Tito Jackson is failing Roxbury
Blackstonian readers may remember during Tito Jackson’s run for office we published a damning series on why we knew he was not the best candidate for District 7.
PEOPLE’S REPORT: TITO JACKSON
https://blackstonian.org/2011/03/peoples-report-tito-jackson/
PEOPLE’S REPORT: TITO JACKSON Part II; The Anti-Chuck
https://blackstonian.org/2011/03/all-new-info-peoples-report-tito-jackson-part-ii-the-anti-chuck/
We reported on where his money was coming from which is indicative of future interests and alliances and we also showed where his money was being spent which indicated what interests he was loyal to. It saddens me to have to bring this up again but we knew this would happen and we warned people. Some may say, we just have something against Tito. Not true. We actually supported him in his campaign for At-Large because we believed then and still believe he is better fit to handle that diverse group of people and an At-Large seat would give him the opportunity to ham it up across the city primarily playing nice. We still do not support Tito Jackson for District 7 Councillor because for a District in dire need and so deprived of services and suffering from an epidemic of violence, drugs, poverty and health issues, we need a champion, and he is just not that dude.
Tito Jackson is not a fighter, which is why so many of his campaign promises have fell flat. Employment is dismal, major developments are going on and being planned for Roxbury almost all of them are facing community pushback around BRJP compliance and Tito is not capable of fighting. The nice, affable, self-depricating, goofy guy is cool for the turkey fry but not for the street fight. With our very serious and dire conditions we need a champion who is serious, committed, unwavering and fearless to organize people, mobilize people push agendas and get results. It is my belief that the personality of Tito Jackson makes him incapable of that type of true gritted determination and courage to negotiate when necessary but also know when to bum rush the show.
The shootings in our community are consistently rampant and the District 7 Councillor is unable to mount a campaign to address the #1 Most pressing issue in his district. It is my hope that in writing this people can separate themselves from the personality contest that have many people embracing the Tito social movement and take a critical look at the services (or lack thereof) being delivered to District 7. Here’s what’s scary, Chuck Turner as beloved as he is, often times went waaaay out to the left field but no one can accuse him of being a no-show and delivering many times on issues of employment, education, budget, etc. Here’s what’s scarier than that, WE ARE SCREWED because currently we have no choice. Certainly Roy Owens is not the option. I feel like my District has the no representation because we have the wrong representation.
So how is Tito failing Roxbury? By failing to deliver services that are critical to the quality of life in D7. By failing to fiercely advocate on behalf of the residents of D7. In the near future we will do a report looking at his time in office, right now I want to focus on a few things to illustrate my point.
You have all heard the rumors and whispers of the various organizations and many key community members who are angry and disappointed with Councillor Jackson for failing to deliver on their issues. These grumblings have been in the areas of education, economic development (which is his area of “expertise”), violence, discrimination and policing and those collected grumblings are beginning to form a roar. There are alot of folks who feel let down, betrayed or abandoned by Jackson and often they are former staunch supporters who now are quite pissed off if you talk to them for a minute.
Then there is just the general lack of respect because of his lack of a commanding presence. Jackson is often the butt of jokes, many times at his own hand but I don’t get the sense that he understands or cares if many people are laughing at him instead of with him. It’s just not a good look. We don’t need a bumbling, fumbling dough boy, we need Wesley Snipes from Passenger 57. District 7 doesn’t need another Turkey Fry. We don’t need a Councillor who at every playground opening goes down slides yelling “Whee.” We don’t need another Michael Jackson/Prince party and certainly do not need to see not one more photo of our city councillor in heels, a blouse and a wig. I can’t make this stuff up. (Please don’t send me a message asking why would I post a picture of Jackson like this. The question is why would a City Councillor and grown man take a picture like this and actually thinks its funny or cute.)
Now let me get to what really set this all off. A simple picture. You know the saying: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
Well dig if you will this picture. (shameless Prince joke, I couldn’t resist.)
What does this picture say to you?
Now this is the official City of Boston.gov website and this is the official City Council page.
This to me is symbolic imagery of the representation District 7 is getting right now because of the ineptitude of Jackson.
You will notice his is the only face obscured in the photo and you can make out half of that awkward grin. It screams socially awkward and can’t fit in. The fact that I know that they took multiple photos and the photographer certainly checked them and they ran with this photo shows the lack of respect and disregard the entire Boston City Council has for Jackson. He is an afterthought a target of ridicule and just does not command respect. If that was anyone else, that photo would not have been used or changed by now. Everyone else is visibly shown unobscured looking confident and strong except for our councillor. So goes Roxbury. Obscured and represented with incompetence. The fact that this happened is symbolic of our neighborhoods place in the city.
