Posted on 04/28/2015 5:28:49 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
[pictures and related articles at source]
In January 2013, a 32-second radio advertisement was broadcast in Milwaukee, and quite by accident a political star was born. Hoping to encourage local residents to play a part in their own protection, the commercials progenitor went firmly on the record in favor of the private ownership of firearms: With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option. Rather, listeners were invited to consider taking a certified safety course in handling a firearm. You have a duty to protect yourself and your family, the commercial intoned. Can I count on you?
The speaker was Milwaukee County sheriff David A. Clarke Jr., and the reaction was immediate. Within days of the ads release, Roy Felber, president of the Milwaukee Deputy Sheriffs Association, complained bitterly that the idea didnt sound too smart. People have the right to defend themselves, he griped, but they dont have the right to take the law into their own hands. Tom Barrett, the mayor of Milwaukee, seconded Felbers critique. Sheriff David Clarke, Barrett lamented, is auditioning for the next Dirty Harry movie. Predictably, these sentiments were echoed by gun-control groups across the country. A year later, when Clarke ran for reelection, Michael Bloombergs PAC contributed $150,000 to his opponents campaign.
Initially, Clarke was shocked at the contretemps. I didnt see this as a national question when I spoke out, he tells me, as we sit down in his Milwaukee office. The ad was meant in response to some local crime issues. I couldnt have dreamed of being catapulted into the national spotlight. Indeed, at first he resisted the pull. When it started to grow, I tried to corral it and push it away, he recalls. This is my hometown. Im just trying to make a difference here.
On the questions of gun control, race, the nature of policing, the record of his citys government, and even his own Democratic party, Clarke is dramatically out of step with his colleagues and with what is typically expected from African-American males.
Before long, however, the requests for interviews and appearances became so numerous that they were all but impossible to refuse. At first, it was mostly radio. Then a few curious television stations began to inquire. And, finally, the National Rifle Association got in touch. Someone in my position is unique, Clarke tells me. Im in law enforcement, Im black, and I was speaking from a rare position. Now he is in demand. Ill go where anybody wants to hear me. I dont tailor my message to one specific group.
At local conservative events, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and at proSecond Amendment meetings, the man is welcomed like a rock star. His face is a regular feature on the front covers of firearms-enthusiast and law-enforcement magazines. He is a fixture on Fox News and talk radio. On the face of it, Clarke was just joking when he told the 70,000 attendees of this years NRA convention that he isnt running for anything . . . yet. But all gags contain a modicum of truth, and, with his pregnant pause, Clarke was acknowledging just how popular he had become. Im a cop at heart its in my blood, he insists when I ask about his future. But he wont rule anything out.
Before long, however, the requests for interviews and appearances became so numerous that they were all but impossible to refuse. At first, it was mostly radio. Then a few curious television stations began to inquire. And, finally, the National Rifle Association got in touch. Someone in my position is unique, Clarke tells me. Im in law enforcement, Im black, and I was speaking from a rare position. Now he is in demand. Ill go where anybody wants to hear me. I dont tailor my message to one specific group.
Its not just the cowboy hat and the leather waistcoat that set him apart. On the questions of gun control, race, the nature of policing, the record of his citys government, and even his own Democratic party (more on which later), Clarke is dramatically out of step with his colleagues and with what is typically expected from African-American males.
Was he always? Well, thats complicated. Back in 2003, when the governor was considering a bill that would have loosened restrictions on the private carrying of firearms, Clarke penned a worried letter urging him to veto it. There are better ways to fight crime than to flood the streets of Milwaukee with dangerous weapons, Clarke proposed. In an urban area such as Milwaukee, he added, an increase in the civilian use of firearms would jeopardize the safety of my deputies and the citizens they represent.
By 2007, Clarke had done a 180. The police are no longer able to guarantee the personal safety of citizens, he told local talk-radio host Charlie Sykes. In consequence, the state government should reconsider its opposition to allowing law-abiding people the means with which to protect themselves.
Clarke is happy to explain this shift. Once, he tells me, this was a thriving city. It was industry-based, had a lot of manufacturing, was very safe. And now? People are at the mercy of the criminal element here. Im in these neighborhoods and I talk to these folks. Theyre living in terrorized neighborhoods. That bothers me. I grew up here.
There was a time in this country, Clarke adds, when a lot of personal protection was done by the individual. As time went on and these urban centers developed, the government took on a bigger role. We were okay with that. But they werent doing it here. People were waiting an inordinate amount of time to get a squad to respond. So I said, lets define a role for the citizenry.
