It is simply incomprehensible that Brown and other black leaders in Buffalo are working the system to change conditions in Buffalo�s poor neighborhoods, as incomprehensible as racism and poverty in New Orleans was to the white America before Katrina.

Denial and the invisible world of the underclass

Alan Uthman, wrote in the Buffalo Beast, a critique of The Buffalo News�s endorsement of Byron Brown. Those he attacks The Buffalo News reason for the endorsement, he accepts the News definition of Brown and fails to see race as the issue.

�Some think that racism will play a factor if and when Brown wins the nomination, titling the balance in Republican Kevin Helfer�s favor. This unlikely, and would be shamefully stupid.� Uthman simply denies the harsh reality of race in Buffalo Politics, he does not seem to get what The Buffalo News agenda is or see the set-up.

The endorsement from The Buffalo News for democratic primary was a poison pill for Brown. It was an endorsement filled more with Brown weakness. It was a set up for the main card, Brown vs. Helfer, Black vs White. It is very likely the News will endorse Kevin Helfer as the candidate of real change.

The Buffalo News has a long history of problems with the Buffalo black community and race. Nationally, as reported in The Columbia Journalism Review and locally in Alt Press in March 1994, The Buffalo News was the most segregated newsroom in United States. Conditions have shown little improvement in the past decade. There still remain only three significant minority reporters on staff. Its circulation on the eastside of Buffalo is minimal signifying an abandonment of the Black community as a market as well as a great part of Buffalo.

In the past ten years, The Buffalo News has supported an all out attack on Buffalo�s black community rising political influence. The News has published a consistent stream of editorials and articles that coin racially loaded Rovian phrases such as �racial McCarthyism�, and �playing the race card.� These phrases have appeared in numerous editorials and articles as a vehicle to mobilize white concern. Racial McCarthyism puts the political discussion of racism in Western New York on its head.

� Buffalo News editorial 2000, �When Pitts asked Osuorah if he thought he was being discriminated against, he expressed frustration at the line and length of questioning by the Civil Service. It sounds as if Osuorah simply questioned the process, and didn't cry racism as Pitts and Fisher so recklessly did. Anyone who thinks racism isn't a problem -- in this city or anywhere else -- hasn't been paying attention. But engaging in racial McCarthyism only makes a bad situation worse�

� Buffalo News editorial July 15, 2002, supporting the downsizing of Buffalo Council and that resulted in the removal four positions three of which were held by minority representatives. �What is particularly discouraging is that the debate, which ought to revolve around how best to serve a struggling city, is being turned into a question of race. The seven members who support a smaller Council are white, and the six who oppose it are African-Americans. Because it has no good arguments to counter the compelling reasons to reduce the size of the Council, the six-member bloc has chosen to smear its colleagues with charges of racism. The seven members will have to stand strong against this racial McCarthyism.�

� Buffalo News August 24, 2002 �Three of four of the seats targeted for elimination are held by African-Americans, but supporters insist the nine-member map is racially balanced. He said four of the districts would be predominantly white, while four would be predominantly black. The ninth district would have nearly equal populations of white and minority residents.

Franczyk accused Fisher of engaging in "political stunts" to try to draw attention to Fisher's campaign for Assembly.

"He's using fascist language to demonize me," Franczyk said. "It's the worst case of racial McCarthyism."�

The Buffalo News in an editorial, August 22, 2005, said that Bryon should not use patronage to reward Grassroots supporters inferring that they constitute another political machine: that for Black political leaders there should be different set of rules.

�Indeed, Brown is a founder of the aptly named Grassroots, the African-American Democratic organization that helped push him up the political ladder. He is also the most recent result of a model that previously lifted Polish, Irish and Italian candidates to office. If he wins City Hall -- he is clearly the front-runner -- he will be under a greater level of scrutiny than any municipal leader elected in recent years.�

The editorial continues, Brown may be at biggest risk of falling into this model of leadership because of his close association with Grassroots and public unions

The gross hypocrisy of The Buffalo News� editorial board and management cannot be clearer. It should be remembered that The Buffalo News endorsed Masiello. He ran unopposed is his last term. He drove the city into bankruptcy and a republican control board. Besides The Buffalo News, other members of the exclusive Niagara Partnership, wealthy business owners and developers, constituted the supportive force behind Masiello�s political machine. In fact, The Buffalo News supported Tony for all three terms. His administration was more republican than democrat, like that of Joel Giambra, attacking unions, while at the same making deals for family and friends. Tony gets to walk away a millionaire, and the $550,000,000 plus of HUD redevelopment money is gone without a single investigation or indictment.

The Buffalo News was a great beneficiary of the Masiello regime receiving forty million dollars worth of tax breaks for its new printing presses and reassessment of their property tax thus saving over a million of dollars a year. The Buffalo News management repaid the community by eliminating 50 union press jobs. The Buffalo News� primary concern is to maintain business as usual, benefiting the power elite and their friends. Brown and Grassroots, Inc are not business as usual, but they are about business. By Joe schmidbauer

Only in the hallucinogenic reality of Buffalo politics can it come to pass that Bryon Brown would be seem as a huckster, the flim/flam man and the status quo.

As the leftist-Buffalo Beast (blog) put it. �On the other hand, the Democrats really have fucked up badly, and Byron Brown really is a slick, business-as-usual huckster.�

The irony of the Beast�s BoBo liberalism is their version of the Buffalo political gestalt is the one created by The Buffalo News. It is here in the bubble rapped universe of BoBo-Buffalo that race is invisible. Even after the horror of Hurricane Katrina, race, class and poverty remain sub-Rosa in Buffalo.

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