Indiana

Slating Day

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

When making a decision to attend a political party slating convention, the big thing I ask myself is which one will be more interesting.   This year the winner was the Marion County Democrats.  They had four contested races which in turn led to a lot more drama.  My Republican friends only had a couple contested District races.

As I worked the room I had some pretty good conversations.  I have no doubt that with most of my Democratic friends, their hearts are in the right places, it’s just where there heads are at times that concerns me.   However the one thing that really got my attention was seeing Sam Carson, Sr.   Carson, the son of the late Julia Carson, had just announced a few days before he was running for Mayor and although he did not go through slating he was there working the room.

I thought that took a lot of chutzpah, so I walked up to him and asked him a few questions.  I asked him what he thought of Chairman Ed Treacy’s comments about his candidacy?  And he told me, please note these are his words not mine, that Treacy called him the equivalent of a “dumb nigger”.   My jaw dropped to the floor.  I asked him again was her sure about that, he said yes.   And I asked him if I could quote him on that, he said yes.  So I quoted him.

The rest of slating was pretty standard.  Both Melina Kennedy and Andre Carson gave their speeches.  The Chairman got the candidates he wanted.  And Democrats  left with energy and a goal to take back the City-County building.   But I couldn’t help but wonder if Sam Carson’s words won’t come back to haunt these guys later down the road.  Oh well, we’ll see.

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on February 13, 2011 (boomark / email).