I am disappointed that I wasted time reading this. You obviously have personal issues with Tito that go beyond politics. This article was a blatant personal attack on Tito which was frankly cruel and ignorant. If you have an issue with his politics then focus on that. Your statements about his appearance etc discredits anything substantial you were trying to say.
I usually respect what you do and write. You bring attention to important issues in our community. This however, sounds like you are trying to fit as many mean comments as possible into an article and call it a discussion of politics.
If you want your opinion about politics to be taken seriously then write an article that states facts rather than sounding like an angry teenager
In short. Obviously I can do what I want evidenced by the fact that I did. You are welcome to your own opinion as am I. Let’s not make this like it is personal and/or I don’t present facts as I have done here and in the associated links and as I stated we will be doing a more in-depth analysis of his time in office. My statements about his appearance is my own analysis of it and I know I’m not crazy because many people share it and have expressed the same sentiments, I’m probably one of the few who doesn’t talk behind people’s backs so I say the same thing publicly and privately. I do find it interesting that people talk about sports figures, rappers, the president, actors, etc. etc. but somehow I have offended all sensibilities because I critiqued the City Councillor in my district where i live, vote and organize? How dare I. The nerve of me. “If I want my political opinion to be taken seriously” It is taken seriously, quite seriously and I have the credentials to show for it. Angry teenager. Ok. We disagree. My last point on this is he does this himself. He makes jokes about himself. He posts pictures in costume. You may think what I said is mean, but what have I said that is untrue or what deep dark secret of his did I reveal? Exactly.
So given your comments and the opposing candidate in the next election, what is your proposed solution?
As I said in the piece, for right now at this time we are screwed. Currently, there is no solution. We will be stuck with this ineffective representation for the next few yrs. Our only hope is that a viable candidate would emerge which we can support.
If I had a magic wand I would either make Tito change or make him resign, that would be ideal but it is not reality.
Roy Owens cannot be the choice for a replacement because it would be worse and this is a great example of the pickle we are in. Suffering from horrible leadership while worse leadership is waiting in the wings. We have to identify, develop and support VIABLE candidates and not people who have a degree of popularity who are running for positions they are unqualified or unsuited for. But this is America where this type of stuff happens… in California they even had a current porn star running for Governor so strange things happen in politics. For this very small and critical community we need a very specific type of person to handle this task and deliver for the people.
Its real easy to attack someone and criticize someone and just simply state “we are screwed.” This is why many qualified people refuse to run for office. It also takes courage to run for office. I personally wouldn’t want to deal with these kinds of personal attacks. Councilor Jackson is not perfect but he can still deliver on his campaign promises. How about instead of attacking him personally and criticizing some pictures he has taken, try to work with him or find people to work with him and help him make Roxbury better. No one can do it alone. No politician can do it alone. People in their respective communities have to step up and work with our leadership. Another solution is if you think you may have better ideas and solutions for Roxbury why don’t you run?
I dont know how many more times I have to re-state what is in the piece. There will be an in-depth piece coming soon which will be an assessment of his time in office. You may view it as attacks but its not. I am a constituent and I have a right to be dissatisfied. I should try to work with him? Many others have with far more “safe” agendas than mine and he has been a failure. No one can do it alone. For sure, and my community does not have the luxury of an office, a staff, resources to get it done. He was elected to do a job and provide services for a specific district. He is failing in that regard. He gets paid $87.5k a year to do a job and as a public elected official he is supposed to be critiqued. I live here, pay taxes here, vote here.
As far as why I don’t run? That is a complicated question. For now, let’s say because I have chosen not to. He chose to. Which opens him up to exactly this type of critique. I really don’t get people’s reaction to the posting of the photos. These are all public I didn’t photoshop anything or hack into his personal account. For instance if I decided to run for office and someone dug up my old wanted poster how could I be mad? Especially since I’m the one who posted it?
If you don’t want people criticizing photos of you dressed in a blouse, heels and a wig, then don’t take them. Free tip.
In yo review look at how much $ his staff makes. Make a lot of money by having like no staff people. Cant deliver services cuz he Stealing from community
If you don’t understand the system of racism, everything you understand will only confuse you. There is no such thing as black leadership. You can only lead yourself. White supremacy controls black leadership. We must get out of the “herd mentality” of following a person. Don’t expect anything from something that doesn’t exist, meaning black leadership.
I agree with folks that this is not your best piece of work. Beyond two dumb pictures there isn’t much substance. As you say, it’s your form and you can do what you want.
