Scene magazine, that stalwart defender of Cleveland’s black community — oh wait, scratch that — any attention this rag has directed toward local persons of color has for the most part been negative, or back-handed concern at best. The reason for this is simple: This publication, in a city that’s composed of well over 50% persons of color, in the Year of Our Lord 2020, doesn’t have one journalist of color on staff — not one.
This overt and intentional racial exclusion, in a time when progressive whites are supposedly “woke,” casts a pall of suspicion upon anything that appears in its pages concerning black folk. Indeed, it’s self-proving: If the management of Scene is not racist in their core beliefs, this situation would not be allowed to exist, now, would it?
In fact, Scene has not had a black writer on staff (that I am aware of) since head honcho Pete Kotz ran Jimi Izrael — the only writer of color to ever work there to my knowledge — out of their offices (which had a Confederate flag prominently displayed on the wall at the time) in less than a month, and that was over 15 years ago.
I relate this sordid past simply to provide context to the present, since Sam Allard (a talented writer I’ve actually once broken bread with) has used said talents to twist a story about my black community of Hough inside out in a recent article. Obviously Sam is not above being a hired gun to engage in yellow journalism when it suits Scene’s purposes. Hey, he knows which side his bread is buttered on. Nonetheless, still, ’tis a pity.
The issue is this: The Cleveland Foundation purchased a vacant lot in Hough (on the northeast corner of Euclid Avenue running north along East 66thStreet) that was owned previously by the Dunham Tavern Museum and is moving forward with plans to construct its new headquarters on the land. As I wrote at the time of the announcement, this will be a boon not only for Ward 7/Hough, but for the entire black east side of Cleveland, as well as the larger area and region.
Nonetheless, a minority group of disgruntled members on Dunham’s board (along with some rabble-rousers of questionable intent) objected to the sale, in spite of the fact that a majority of the museum’s board voted for it, realizing they didn’t have the financial wherewithal to develop the site. The dissidents, nonetheless, sued in Common Pleas Court where the case was dismissed virtually out of hand by Judge Margaret Nancy Russo. They then took their weak argument to the Court of Appeals where a three-judge panel again rejected it. Now the group is appealing to the Ohio Supreme Court, a move I predicted they would make.
Why are they making this Hail Mary effort, in light of the fact that the high court rarely reverses a three-zip decision of the appeals bench? It’s simple: Because their very clever lawyers, Peter Pattakos (who usually is on the right side of issues) and Rachel Hazelet, are blowing tons of smoke up these litigants’ asses, simply to collect more legal fees.
The reason I was so incensed at the time (and remain so) is due to the argument the dissenting group made in its initial filing: That the land was to be preserved as a “community green space.” However, what the naysayers didn’t reveal is that the land sits on top of contaminated fuel storage tanks, which may be the reason they erected a four-foot fence around the entire property.
Again, as I wrote at the time, if the space was indeed intended for “community use,” why then wasn’t I, who lives a short block — a mere six houses — away, not aware of it? And if I wasn’t aware of the supposed largess of the Dunham board, I can guarantee you none of my neighbors were either. And again, why was it entirely surrounded by the sturdy fence? Who did they want to keep out? Hummm, let me guess.
Additionally, as I wrote at the time, “Until the Dunham board brought on a wonderfully talented woman, Lauren Hansgen, as executive director, there had been little, if any, interaction between the institution and the surrounding community. None. In other words, their arguments were pure, unadulterated hogwash, and, lacking any other plausible explanation, I was forced to come to the conclusion that the dissidents’ actions were designed — at least in part — simply to impede the progress of the communities the foundation serves — particularly those of color.”
While I’m certainly not holding myself out as the spokesperson for all east side residents of Cleveland, I sincerely believe that I’m on solid ground when I state that the vast majority of residents in the nearby communities the Cleveland Foundation new home will abut and serve are ecstatic over the prospect of having this forward-thinking organization as neighbors.
Their presence will be a game changer of national import as other institutions around the country reassess their “ivory tower” existences and mentalities of being located in downtown skyscrapers instead of out in the communities they wish to improve. This could start a long overdue national trend.
Back to Allard and his article for a minute; he’s usually a precise, fair journalist, one that makes few mistakes. Yet this hit job is riddled with them, such as the size of the lot purchased and the cost of the proposed new headquarters. Some borderline lies are also included. Take, for instance, Allard stating, “The terms were ironed out in secret …” Anyone with an ounce of experience in development matters knows that if speculators get wind that a large deal of this import is in the works they’re going to try to swoop in like vultures and buy up adjacent properties. So it was purposely played close to the vest. But more importantly, every member of Dunham’s board was well aware of every step being taken. If they say they weren’t, they are liars.
In the brief filed by the naysayers’ lawyers with the Ohio Supreme Court, they go full Kafkaesque: They have the temerity, the impertinence, the unmitigated gall, to use terms like “the city’s staggering inequality, poverty and infant mortality rates” — the exact issues the Cleveland Foundation seeks to address — as a reason for the Court to DISALLOW the Cleveland Foundation’s move into the minority neighborhood. If this is not an attempt to pimp poverty, then I can’t imagine how else such an attempt would be constructed.
The fact that Pattakos has a “special” relationship with Scene also makes the entire article suspect. In addition to representing the publication on legal matters, he also writes a column for the magazine from time to time. So he is using that relationship to have Allard write a tainted article — one that is in cahoots with his effort to advance and win a weak legal case. Perhaps the Ohio Supreme Court will take a dim view of the terms of this incestuous relationship which Pattakos was previously sanctioned for by Judge Burt Griffin in a landmark case.
And then, to top it all off, Allard takes the positive comments made by Ward 7 Councilman Basheer Jones to Plain Dealer reporter Steve Litt last year regarding the project and somehow attempts — again, Kafkaesque — to push them through the looking glass and turn them into something negative. Jones said at the time that he was so excited by the Cleveland Foundation’s proposed relocation that he wanted to “yell it from the rooftops. If I don’t achieve anything else, this move … to Ward 7 will be the best accomplishment I could achieve. There could be nothing else that’s as great. It almost brings tears to my eyes.”
What — a black man being this happy about accomplishing something for his black constituency? Well, that simply won’t do, at least not for the white folks at the Scene. However, when I recently spoke to my councilman and informed him of Allard’s scurrilous attempt at word-twisting, he reiterated his statement, telling me, “Brother Frazier, that’s exactly how I still feel.”
All I could do was to concur and say — as we are sometimes are accustomed to saying to each other when we are in defense of our beloved black community — “Hush, Truth.”
