Could Gatten's smackdown help Bellamy-Small?
This week's column.
In a blistering public smackdown that shook and stirred the whole city, Florence Gatten took fellow City Council member T. Dianne Bellamy-Small to the rhetorical woodshed last week.
Well-coiffed, well-prepared and well-spoken, as always, Gatten upbraided Bellamy-Small in a Monday news conference as a "rogue council member" who needs to step down.
There's clearly no mystery as to how Gatten feels about Bellamy-Small. Nor is there much argument. Bellamy-Small's aloofness, volatile temper and brushes with rules and protocol have been well-documented. She can be brusque and off-putting. Her fellow council members find her nearly impossible to work with.
The latest episode is her apparent attempt to use her office to intimidate a police officer who pulled her for speeding.
Before that was her emotional eruption over an office space in city hall.
Before that was the leak of a consultant's report on the police department that was traced to her copy.
Before that was her refusal to participate in weekly council press conferences.
And before that was her tardiness with local tax payments.
Equally frustrating is Bellamy-Small's aversion to media. It's easier arranging an interview with a foreign head of state.
Still, Gatten's huffy denouncement was dramatic and overblown and drenched in self-righteousness. Whatever points Gatten might have earned in fortitude and candor she loses in sheer lack of statesmanship.
She said Friday she was stating only what needed to be said. "I was answering the inner call of moral responsibility," she said.
But was the use of the adjective "rogue" absolutely necessary? She paused and consulted a dictionary: "An unprincipled person." "A scamp." "A scoundrel." Sounded about right to her, she said.
And could she have calculated the move to jump-start an expected mayoral bid? Gatten flatly denies any such motive.
"Absolutely not," she said, "and this has really kind of offended me."
As for her comments' impact on the rest of the city, Gatten, who is white, says she has received overwhelmingly positive feedback, including from Bellamy-Small's District 1, which is mostly black. But she probably has been much more of a divider than a uniter.
Using equally bombastic rhetoric, the Pulpit Forum said in a statement that Gatten "has launched a political lynching campaign." The group, whose membership consists primarily of black minsters, plans a community meeting Thursday "to express our support" for Bellamy-Small, who is black.
Meanwhile, a man likely to run against Bellamy-Small, Luther Falls, suddenly finds himself caught in the middle. Falls, who narrowly lost to Bellamy-Small in 2005, said Friday that he felt District 1 voters could determine Bellamy-Small's fitness for office. They don't need Gatten's help.
"It's up to the voters in District 1 to make that decision," Falls said.
Ironically, before Gatten's statements, Bellamy-Small seemed headed to defeat in this fall's election. Many in her district appear dissatisfied. Some started a recall campaign last week. But now the Pulpit Forum misguidedly has recast Bellamy-Small as a victim — a black target of white arrogance.
Voters who may have been indifferent to Bellamy-Small may support her solely to spite Gatten. In fact, Gatten may actually have helped breathe new life into Bellamy-Small's sagging political career.
What should have been a matter of a bad council member who deserved to be unelected has been co-opted as a black-white thing — as if this city needed another one of those. Did Gatten consider that before her speech?
"Frankly, that never crossed my mind," she said. "My remarks were based on conduct and not race."
Did she have any regrets about Monday's news conference?
"I could have stood a little straighter," she said.
Comments (11)
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"Well-coiffed..."
Heh.
Why stop with her hair? Why not comment on her outfit when she met reporters? How about whether she should wear pants or a dress? There ya go, that's the important stuff we all crave.
Posted on March 4, 2007 8:31 AM
well I guess we know what district you live in..as long as they are black, who cares what they do? right Allen???
Posted on March 4, 2007 12:41 PM
If it "never crossed her mind", clearly Gatten is woefully out of touch with a large number of citizens she purports to represent, and proudly insensitive to the challenges facing our city and its state of race relations.
She could have stood a little straighter, indeed.
I look forward to the smug, self-satisfied, judgmental and condescending concession speech when she gets the boot but good in the next election.
Posted on March 4, 2007 5:17 PM
Could Gatten's smackdown help Bellamy-Small?* Allen
Dang Allen! Just when I got Curtis another bodyguard job, you come along making it possible for Curtis to be the tage team partner for T. Dianne Bellamy-Small against this silly white conservative republican women Gatten who wants to be the next Hulk Hogan of Greensboro.
Do you people in Greensboro ever check what is the water?
Posted on March 4, 2007 11:40 PM
Obviously Florence got sick of living with the STUPIDITY that Guilford Co. residents have to swallow everyday dealing with the race scammers that thrive here.
Does it help her politically? Like the lady said. She told the truth. She could care less. She'll take comfort from the fact she just has to ride the truth wherever it takes her, and that's all any politician of integrity can ever do.
Posted on March 5, 2007 11:43 AM
I'm not sure I'm following you, Sue? Are you saying my description of Gatten is sexist?
Posted on March 5, 2007 6:07 PM
Tom, not sure what you're getting at, but I live in Tom Phillips' district, for what it's worth.
Posted on March 5, 2007 6:23 PM
Instead of well-spoken and well-coiffed, how about articulate and clean? Sue caught ya, Allen: you'd never say that about the mayor.
And you owe your blog readers a round of drinks for your column.
Posted on March 5, 2007 11:32 PM
Sure I would. I've used physical descriptions in many of my columns about men and women.
Posted on March 6, 2007 7:01 AM
Was Biden using a physical description when he called Obama "clean" and "articulate"? He'd say so.
If you can document ever calling a man "well-coiffed" or otherwise complimenting his hair, I'll leave you a tab at that bar next week (not sure I'll be able to attend). As with Hillary, it's all about the hair.
Posted on March 6, 2007 2:23 PM
No. Being articulate is not a physical trait. Biden said he didn't mean hygiene when using the word "cleam." He meant Obama's record, he said, though many didn't take it that way.
I certainly did not mean my own description of Gatten to be sexist, but to be reflective of her tendency to be immaculately and meticulously prepared, from how she looks to her doing thorough homework to her presenting written statements at council meetings to her belief in delivering talking points in sets of three (which she violated at her news conference).
She's that kind of a stickler.
Hence her statement in my column about her regrets that she didn't stand straighter.
In a comparable example, is Maria Johnson (sorry to drag you into this, Maria) being sexist when she describes the snazzy suits Skip Alston wears in a feature profile on him?
Having said all of that, intent and actual impact aren't always one and the same.
So, if Sue sees my words as being sexist, I'm sorry. I didn't mean them in that way.
Posted on March 7, 2007 2:56 AM