As if the candidate field for Cleveland mayor won’t be crowded enough next year, along comes Republican Landry Simmons, Jr., a Black Irishman (or in his case methinks he would prefer “Irish/Black,” if black at all) who recently tossed his law enforcement tam-o-shanter into the mayoral ring. But hey, that’s the genius of our political system; virtually anyone with the wherewithal to pay the filing fee and collect enough signatures can get their name on the ballot and jump right in.
On Simmons’ campaign page, immediately after listing that he was born 51 years ago in Bay Village, he states that he’s of “Irish descent.” He mentions nothing about his “African descent” evidently trusting that no one will take note of — or that his core constituency will simply overlook — his melanin-like hue and visage.
Come to think about it, since my surname is “Frazier,” which is definitely Scottish (I’m positive there was no “Frazier” clan in West Africa where my ancestors originated from), I missed a great opportunity when I ran for city council in 2017. I could have based my candidacy on the rapist (slaveholder) side of my family tree. Hey, I could have been a contender if only I had run as “Frazier, the part-Scotsman.”
Of course I didn’t have Simmons’ pedigree, since he later states in his literature that Ancestry.com has affirmed that he’s the great-grandson of William Polk Dobson, a North Carolina farmer, lawyer and merchant who served in the state senate from Surry County between 1818 and 1842. While most proof and references of slave ownership has been scrubbed from the historical record by descendants of Southerners — as they attempt to recast their progenitors as benevolent patriarchs instead of the brutal beasts they actually happened to be — it’s hard to imagine Simmons’ great-grandpappy Dobson chopping his own cotton or hoeing his own peanuts, now isn’t it?
But Simmons doesn’t stop there. He further improves upon his political bona fides by noting that Grandpappy Dobson was a distant cousin of 11th President James K. Polk (1845-1849) a Tennessean slaveholder, who, for most of his adult life, owned a plantation in Mississippi and bought and sold slaves even while president. It very well could be that Simmons’ pride stems from the fact that perhaps one of his maternal antecedents was a willing concubine of the slavemaster Dobson, whereas my great-grandmother was definitely raped by some bastard named Frazier.
Hell — with the kind of resume Simmons’ sports, how can the local Republican Party, now led by Lisa Stickan (a loyal Trumpist if there ever was one), who hijacked control of the party from the more moderate Rob Frost, not endorse this dude? This is just the kind of self-hating black (appearing to hate at least one side of his lineage) those on the right would simply love to foist on unsuspecting Clevelanders, and indeed the entire country. Nothing would suit them better than to have a person of color lead his own people to the waiting cattle cars — if it ever comes to that.
When he lists his law enforcement credentials (he poses on his campaign website with David Clarke, the now-disgraced Republican wingnut former sheriff from Milwaukee, who spoke glowingly about tRump at the Republican Convention here in Cleveland) and sets forth his platform, you know just who Simmons is.
He states his “experience as a Law Enforcement Official [his caps, not mine] and his daily interactions with the people of Cleveland are what ultimately led him to seek election as Mayor [again, his capitalization].” He goes on to state that he’s a “highly decorated Law Enforcement Official” (there’s those caps again, something I interpret as an indication of his mindset and fascist worldview, Sieg Heil) and insists that “law and order must be re-established as the primary path for individual success in the city of Cleveland.”
What he doesn’t state on his literature is anything about improving educational opportunities for Cleveland youth, an end to redlining and banks’ refusal to extend credit to persons of color (the prime reason many blacks are mired in poverty and thus are prone to commit crimes to survive), the corralling of roguish Cleveland cops, or even, at the very least, improving city services. No, for this cluck it’s all about “law and order.”
It could very well be those decorations he received for his 25-year tenure as a Cuyahoga County deputy sheriff was because he managed to retire without getting caught beating down a young brother or busting a cap in someone’s ass. As mayor he could somehow make amends.
Yeah, I know, this is somewhat mean-spirited of me. But I only — albeit, somewhat gleefully — used the ammunition Simmons (just as gleefully) supplied me with on his campaign page to take potshots at him. This, after all, is politics we’re talking about, right? Oh, and love that tie!
2 Responses to “MANSFIELD: Running as a White Man”
roldo bartimole
You’re going to have a ball next year Mansfield. Have fun.
John Davis
You just gave this Black Irishman free publicity!