Jeffries and Clarke should be consistent on the vote

Dear Editor,
The US Administration and Members of Congress supported free and fair elections in Guyana. However, two Members of Congress (MOC), both from Brooklyn, Hakeem Jeffries and Yvette Clarke, were not supportive of an accurate count of the votes of the March 2 elections. They questioned and opposed the US involvement to secure an accurate count of ballots in Guyana, constantly condemning the statements of the State Department and Ambassador Lynch. They put their kneecaps on the neck of democracy of Guyana. Hakeem and Yvette should have backed down when they saw statements from Members of Congress calling for respect for an accurate vote count in Guyana and urging the Administration to bring pressure on Granger to concede defeat. They should have condemned the Government for attempting to subvert the will of voters. People must have their right respected to choose their own rulers. The incumbents must not foist themselves on the population and have Hakeem and Yvette endorse that act.
These two MOCs called for every ballot of Black Americans to be counted, and one expected consistency on voting in other societies. Black American votes mattered to them but votes of all Guyanese don’t seem to matter. Most Afro-Guyanese is settled in Brooklyn in the Congressional districts of Jeffries and Clarke. They listened to racists to oppose the recount of ballots that were used for the declaration of the results. These two MOCs would be remembered for their resistance to have the right winner declared in the elections. I know these two MOCs well and am most disappointed by their position on the recounting of ballots.
Yvette succeeded her mother Una Clarke, a Jamaican immigrant who told us in Richmond Hill that her grandmother was Indian. Una, an elected member of City Council, visited Richmond Hill for fundraising and when she was forced out on term limits in 2001, her daughter succeeded her in the Council in 2002 serving thru 2006 when she sought higher office in the US Congress to replace Major Owens. In the spring of 2006, Yvette came to Richmond Hill a few times, bag in hand, to raise funds for her campaign. I was a volunteer news reporter for Indian community papers and was invited to several of these programmes pertaining to the Guyanese or Trini or Caribbean or Indian diasporas. At one of the events, Una spoke about her partial Indian roots. Ed Ahmad, Kawal Totaram, and other Indo-Guyanese businessmen donated generously to Yvette’s campaign. Ahmad hosted her for an event in his office right under the train on 107 Street. Yvette raised money that she had never seen in fundraisers in Brooklyn. (Other politicians like John Sampson and Greg Meeks also told me that in their runs for office, they never raised so much funds as they got in Richmond Hill). Yvette promised never to forget the Indo-Guyanese and Indo-Caribbean community for being so supportive of her campaign. But she would renege on the promise when it came to elections in Guyana. She won the primary and general elections and became a proud member of the Black Congressional Caucus rising to become co-chair of the women arm. She champions black causes. Last year she visited Guyana with Queens Congressman Greg Meeks and the chair of the subcommittee (Albio Sires) in charge of affairs in the Western Hemisphere. She joined them in calling for free and fair elections, and she came to Richmond Hill last February to speak of her experience in Guyana. She recommitted to supporting democracy in Guyana and free and fair elections and gave the assurance that she would oppose fraud. After the election of March 2, facing the pressures of constituents and race loyalty, she backpedalled on free and fair elections in Guyana and endorsed fraud. Among Guyanese, that is nimakharamism or ingratitude.
I have not had an association with Hakeem Jeffries but I know his uncle, Len Jeffries quite well. Len was the Professor Chair of the Black Studies Department of City College, my alma mater. He was embroiled in controversy on race issues. He perennially attacked Jews, making news headlines. And he was not friendly to people of Jewish, Indian, and Hispanic descent, and even Black West Indians, seeing us as somehow impacting on the economic status of American Blacks. I remember him chasing after Guyanese PPP supporter Chuck Mohan with a stick on campus; Chuck, who majored in Black Studies and who opposed Jeffries’ racist ranting, may wish to disclose more on that episode. At Black Studies Department, Chuck and I supported Black struggles for equality and right to the ballot. But academics in the department except for prof Samad Mathias and a couple others did not reciprocate in the struggle for free and fair elections in Guyana. I interacted a lot with Jeffries, who was a close confidante of James Small, a supervisor in the office where I worked at City College in Student Affairs Department. I would overhear the two of them in conversations on race and attended several of their seminars on Afro-centrism where they laced into other ethnic groups. Jeffries praised Dr Walter Rodney and condemned his murder by Burnham, but he was of the view that Walter should have teamed up with the dictator on Black solidarity against the PPP. Hakeem said when he would meet his uncle at the grandmother’s home in New Jersey for a get-together, Uncle Len spoke strongly about African civilisation and race hate but that he was not influenced by it. But Hakeem, a proud member of the Black Caucus, endorses Black solidarity. He backs electoral fraud in Guyana in support of the anti-democratic position of some Afro-Guyanese constituents of Brooklyn. As a counterbalance to the views of Burke and cronies, Jeffries did not seek to obtain the views of or interact with Indo-Guyanese constituents who live in Ozone Park and Howard Beach (and sections of Brooklyn like East NY) that are also parts of his 8th Congressional District that used to be represented by a gentleman Congressman Ed Towns who I had much interaction with while I taught students in his district. Upon retirement, Jeffries replaced Towns in January 2013. Several Indo-Caribbean people informed me they gave funds to Hakeem Jeffries for his campaign. Other Indian Americans also make contributions to him. But those resources did not influence Jeffries to support free and fair elections in Guyana.
The position on elections adopted by Jeffries and Clarke is the anathema of what America stands for. Free and fair elections and the right to vote and have the ballots accurately counted must be of paramount importance to all and especially to those elected to the highest legislative office in America. It is the hallmark of democracy. It is hypocrisy to call for every ballot of Black Americans to be counted but not those of other ethnic groups in other parts of the globe. On this point, I wish to salute Black American Greg Meeks and White American Sires (of New Jersey) who were consistent that the accurate count of SoPs and the recount numbers must be the basis for the declaration of the election in Guyana. Yvette Clarke opted not to support their repeated statements. And never once did Hakeem ever say electoral fraud in Guyana is wrong. For Jeffries and Clarke, it is a case of race trumps democratic outcome of elections.
The two MOCs should have been consistent in their position regardless of the problems Blacks face in America. In not supporting the right to the vote, they betray the black cause. One can be in solidarity with the cause of one’s race. But one does not have to support electoral fraud. They should have followed the legacy of Walter Rodney, who loved his race but fought against fraud. Rodney defended the human and constitutional rights of Arnold Rampersad, appealing to Africans not to do the dirty work of Burnham and convict an innocent man of a trumped up charge. Africans listened to Rodney and freed Rampersad. Jeffries and Clarke spoke glowingly of African emancipation. But what does emancipation mean when democracy is lynched in Guyana, degutting the aspirations of the masses, including Blacks.

Yours truly,
Dr Vishnu Bisram