The following letter was sent from Jansen M. Robinson of the African American Democratic Club of Harford County to Del. Mary-Dulany James. A copy was provided to The Dagger for publication:
Honorable Mary-Dulany James
Lowe House Office Building
6 Bladen Street, Room 404
Annapolis MD 21401
Delegate Mary-Dulany James:
Many within the community are alarmed that a fight between sibling staffers working in your legislative office resulted in a false accusation that a 6’2” black male had been the perpetrator responsible for one staffer’s injuries. Unfortunately it’s an old lie that has significant history in this country. Law professor Katheryn Russell-Brown documents 67 racial hoaxes in the period between 1987 and 1996 in her book “The Color of Crime.”
You may recall it was not so long ago that a White mother from suburban Philadelphia lied when she told the police that two African-American males snatched her and her 9-year-old daughter from their SUV and abducted them in the trunk of a black Cadillac. All of which was a lie.
This type of allegation has often led to frantic searches and national news coverage that play into profiling images of marauding black men and giving the idea that it is acceptable to employ the Black Man Did It accusation.
Unknown numbers of black men have been incarcerated and some have even lost their lives based solely upon such allegations. Claims such as the one made by your staffers only feed into these stereotypes and are harmful to race relations.
We, the members of the African American Democratic Club of Harford County are writing you because of our concern regarding this matter, specifically the silence demonstrated by your failure to publically repudiate the actions of your representatives.
While we understand that you were not present when this incident took place, we do however believe that the behavior of those who work for you, are a reflection upon you, the community, and definitely those whom you were elected to represent.
Harford County residents have a long history of working together to build a cohesive, vibrant and diverse community. But the actions of your representatives do not reflect the shared values of those you were elected to represent.
I like many African Americans saw the hope in having Barak Obama elected as our first African American President, that the rest of America would take a renewed look at African-Americans and look at us for who we are and not what the stereotypes suggest.
On behalf of the African American Democratic Club of Harford County and all of the good and decent people of Harford County, I would urge that you break your silence on this matter; and to publicly condemn the actions of your staffers; and apologize to the Harford County community for the harm that may have been done to race relations and the image of our community.
Respectfully,
Jansen M. Robinson, Member
African American Democratic Club of Harford County, Advisory Board
While I agree that James’ constituents should take issue here, I cringed at every grammatical error in this letter.
And this guy is running for school board!
Is condemnation enough? Shouldn’t she fire the person, not just for the obvious racism, but for getting drunk and fighting at work? And supplying alcohol to a minor?
What the aid to Delegate James did was wrong and should be properly punished for their actions, however their actions shouldn’t be reflected upon the beliefs and character of Delegate James. As Harford County’s only Democrat in Annapolis the local clubs shouldn’t be calling on her to terminate and make statements about her staff. We must trust that she will use her best judgment and take the proper corse of action. Delegate James has done more not just for the African American community but for all communities of vast diversity in district 34 and we should not be making such demands of her because of the actions of one of her staff.
Holy poor grammar batman!
This letter sounds like race baiting at its finest! There are no details as to what specifically occurred. I’m just fundamentally curious, is there a White European Democratic Club of Harford County?
What an ignorant comment. If “White European Democrats” (aka white democrats) were an underrepresented minority then there would be a need for them to have a specific club. As it stands, they are the majority and are adequately if not overly represented at all levels of government. To believe in the need for a “White European Democrats” club is to ignore the reality and history of racial discrimination in our country.
No need for one, everything else in harford County is white
I disagree. As common and unfortunate as race baiting is, this was a respectful sounding letter to me.
This will be the end of Del. James as an elected official. Harford County taxpayers do not need to pay the salaries of habitual lawbreakers on her staff. By the way, how does one have a slew of traffic violations dropped, including doing 104 mph in a 50 mph zone? Now I’ll sit back and observe the crooks in this one-party state work their magic by trying to make this fiasco vanish.