That role, Clarke insists, is consonant with the American ideal of self-government. You have a duty to protect you and your family, he says. I dont mean go chasing down bank robbers and all that stuff. But we cant just ask for help when were trying to solve a crime. Thats after the crime has happened. How about before?
Which is to say that Clarkes transformation has been more than merely pragmatic. As the NRA and other groups started to want to use me as a symbol of the Second Amendment a black voice I started reading up, he recalls. I became fascinated. What really struck me was the black tradition of arms. . . . I thought, Wow. This isnt the black history I grew up reading about. Among the many thinkers to whom Clarke attributes his present philosophy are Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and a particular favorite Thomas Sowell. Once blacks were able to arm themselves to protect against kidnapping and lynching, he explains, things really began to change in terms of black freedom.
Once blacks were able to arm themselves to protect against kidnapping and lynching, things really began to change in terms of black freedom.
This unorthodox outlook has gone a long way toward informing Clarkes difficult relationship with the Democratic party, under whose banner he has now been winning for almost a decade and a half. I run as a Democrat because its a partisan election, he muses. And originally, I decided to run as a Democrat because thats what the family history was. But I didnt want to join the party. His parents were Jack Kennedy and Harry Truman Democrats and fans of Martin Luther King Jr., but they didnt talk about politics much. As a child, he recalls, I was taught to value education, hard work, perseverance, and taking responsibility for your decisions in life. Now, it seems like those are conservative ideas. But theyre not.
Growing up a career cop, Clarke explains, I was always taught, Stay out of politics. I didnt have any particular allegiance to any particular party. Still, understandable as his electoral affiliation may be in practice, there is no doubt that Clarke is an odd fit for the party of the American Left. I believe in limited government, he affirms. I know what the welfare state has done to the black family.
I believe in military superiority, he continues. I get that from my dad. He did combat jumps in Korea under fire. I believe that the Constitution protects individuals and not groups. I believe in safe streets here at home. And I believe in states rights. For a label for me, conservative is more appropriate than Republican.
Whatever he is, Clarke certainly benefits from Republican support. Oddly enough for the United States, his present electoral coalition is a combination of poorer blacks and suburban white conservatives. I clean up in the suburban areas, he records. I always lost a lot of those communities, but I won them handily this time. And what of those black voters, who typically do not vote in great numbers for conservative candidates? I win because I get those folks, Clarke smiles. I get em. I understand them. They feel connected.
Twas not ever thus. When he started out, Clarke recalls, he would explain that one can blame the white man and slavery only so much before recognizing that some of this is self-inflicted. That didnt work. So he took a different tack: I started to connect with them emotionally rather than logically. I started talking about things that affected them. And it started to change. With me they think, Were not real crazy about some of the things he says, but hes ours.
Some of the things that Clarke says are, indeed, highly controversial even among conservatives such as myself. Black Americans, he proposes, have been separated from their history, and are therefore easily exploited by politicians. As a result, he argues, the Democratic party has managed to cultivate a large bloc of voters who are susceptible to bullsh**.
If we were reconnected with our history, he predicts, youd see some erosion away from this abject servility to the Democratic party. My dad was an Airborne Ranger, Clarke reiterates, pushing back against my suggestion that servility is a strong term. When he fought in Korea, the Army was [partly] segregated. He witnessed injustice. Young blacks have no idea what theyre talking about.
This is not to say that Clarke believes all is well. Its problematic, he contends, that in many parts of America the population is mostly black and the police force and local governments are mostly white: I dont want quotas, but thats a problem nevertheless. And yet if blacks want to change that, he suggests, they dont need to riot, they need to vote.
At the height of the tensions in Ferguson, Mo., Clarke took to Fox News and told Al Sharpton to shut up. Sharpton, Clarke submitted, was a charlatan who ought to go back into the gutter. Eric Holder, he added, had offered up a poor display and should apologize to law enforcement. Barack Obama, meanwhile, had fueled racial animosity between people. When the president talks, Clarke tells me, everybody listens. When Eric Holder holds a press conference, everybody listens. They have to be more careful. Obama should have said to the rioters, You need to find a more socially acceptable way of dealing with your anger.
In Clarkes telling, there was no institutional racism in Ferguson, though there may have been some bad actors: Eric Holder went on a witch hunt, he proposes. Holder went down loaded for bear when Ferguson first happened. In consequence, the DOJs report was poorly written and poorly put together the product of an attorney general who dislikes the police and wishes to cast them in a poor light. The DOJ, he charges, manipulates the numbers. Im not going to defend the Ferguson P.D., he adds. But I will defend the profession.
