Salon Newsreal | My dinner with Jerry

T A B L E+T A L K
1998 was a crazy year in Washington, D.C. What will 1999 hold? Cast your predictions in the Politics area of Table Talk

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Check out barnesandnoble.com for more about California's wild and woolly politics
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R E C E N T L Y
Letter from Havana
By Frank Smyth
Gays, Catholics and transvestites find their place in the new Cuba
(01/04/99)
Oral history
By David Friend
Sound bites from three scandals
(12/24/98)
Blood money
By Suzi Parker
An Arkansas prison-plasma business protected by Clinton cronies led to a scandal that almost toppled the government -- of Canada
(12/23/98)
Portrait of a political "pit bull"
By Russ Baker
Rep. Dan Burton has a few questions to answer about his own history of womanizing and alleged campaign finance irregularities
(12/22/98)
What if it were President Packwood?
By Andrew Ross
Liberals must face up to their hypocrisy in backing a president who lied under oath in a sexual harassment lawsuit
(12/22/98)
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MY DINNER WITH JERRY | PAGE 1, 2, 3
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We head to nearby Mexicali Rose, a mediocre restaurant but a downtown institution. Brown orders white wine and a plate of rice and beans. He asks the waitress her name. "Araceli," she says. He struggles with it until he gets it right. Brown speaks only tourist Spanish, but he speaks it militantly. "Put some queso on the beans," he tells Araceli. "And I'd like maiz tortillas. Gracias." The waitress smiles. She recognizes him, too.
"That was depressing," he says. "We saw four drunk people in 15 minutes."
I shrug. "Look at us -- we needed a drink after an hour on those streets." He grants me that, and orders another glass of wine.
"What can you really do for that neighborhood?" he asks me. "They've had urban renewal, the War on Poverty, everything. The place looked the same when I was governor. What can you really do that's gonna make a difference?"
And were ministers like Williams, he asked me, part of the solution, or part of the problem? Williams had tutored Brown on how to approach other black ministers -- who hated whom, and who was trying to get what from the city -- a new roof, a new youth program, more money. Maybe Wanda was right. "What are they really doing for the people?" he asks me.
I'm appalled by his pessimism and his irreverence, and liberated, too. I start lecturing him about Oakland's successes. Oakland gets no respect. Just across the bay from thriving San Francisco, less than an hour's drive from sprawling Silicon Valley, this majority-black city has been left behind in the Bay Area's economic boom, with a reputation for backwardness and bureaucracy that's two parts racism, one part reality. It never gets credit for what it does right. A laboratory for Lyndon Johnson's anti-poverty crusade, it was the only major city with a large black population that didn't riot in the 1960s or '70s, and it moved from white to black political control with comparatively minor turmoil. Today, as its Latino and Asian populations continue to grow rapidly, Oakland is widely judged the nation's most residentially integrated city. It pissed me off to see Brown dissing this city he was aspiring to lead.
And besides, in just the last few years, I tell Brown, it has cut the black infant mortality rate by half, the teen birthrate by 30 percent and brought the murder rate down to the levels of the early 1970s. Brown knows shockingly little about all this, and refreshingly, he admits it. But then he starts poking fun at a local anti-poverty advocacy group/think tank I've consulted for over the years. "Who needs more reports? These people talk about their rich data, but what are they doing for poor people? I listen to them and I think: Rich data, poor people. Rich data, poor people. Know what I mean? It's a waste."
Now he's under my skin, and I'm back at him. I tell him we used that rich data to figure out that black infant mortality was concentrated in certain neighborhoods, and to develop strategies that focused there. We used it to figure out that teens were having the least healthy babies, and to focus on them, and bring the teen birthrate down dramatically. Those strategies built around rich data actually helped poor people.
He's impressed but not chastened. "You know a lot; come work for me." I thank him, but tell him I'm moving the other way, out of politics and policy work and back into journalism. I realize I'm late for a party, and he walks me to my car. We continue our conversation outside, but we're constantly interrupted by people who recognize him: a black doctor, a Filipino laborer and a grizzled middle-aged white bar patron who follows us outside to shake his hand. They all assure him he'll have their vote. The doctor insists she and her husband will put checks in the mail tomorrow. As we say goodbye a black family comes up and greets him, and a white couple stop their car in the middle of the street and jump out to have their picture taken.
Whether I like it or not, I can tell: Brown's going to be mayor. So I accept his invitation to continue our conversation a few days later, at his "commune" on the Waterfront near Jack London Square. He lives there with about a dozen other people; it also houses his "We the People" organization, which spearheaded his last presidential drive and housed his mayoral bid. White people in their 20s mill around in a communal kitchen making an organic vegetarian dinner. White volunteers stuff white envelopes at a table nearby. The only two people of color in the place are two old black ladies in hats, one of them blind, who came in to volunteer.
He takes me into his office, where we start our sparring again. I chide him for his campaign platform: the "Oakland Ecopolis" plan, a manifesto written by a couple of out-of-town professors pledging to make Oakland a center of "green" industry and model its civic life on the hill towns of Italy. He shrugs. "You don't like it? Why don't you rewrite it?" Seriously, I ask him: The "green" that black West Oakland needs most is money. How is he really going to reconcile his environmental causes and his anti-corporate crusading with his pledge to bring jobs to Oakland? What are his plans?
He goes to a wall and begins pulling old reports -- redevelopment plans, waterfront plans, environment plans -- off a bookshelf and recklessly tossing them at me. "You want plans? This city has no shortage of plans. It needs someone to galvanize people to solve their own problems." I catch a two-foot-high stack in my bare arms and ask him to stop: I get the point. Oakland doesn't need any more plans.
N E X T+P A G E+| A downwardly mobile, dystopic, dilettante's worldview?

