We here at WAOD continue to be amazed not by the alleged corruption by some African American public officials, but by the two-bit nature of their alleged corruption. If you are going to go down, why not do it big. Seven figures or more. Not $1,500 stuffed in your bra or $90,000 stuffed in frozen fish stick boxes behind the rocky road ice cream. If you are going to sell out your Black constituents can you do it in a grand way instead of settling for a two piece and a biscuit.
We add a new member to our Two Piece and a Biscuit Watch. I think we posted about her last year because the three top spots in Baltimore were all held by Black women. Shelia Dixon, Mayor of Baltimore was Indicted for allegedly taking money from the poor to go shopping:
BALTIMORE — Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree.
A grand jury indicted Dixon on 12 counts, including four counts of perjury and two counts of theft over $500. She was also charged with theft under $500, fraudulent misappropriation by a fiduciary and misconduct in office.
The State Prosecutor’s Office, which has been investigating corruption at City Hall for nearly three years, said Dixon received holiday gift cards for four years from several people. Prosecutors said the gift cards were to be distributed to needy families, but were instead used by Dixon to buy electronics _ including an Xbox, a PlayStation 2 and a camcorder _ clothes and other merchandise and also handed out to members of her staff.
“I am being unfairly accused,” Dixon said in a statement. “Time will prove that I have done nothing wrong, and I am confident that I will be found innocent of these charges.” Source
She’s innocent until proven guilty, but I can’t wait to hear the evidence against her. How exactly did the prosecutor obtain such a specific shopping list? How did they trackt he gift cards? how will they prove someone else didn’t give her the gift cards? Hmm.
13 comments ↓
This is a two piece with some extra sauce. I never cease to be amazed. City council is quite an accomplishment, but mayor can be a real foundation for lofty political heights should one choose to further public service or political office. She has ruined her chances and let down so many folks. Did she not learn from her those around her being taken down? Crime does not pay and in the case of many black politicians, people are just looking for anything on them and many times, their greed gives the enemy all the amo they need. Shameful.
What we are seeing here is a by product of a movement that placed more emphasis on what OTHERS should do for black folks and not what black folks need to do for themselves. The DuBoisian approach and the Civil Rights/Integrationist method it inspired was a miserable and catastrophic failure. Because the “leadership” choose to indulge in a glorified form of begging, our popular culture has placed a minimum on self improvement. A great example of this is Ronald Burris. A real man, which is also a man of honor, would never have accepted Blago’s appointment. Instead, he, along with Bobby Rush not only accepted but prostituted race sympathies to justify this ongoing injustice. Shiela Dixon, Marion Berry and his ensuing re-elections, Jesse’s penchant for extortion, Sharpton’s and the NAACP’s defence of the Dunbar Village rapists, The Duke Rape Case, Michael Eric Dyson’s knee-jerk Cosby diatribe, the virtual silence on black on black victimization, as well as thousands of other issues are the results of a movement that spent more time fixating on white people and what they have to do for us rather than developing self sufficiency and building black institutions. The Civil Rights movement and integrationist philosophy has failed.
What keeps Civil Rights integrationist ideology and its ideologues in power is the built in assumption that any failures, regression, and slow progress will always be the fault of white people. In today’s times, the term white people has been replaced by “systemic inequities” and “institutionalized disparities”. Because of this, the foolishness of Civil Rights integrationist philosophy, and its resulting practice is rarely seriously critriqued. Furthermore, the few times it is seriously criticiqued, such critisism is always dismissed as either “giving ammunition to our foes (ie. white folks)” or echoing the sentiments of racists and “Uncle Toms”. In doing this, the philosophy and practice that seeks to sell off black empowerment in exchange for the right to use the same toilet as white folks rarely comes under meaningful and deliberate scrutiny.
Don’t believe me? Look at the state of many of our black working class and middle class neighborhoods. Its infrastructure has been rendered nearly unusuable. Whether it is a public school or a convenience store that sits on a street corner upon which thugs loiter. In fact, the public infrastructure is not only useless but often life threatening. I must mention that that the culprits are members of the black family – a.k.a. “the lower tier”. Need more convincing? How about the fact that black people HAD a professional baseball league that housed some of the greatest baseball players the world has ever seen. We exchanged that in order to “integrate”. Our black colleges COULD have evolved into the equivalent of Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, and CalTech. Instead, we have roughly four that are somewhat nearly equivalent. Can anyone say Medgar Evers – I mean no disrespect but I am pointing out the foolishness that we all praise as “Civil Rights integrationism.” I can go on for days with examples.
