Another Soulvine Thursday: "Race-baiting in the Ninth"

Longtime LA Wave Newspaper Columnist Betty Pleasant takes exception to the racially-tinged campaign antics of former CD 14 Chief of Staff and current CD 9 Carpetbag Candidate Ana Cubas

 Betty not too happy with Sister Ana.

How lower can the Carpetbagging Campaign of Ana Cubas go, when its already in the racial gutter?

** Blogger's note: Its a gloomy Thursday and thus, the appropriate, bloggin time to check back in on the Soulvine Missives of longtime South-Central LA Political Observer Betty Pleasant. Jan Perry and Bernard Parks can rest assure that Betty's keyboard will not direct any frying pan missives in their direction this week as she directs her ire towards a CD 14 carpetbagger, coming in search of her own political riches. As usual, we post Betty's musings with our comments in bold and within the ( )---Scott Johnson.

Despite pre-primary election cries from the community for 9th District City Council candidates to stop their race-baiting campaign tactics to prevail at the ballot box, the pre-runoff election activity in that regard has gotten worse and the voters are hopping mad, as what was once subtle is now in-your-face blatant. (coming from the face of Ana, that is downright scary)

Kokayi Kwa Jitahidi, indefatigable leader of the Ma’at Institute for Community Change — the largest and most effective grassroots organization in South Los Angeles — organized the South Los Angeles Power Coalition and convened a series of candidate forums this year at which aspirants to the 9th District City Council seat were to relate their appraisal of the problems confronting their would-be constituents, the methods they have in mind to solve them and the experience they have in doing so. More than 300 people at a time flocked to these forums in the belief that they would hear candidates speak to the issues that effect their lives, thus enabling them to cast votes that would positively impact the vast 9th District. (only issue for Ana is seizing power in a now, impoverish CD 9 of her enabling creation).

Did the people get this information? A little bit, but nearly as much as seven candidates could have provided. What did they get then and what are they getting now? Ana Cubas, a candidate out of East Los Angeles who is embarked on a race-baiting campaign on steroids which has been hyped up by stupid sex-baiting on her part. (sex-baiting and drinking don't mix) Cubas, who is facing a runoff with state Sen. Curren Price for the 9th District seat, has been and continues to tell residents to “vote for me because I’m from El Salvador and because I am a woman.” (you forgot in the fine Huizar tradition, to state that you went to Princeton damn it!) She is so firm in her feminine qualifications (the smell, at times, reinforces that premise) that she is reported on the USC newsite, thus: “If elected, I’ll establish a women’s caucus within the council even if I’m the only one on that caucus. And when I’m termed out … I will not endorse a man (but remain interested in them, as noted on your Facebook Page). I don’t care how good he is (Jose might get offended)...” Really? (** We can agree with Betty once every CD 9 election cycle)

Cubas stresses her irrelevant El Salvadoran birthplace at every opportunity, but ignores the fact that she grew up in Santa Monica and lives in the tony Solano Canyon village in the Mount Washington area of Northeast L.A.(actually near Dodger Stadium, but we digress) She was chief of staff to 14th District Councilman Jose Huizar (transparency and openness were foreign concepts during her reign), who is pushing her to represent the 9th District, an area she knows nothing about and had never even been in until she decided to put her female El Salvadoran-born self on the City Council simply because she’s an Hispanic woman (this after helping to reshape CD-9 during the litigious Redistricting process).

Not only that, but South L.A. activists tell me Cubas has become so reprehensible in her tactics that she now speaks untranslated Spanish at candidates’ meetings (she is also proficient in long-winded gibberish during NC meetings). I’m told that she delivers lengthy passages in Spanish that go untranslated, thus enraging her overwhelmingly English-speaking audience which feels she is talking only to Hispanics and therefore is telling them something she does not want English speakers to know (Its Ana's time in English damn it!).

Kokayi, who is mortified by Cubas’ tactics, said there are tensions between some African-Americans and Latinos in South L.A., “but we also recognize that African-American and Latino residents in CD 9 are not waging a full-scale war with one another. As the polling suggests, the majority of voters on the eastside of South L.A. are likely to reject that type of divisive campaigning.” Yet, Cubas’ failure to address the issues (like CLARTS misappropiations) and her reliance on untranslated Spanish speeches do give Kokayi pause. (Not to mention her (stinkin) female chauvinism and her constant trumpeting of her birthplace.).

Your thoughts ..............

Scott Johnson in CD 14