasty bigotry right-wing populists have been fomenting for nearly two years.

It is hard to say a hardline conservative white candidate could have won, but this year, when the statewide tenor toward America’s preeminent Black politician is at its most volatile, that possibility was probably more promising than most. As not simply a Black candidate, but a Black candidate with a history of the sort the right demonizes, Locke faced further challenges that made his choices even more mystifying.

Forgotten in this equation was the fact that the populist right has been in full-on attack mode for at least 18 months straight against a Black man, Barack Obama, since the 2008 election season. The critiques of a Black president have waddled from sophisticated, attacking those who exposed the racist anti-Obama crowd, to downright crude birher babble and animal comparisons. Even Gov. Rick Perry got in on the act, blathering about Obama “punishing” Texas. That meant Locke, with his history as a Black former firebrand, was seeking votes when the tea party rank-and-file have been consuming little more than blue Kool Aid about the biggest Black politician in America being a Muslim, extremist, non-citizen bent on taking away freedom and guns on the great leap forward to communism. Witness Chronicle commenters (no brain trust, mind you) branding Locke a Black supremacist and consort of Stokley Carmichael to see what I mean. The ferocity Black office seekers face for their pasts is unparalleled in politics, and Gene Locke was no exception.

Third was Locke not building strong ties with white progressives, and their willingness to attack Locke, who they didn’t consider a friend.

Locke seemed to cede the white progressive vote to Parker, when the candidates share virtually the same views on several issues and Locke had a longer history in Houston of serving interests liberals hold near and dear. Many Black candidates have built incredible coalitions from the Black community and progressive white community, but Locke lost that ground to Parker. This noticeable lack of white progressive support opened up a torrent of abuse from that clique, and gave Locke little credibility for spin when Stephen Hotze ties took center stage.

The Locke campaign, with the correct people, could have sold the religious right relations as bringing contentious factions together — probably not successfully, but it might have worked. Instead it became an ideological hand grenade that blew up at Locke headquarters.

White progressives, who were already firmly on Parker’s side, rightfully criticized Locke, but some used the issue to trot out all manner of ahistorical, horrible anti-Black racism and reactionary equating of the civil rights movement with GLBT rights campaigning. My personal ‘wow’ moment was when one blogger posted a photo of segregationist George Wallace when writing about Gene Locke, for instance. Locke was turned into a caricature, immolating any chance he had to unite with white progressives.

Finally, Parker supporters unintentionally tapped into doubts whites have about Black candidates in a way that hurt Locke.

The refrain of Parker supporters of her being most qualified (especially as a deflection tactic during acknowledgment of being an openly gay candidate) was not answered assertively enough by the Locke campaign, and allowed the adequacy questions some white quarters believe of Black candidates to fester. This positioning and materials that tagged Locke an elitist (in one Parker mailer I received, Locke is called a “lawyer-lobbyist”) were a painful reminder of 2008’s Clinton/Obama jockeying, with the white female being more together and qualified than the aloof, untrustworthy Black man. It’s doubtful Parker supporters wanted to give such an impression, but one certainly walked away with that implied opinion nonetheless.

Parker, though a great candidate, ran an operation that seemed a redux of Bill White’s races. The model is tested and proven to work in town, but a guy with Locke’s history, connections and grassroots organization had the moxie to fend off the better-known Peter Brown and conservative Roy Morales before. Unfortunately, Locke approached a bloc with a reputation for making the polls, even if it alienated potential allies. Perhaps no stranger bedfellows were there when a Black man with a distinguished history of fighting for equality was courting a tendency that historically stood against that equality for African Americans. Maybe Locke’s camp was hoping white right-wing activists would tip the balance against Parker’s GLBT and white progressive base, but such was a risky gamble he ended up losing.

Some people will inevitably say Gene Locke, by allegedly allying with bigots, had this loss coming. However, this phenomenon is not just about Gene Locke’s mistakes, but the prevalence of race in a city that seems to be in full spin mode in pretending race does not exist.

POSTSCRIPT: Rick Casey’s post-election analysis sums up some points made here, particularly the mistake the Locke team made in counting on the religious right this campaign. Also, Greg Wythe reminds everyone why having Jolanda Jones on City Council is important.