Here is another race baiter, calling oiut the hope of greatness offered by the election of an African-American as president. Barak Obama may be of some minority, but he absolutely not an African-American. He is half European and half arab muslim. African-Ameerican implies that one is a descendant of slaves, this guy’s family would have been slave owners and traders. I fail to understand why the “black community” can’t recognize this.
Is this guy for real. Does he not know that other crimes were committed. What the heck does this have to with other race problems. I for one think this guy needs to get a life and stop making everything about black versus white. We have enough racist in our society and yes there are some blacks that are racist. Always want to see what is different from others instead of finding common ground. Oh and overlooking the fact that people commit crime and race has very little to do with someone taking a gun and holding up people or committing murder. Geeez and you call yourself educated.
You are amazing. Barak Obama was elected president of all the people. He was not elected for the African American people. You seem to think that untold number of african american’s are not treated as the white community. I for one, find you very offensive and cannot believe that you think just because you are African American you are able to talk about race issues. You are trying to get elected to the board and I feel that you should be concerned about all americans. Just shows how much you do not know and think you can pontificate. Do you believe that people commit crimes because of their race? Nuff said. Just crawl back under your rock and take your views and you are no better then the white people who say that whites are better. I treat people based on their actions and not the color of their skin.
Setting aside from the issues raised by Mr. Robinson in his letter others have picked up on the shortcomings of the authors grammar. Anyone who has heard Mr. Robinson talk would find a similarly poor ability at public speaking. The voters of his district overwhelmingly rejected him during his last attempt to win election to the school board. They should do so again.
L: So they elected that sneaky self-serving weasel Frisch instead. If you really knew Jansen Robinson and what he’s accomplished for the community with his DEEDS, not just words, you’d realize that he is an intelligent, hard-working man of integrity whom we are all lucky to have. He is not someone who gets involved just to hear himself talk.
The election results show differently. Even with a large African-American and Democratic Party registered population in the Edgewood Mr. Robinson lost every precinct in his own community. It seems that the voters in Edgewood already knew enough about Mr. Robinson to decide he is not someone they wanted to represent them on the school board. Mr. Robinson may be active in his community and may do many fine things to support his neighbors; however, that does not mean he is up to the job of being a school board member to which his community agreed and voted for the other candidate.
Well, Frisch fooled them once (fooled them badly I might add). But if you polled those who chose him over Robinson, you would find that most of the intelligent ones (who have followed Frisch’s antics and who understand education) regret that vote.
Wow, I wonder how the rest of those that don’t share your particular view feel about being labeled unintelligent?
I thought Bill Clinton was the first black president. Where are Jesse and Al when we need them? Oh, I think Al is still investigating the Tawana Brawley case and Jesse is busy shaking down corporations.
There are a few old sayings that I think apply to this situation:
Birds of a feather fly together
You are the company that you keep.
There is a culture of hatred that is spewing here, and you must start with the top. Delegate James is the one who needs to go, and with her these staffers will no longer be a problem, at least not from her office.
I have no clue who these characters are or how long they have worked for her, but if you spend enough time with someone–even the 90 days of a legislative session, you can easily get to know people. The assumption is that these guys weren’t just recently hired for this session, and therefore more time to assess their character. If she didn’t recognize this type of attitude long ago and punish it upon recognition, then it is a de facto acceptance of this racist hatred. It doesn’t surprise me at all coming from her, though. Voters: You’ll have a chance to get rid of her once and for all, and if you fail to get rid of her in June of this year, you’ll get another shot in November. This negative hate culture must be taken down, one problem at a time!
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Delegate James surrounds herself with good people. Just because two brothers downed a few and let off a little steam, don’t mean they aren’t good ole boys. Who cares where they where when it happened, it just happened. I have been in my mothers house when fights have broken out between me and my brothers. A few things got broke, but we were just letting off a little steam too. The black guy comment to the police, that was just to keep his brother out of jail. It was as good a story as any. Don’t take it to heart Delegate James. You keep them ole boys working hard for you. You still got my vote, I love the job your doing.
I couldn’t agree more, Rebel Yell. There are a bunch of us that will come over to Harford County and help you get elected again. Your our kinda people, and we need people like you in office to protect OUR interest.