Obama should have said to the [Ferguson] rioters, You need to find a more socially acceptable way of dealing with your anger.
On crime in general, Clarke tends to side with the law-and-order types. The contention that there are too many Americans in prison, Clarke tells me, is a myth. (Wisconsin has the highest incarceration rate for black males in the country.) Drug reformers are misleading the public, he adds. Certainly, he sees a role for decriminalization of the possession of certain drugs, but he is not open to wholesale legalization. For my community, he tells me, drugs are a problem. Guys got a little weed on him a few rocks on him for his own personal use he doesnt need to go to prison. The guy with the intent to deliver yes, he needs to go to prison. Im not there in terms of legalizing anything.
Indeed, Clarke prefers to cast the drug war as a means by which African Americans are liberated from violence in their communities. (I strongly disagree.) The only reason we went on that lock-em-up drive in the first place, he suggests, was black mayors who went to Congress and pleaded for help. Because of the violence, they pleaded with Congress for tougher laws on crack cocaine. Black mayors did that. Yet were made to believe it was white congressmen who wanted to throw these black guys in jail.
As one might expect, Clarkes views on drugs are at odds with those of the citys leadership. Indeed, his views on almost everything are. Right now, he explains, my relationship with the city is acrimonious. We have a county executive who is very anti-police. He has a disdain for the police. For Tom Barrett, the longtime mayor of the city, Clarke has only criticism. Barretts been there for eleven years almost as long as I have. Milwaukee has been a disaster under this guy. We have obscenely high black unemployment.
Pushing the brim of his hat up slightly, Clarke picks up a piece of paper from his desk. Let me read you something, he says, with a pained expression. This is from this years state-of-the-city address:
Milwaukee in 2015 is a city where opportunity is growing, investments are increasing, and residents are tackling new endeavors. Milwaukee is strong, and this is a year to build on our strengths.
Does it look like that to you? Clarke asks me. I confess that I am an outsider and that I do not know. He motions toward his truck. Lets go take a look.
I strap on a bulletproof vest, and we head into the Central City or, in less polite parlance, into the ghetto. At 3 oclock in the afternoon, the streets are mostly deserted, save for a few shiftless people who look up from the sidewalk only to gauge the interest of the marked police car that is following our truck. In an hour and a half, I do not see a single white face.
Almost half of the homes in the Central City have been boarded up completely. Others have been stripped of their tiles, their doorknobs, and their sheet metal. Once-pristine backyards have become vast dumpsters, into which the locals have deposited trash, broken furniture, busted tires, ripped mattresses, and, in some cases, worn-out cars. It is impossible to travel more than three blocks in any direction without seeing a makeshift memorial to the murdered, wrapped inexpertly around a tree trunk.
Occasionally, we see a pristine house whose owners are holding out against the decay. How long they will last is anybodys guess. In 1960, Milwaukee had 741,000 residents. Today, it has just 600,000.
Milwaukee has the fourth-highest homicide rate per 100,000 people in the United States, Clarke tells me. In fact, 20 kids under 16 were murdered here last year. I presume that this means that they were caught in the crossfire. No, Clarke tells me. They were the targets. These people are trapped.
A couple of miles away, in the Northpoint neighborhood on the edge of Lake Michigan, children fly kites and laugh happily by the water. At the top of the hill, perfectly groomed Victorian houses stand proudly. An American flag flies in the distance. There was a shooting down here, Sheriff Clarke tells me. People were coming in from nearby and causing problems. So we beefed up the police presence and fixed it.
They called me a racist.
Sounds like Clarke had a dose of reality and matured a little bit too much for the Left. Perfect example of Churchill’s statement about if one isn’t a liberal at 20, he has no heart, if he isn’t a conservative by 40, he has no brain. Eventually, the brain is supposed to be able to override the emotions.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Sheriff Clarke is a rising Star, a Voice of Common Sense in a sea of ignorance and primal violence. God Bless this man. We need more like him.
Is this the Sheriff Megan has on occasionally?
Probably. I don’t always see her show. There are pictures of Clarke at the article link.
I wish I was as articulate as this brilliant man!
Amen, conservativejoy!
Pinging some FRiends here...
The 2017 Attorney General, oh please, oh please, oh please..
Thanks for the ping nutmeg...
Many thanks for the ping, nutmeg!
This was a great read! I had wondered what his background was and this really explains a great deal. It would be fantastic to see him campaigning for our side next year :-)
Love this man! Preach on!
Clarke is right stuff
A black leader for all
Thanks for the ping!
Yeah this guy is right on the Constitution with his commentary. It’s great when ever he is seen on TV speaking the truth to power.
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