As a resident of district 7 I have been incredibly disappointed in Tito. Here are my reasons why. Last year Tito committed himself to helping a longstanding Roxbury business keep it’s doors open. Several calls later to staffers to ask him to do what he said he was going to do went unreturned. Everyone said “I’ll look into it and get back to you”. Nearly six months later I got a call from his staffer saying they were returning my call from a couple of weeks ago ( the calls were made over four motnths ago). In her message the staffer explained they were having some troubles with their communications. I didn’t bother to return the call because clearly they were trying to cover up the fact that for months they hadn’t returned constituent calls. Shouldn’t constituents be the top priority of a city councilor?
Prior to that experience I was in a conversation with my co-worker who is white and lives in fort hill. He told me that while campaigning, Tito often visited his neighborhood . I asked Tito why he made so many visits to fort hill and not once had he ever knocked on my door? His response was “where do you live?”. Three blocks from you Tito, three blocks and I helped on your campaign.
My biggest problem with Tito is his support of the gentrification of Dudley. He made a statement that he wants Dudley to be a destination place and has said Dudley needs to attract more artist to the area. First off, Dudley already is a destination place. Not only is it a transit hub, it is also a social gathering place. It might not be the gathering spot he would like it to be but the bigger question is who gets to stay and who has to leave once the School department is built and the hotel and condos go up at Melnea Cass and Washington Street? As for attracting artist, The area already has artist living there. Has Tito never been to Roxbury open studios? Or does Tito mean white artist also known as first wave gentrifyers. I have never heard him mention stabilizing the neighborhood and making it a place where the people who have lived there and worked so hard to make it a desirable community get to enjoy the benefits of a new Dudley.
Whether or not Tito has an opponent in the upcoming elections doesn’t matter to me. I will not vote for him as a district candidate or an at large candidate.
Hello,I don’t live in the district but I pass thru the area 3 to 4 times a week and also very disappointed at what is going on. I really knew nothing would happen for the hard working people in that district when he won. I often feel Roxbury will be at the back of the line until they speak up with there vote on a consistant basis. Vote ! Vote !! You have the power ain’t nothing to it but to do it. Ain’t nothing to it but to do it !!
Wow, this is an amazingly unprofessional article. Did Tito destroying Cornell in the last campaign really affect you guys this much? Sounds like petty complaints without offering ANY actual solutions. SMH, I actually thought you were a positive brother but it appears you are a much smaller person than I ever imagined and still butt-hurt from Cornell’s defeat…
See, here’s the thing. I’m not a “professional”, this is not a mainstream newspaper so attempting to hold me to some imaginary journalistic standard is a fail. This is a grass roots community information and news source. I don’t get paid, the team doesn’t get paid, there is no money and I am completely free in every sense of the word to do exactly what I think is best.
If you go back and look at what you read you will see that in the piece and in these comments several times I have had to repeat because people apparently don’t pay attention, that this piece was not an in-depth report, in fact I clearly state that an in-depth report is forthcoming. This piece was meant to be exactly what it is and once you get over your emotional reaction I challenge you or anyone to please tell me what I said that is UNTRUE. I intentionally used sarcasm and irreverence to highlight my point. So clearly as you are a Tito supporter, once you remove your own feelings please stick to the basics and let me know what I said that is factually UNTRUE. You may not like the delivery I chose to use, but the facts remain. If you want an in depth report then click on the links in the piece that will take you to more information than you think you are challenging me to produce.
In terms of solutions, clearly you don’t follow the work we do, because all we do is provide solutions… stay tuned soon we will release some information with almost 50 clear and fully explained solutions. The councillor you support who has now been in there since 2011 can you please point me towards where I can find his proposed solutions or in fact any work that he has done on any subject. See its easy to shoot down this piece but if you try to deal with the issues presented you will be hard pressed to dispute.
One thing you need to note in person or on my page, terms like “butt-hurt” we don’t use those. First of all Cornell didn’t lose. The people of District 7 did. There was no defeat other than defeating superior ideas and stronger representation. The last campaign Tito had major support from OUT$IDER$ as we pointed out in the in-depth report that you didn’t read. He lost every single debate and yet won the election, however when only 3% of the voting populace comes out that is a defeat for everybody.
Lastly me being a “small” person and you thought I was “positive brother” I always find it hilarious when someone attempts to label me. If you knew me and knew the work I do along with the team, you would know I care very little of people’s opinion. I know who I am and the work I do. So if you can read this one piece and now I’m not positive I actually find it laughable in light of the fact that since 11/11/11 we have fed over 1,000 people in Boston. That’s just one example. How many people has your champion Tito fed? Let me know and I will feature here. The point is that I do what I do as I am led. I strive to do the right thing because its the right thing. If you have further questions or issues you and anyone else can call or email me directly because I will almost guarantee that you feel the way you do because you have incorrect info.
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