"I'm optimistic about how communities of color will transform politics. The issue will be coalition politics, but it won't be like when I came up. The fact that I'm married to an Asian woman has allowed me to gain entry into other communities."
This, Sims explains, is a signal that meat-and-potatoes African-American issues could stand to diversify as well.
Harley Soltes
Some credit Smith, with the Columbia City renaissance. Political eminences like Norm Rice see him as a 21st-century African-American candidate. But despite smarts and accomplishments, the unconventional Smith has a lot to prove, especially to his own community.
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"The Democratic Party only touts African-American candidates with a civil rights record," grouses Sims. "At their conventions, the Democrats still trot out Sharpton and Jackson, while the Republicans trot out Condi and Powell. Politics aside, whom do you think we wanted on that TV? Black people are tired of civil rights candidates."
Sims aide De'Sean Quinn represents a new generation of up-and-comers whose political influences include Chuck D.
Sims' director of council relations, De'Sean Quinn, a 33-year-old ex–Morehouse defensive tackle who ran Dick McIver's 2001 re-election campaign before eventually shifting to county politics, agrees wholeheartedly.
"In politics, we're kind of tagged with traditional African-American issues—police accountability, human services, and so on," says Quinn, who lives in Tukwila. "But African-American opinion has really diversified, and with Al and Jesse, it's kind of one belief. Condoleezza and Colin, they actually climbed the ladder and achieved."
Ask Tony Orange or just about any local black politico for his or her list of potential young candidates, and Quinn, without exception, garners mention. But while Quinn graduated from Garfield High School with George Fleming's daughter and considers Norm Rice's presence as mayor while he was an adolescent to have been "huge," his primary political influence growing up was none other than Chuck D.
"We were into socially conscious rap—Public Enemy and all that stuff," says Quinn. "Our parents marched for civil rights so we wouldn't have to. The effect that musichad is that we were expected to do better than them."
Which points to yet another challenge: the lure of the private sector.
"I should be doing better than my father," says Quinn. "But if I stay in politics, I might not."
"The problem is," says McIver, "if you're African American and you're intelligent, the private sector will outbid the public sector every time."
On this topic, the Rev. McKinney offers an enlightened sports analogy.
"A lot of youngsters got excited by basketball when they felt baseball was too slow," says McKinney. "So I'm not sure people have rejected politics or baseball, they've just gone where they can better utilize their talent."
Couple that with what Gossett and others see as a current lull in grassroots efforts, and Seattle's African-American power base appears to be in a bit of a quandary. But as McKinney and Sims point out, whatever apathy exists may be eroding quicker than a Gulf Coast levee in a storm.
"The aftermath of Hurricane Katrina really exposed the underbelly of this nation," says McKinney. "Many of the blacks who migrated to this area followed the railroads from Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, so there's a connection to many people here. It's sensitizing people who may not have been interested."
"People said, 'See that?'" says Sims. "The mast got torn off. Do black folks got an attitude right now? Oh yeah. That means a change is in the offing, because a culture is being created where African Americans are in a position to speak their minds like never before."
"Politics might not be on the front burner," McKinney concludes. "But you can't escape it."
mseely@seattleweekly.com
Editorial intern Katie Becker assisted with research for this story.