My point is that we are bearing the fruit of a movement that minimized self improvement and self assessment, and shunned self criticism. This is why many of our corrupt black politicians do the things they do. Of course, at this moment, someone imbued by the dysfunctional psychology of Civil Rights ideology is countering with what “white politicians have done too.” And this is the problem, we have built into our psychology something that is unable to solely focus on black folks, and see our rights and humanity as independent of white people. For some reason, this segment of black folks cannot make it through one day without their beloved white folks. In many cases, we have made ourselves to be the “pets” they have turned us into.
This is the reason why, within the popular political culture of black America, there hasn’t been, on
A LARGE SCALE outcry and firece denunciation of the actions of Kwame Kilpatrick, Shiela Dixon, Roland Burris, as well as the deafening silence over the issue of black on black victimization.
We must turn back and retrace the path we’ve taken so as to find our way out of the woods. We need to backtrack to the moment we decided to seek codependence at the expense of independence – somwhere near, or around the turn of the century, when DuBois devised a scheme to use rhetoric to distort Booker T’s message of self reliance. The Bookerite path is about self assessment and adaptation. Compare the two ideas in action: Self help assessment WILL make an issue of black on black on black victimization and bring it to black folks without care or concern for what others may think. Instead, it has been relegated to whispers in our barbershops and hair salons. Civil Rights “activism”, on the other hand, ignores black victimization unless it occurs at the hands of whites, at which point it makes national television appearances and publishes books. If you remember, DuBois ended up as a delusional pan African Socialist. Herein lies the endgame for Civil Rights ideology.
Now that I have vented, check out THAT OTHER SONG by Taana Gardner (NOT HEARTBEAT). You’ll find, if you are patient enough to listen to the song (and be sure to kick up the volume) that this is her BEST song, clearly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNU4nxbrg3U
OH-MYH-GOD!!!
I was bragging about Sheila Dixon at the coffee shop on Sunday, saying what a great administrator she is and how proud I am of Baltimore for placing women– black women– in such high positions…I don’t know what to say now.
NOw Now folks, she is innocent until proven guilty.
I really wished Dixon had said: “There is no basis whatsoever for any of these accusations and I have never done nor would I ever do ANY of the things the prosecutor has alleged.”
Her denial sounds really weak.
The specificity of the charges is unsettling. Yes, she is innocent until proven guilty. But: DANG.
They tracked the gift card back to her b/c when she was buying playstation 2 and DVDs the balance went over the gift card and she used her credit card to pay the rest.
I agree with a lot of the points by Al of Bayshore about the problem with the “DuBoisian approach and the Civil Rights/Integrationist “. A lot of the early civil rights activists were biracial black Americans who just wanted to be accepted into the mainstream white society, they had no interest in securing black institutions b/c they didn’t really want to be a part of the general black population, they wanted access to white institutions.
You need to make 2 piece and a biscuit an official category for easy search.
No words. She should be ashamed of herself.
This is why crooked Black officials always piss me off.
They get busted FOR PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR.
What you outline is laughable. Laughable.
Lose the public trust over this nickel and dime mess?
Duke Cunningham went to jail for millions.
While Dollar Bill for a mere hundred grand.
If you’re going to be a THIEF..commit to it. GO BIG.
Maddoff’s going down after thieving FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS.
THAT’s something to go to jail for.
This penny anty garbage here?
She needs to be slapped into next week for being that stupid.
OMG…
I really hope this isn’t true or the allegations are grossly overstated (if that’s even possible).
The city has been suffering something awful and once again, just like in Detroit, black folks have put their LIVES in the hands of the black establishment that usually just sells their souls.
So damn sad.
But LOL @ her potentially going down over a fur coat and playstation 3.
Rikyrah I think it has something to do with our “consumerist” culture within the Black community. We don’t really believe we’ll ever be billionaires so we don’t do the things we need to do to grow wealth (legally or otherwise) so we settle for flat screens and fine linens. Getting as close to champagne wishes and caviar dreams as possible.
Back in the day, Tom Delay purportedly wouldn’t even answer you call if you hadn’t raised $25,000 or more.
Plus a bunch of these Black elected officials go straight from poverty or five figure jobs. Many White politicians had accumulated some amount of wealth, inheritance or business success before running and winning so they aren’t going down over come two bit mess. Not worth it to them.
Why must it always come down to merchandise? If she’s guilty of what she’s accused of, what an embarrassment! It’s irritating that we as a people risk so much on so little. Worse, she probably could have afforded this junk. It irritates me that we make progress, but there’s always someone out there willing to make us as Black Americans look stupid.
Al From Bay Shore said a mouthful. Well said.