T A B L E+T A L K 1998 was a crazy year in Washington, D.C. What will 1999 hold? Cast your predictions in the Politics area of Table Talk ___________________ Check out barnesandnoble.com for more about California's wild and woolly politics ___________________ R E C E N T L Y Letter from Havana By Frank Smyth Gays, Catholics and transvestites find their place in the new Cuba (01/04/99) Oral history By David Friend Sound bites from three scandals (12/24/98) Blood money By Suzi Parker An Arkansas prison-plasma business protected by Clinton cronies led to a scandal that almost toppled the government -- of Canada (12/23/98) Portrait of a political "pit bull" By Russ Baker Rep. Dan Burton has a few questions to answer about his own history of womanizing and alleged campaign finance irregularities (12/22/98) What if it were President Packwood? By Andrew Ross Liberals must face up to their hypocrisy in backing a president who lied under oath in a sexual harassment lawsuit (12/22/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		MY DINNER WITH JERRY \| PAGE 1, 2, 3 - - - - - - - - - - We head to nearby Mexicali Rose, a mediocre restaurant but a downtown institution. Brown orders white wine and a plate of rice and beans. He asks the waitress her name. "Araceli," she says. He struggles with it until he gets it right. Brown speaks only tourist Spanish, but he speaks it militantly. "Put some queso on the beans," he tells Araceli. "And I'd like maiz tortillas. Gracias." The waitress smiles. She recognizes him, too. "That was depressing," he says. "We saw four drunk people in 15 minutes." I shrug. "Look at us -- we needed a drink after an hour on those streets." He grants me that, and orders another glass of wine. "What can you really do for that neighborhood?" he asks me. "They've had urban renewal, the War on Poverty, everything. The place looked the same when I was governor. What can you really do that's gonna make a difference?" And were ministers like Williams, he asked me, part of the solution, or part of the problem? Williams had tutored Brown on how to approach other black ministers -- who hated whom, and who was trying to get what from the city -- a new roof, a new youth program, more money. Maybe Wanda was right. "What are they really doing for the people?" he asks me. I'm appalled by his pessimism and his irreverence, and liberated, too. I start lecturing him about Oakland's successes. Oakland gets no respect. Just across the bay from thriving San Francisco, less than an hour's drive from sprawling Silicon Valley, this majority-black city has been left behind in the Bay Area's economic boom, with a reputation for backwardness and bureaucracy that's two parts racism, one part reality. It never gets credit for what it does right. A laboratory for Lyndon Johnson's anti-poverty crusade, it was the only major city with a large black population that didn't riot in the 1960s or '70s, and it moved from white to black political control with comparatively minor turmoil. Today, as its Latino and Asian populations continue to grow rapidly, Oakland is widely judged the nation's most residentially integrated city. It pissed me off to see Brown dissing this city he was aspiring to lead. And besides, in just the last few years, I tell Brown, it has cut the black infant mortality rate by half, the teen birthrate by 30 percent and brought the murder rate down to the levels of the early 1970s. Brown knows shockingly little about all this, and refreshingly, he admits it. But then he starts poking fun at a local anti-poverty advocacy group/think tank I've consulted for over the years. "Who needs more reports? These people talk about their rich data, but what are they doing for poor people? I listen to them and I think: Rich data, poor people. Rich data, poor people. Know what I mean? It's a waste." Now he's under my skin, and I'm back at him. I tell him we used that rich data to figure out that black infant mortality was concentrated in certain neighborhoods, and to develop strategies that focused there. We used it to figure out that teens were having the least healthy babies, and to focus on them, and bring the teen birthrate down dramatically. Those strategies built around rich data actually helped poor people. He's impressed but not chastened. "You know a lot; come work for me." I thank him, but tell him I'm moving the other way, out of politics and policy work and back into journalism. I realize I'm late for a party, and he walks me to my car. We continue our conversation outside, but we're constantly interrupted by people who recognize him: a black doctor, a Filipino laborer and a grizzled middle-aged white bar patron who follows us outside to shake his hand. They all assure him he'll have their vote. The doctor insists she and her husband will put checks in the mail tomorrow. As we say goodbye a black family comes up and greets him, and a white couple stop their car in the middle of the street and jump out to have their picture taken. Whether I like it or not, I can tell: Brown's going to be mayor. So I accept his invitation to continue our conversation a few days later, at his "commune" on the Waterfront near Jack London Square. He lives there with about a dozen other people; it also houses his "We the People" organization, which spearheaded his last presidential drive and housed his mayoral bid. White people in their 20s mill around in a communal kitchen making an organic vegetarian dinner. White volunteers stuff white envelopes at a table nearby. The only two people of color in the place are two old black ladies in hats, one of them blind, who came in to volunteer. He takes me into his office, where we start our sparring again. I chide him for his campaign platform: the "Oakland Ecopolis" plan, a manifesto written by a couple of out-of-town professors pledging to make Oakland a center of "green" industry and model its civic life on the hill towns of Italy. He shrugs. "You don't like it? Why don't you rewrite it?" Seriously, I ask him: The "green" that black West Oakland needs most is money. How is he really going to reconcile his environmental causes and his anti-corporate crusading with his pledge to bring jobs to Oakland? What are his plans? He goes to a wall and begins pulling old reports -- redevelopment plans, waterfront plans, environment plans -- off a bookshelf and recklessly tossing them at me. "You want plans? This city has no shortage of plans. It needs someone to galvanize people to solve their own problems." I catch a two-foot-high stack in my bare arms and ask him to stop: I get the point. Oakland doesn't need any more plans. N E X T+P A G E+\| A downwardly mobile, dystopic, dilettante's worldview?