Pants on Fire in Seattle Mayor's Race

I don’t like to be lied to. It’s the ultimate break in trust. It tells me that the person lying to me doesn’t believe I’m worth being honest with. Lie to me more than once and my trust is shattered. It’s one of the things I despise about our current president and his circle of fabulists.
 
So I’m struggling with how to deal with the reality that the Harrell campaign, and his supporters, have told two major, disprovable, lies about his opponent, Katie Wilson. As a journalist, I am obligated to write about these lies. As a Black woman I’m shattered that I have to.
 
The first lie I became aware of was posted on Facebook by Jim Buchanan and reposted by Dawn Mason. It accused Ms. Wilson of falsely posting a photo and endorsement from Claude Burfect, a prominent and well-respected Black community organizer. It then built on the accusation, calling her anti-Black.
 
Maybe Mr. Burfect chose to retract his endorsement, but these text messages indicate he was certainly considering it. And as this linked email shows, Ms. Wilson was in direct communications with Mr. Burfect and received his endorsement, as well as the final photo that was used in the public endorsement, directly from him.
 
I don’t know whether Mr. Buchanan or Ms. Mason were aware they were posting a lie. As the email shows, Ms. Wilson was being very circumspect in protecting Mr. Burfect’s reputation, to the point of being willing to sacrifice her own.
 
In the second instance, the Harrell campaign sent out a press release accusing Ms. Wilson’s campaign of “darkening” a photo of him in a campaign ad. When asked about the accusation during a September 27th debate sponsored by the South Seattle Emerald at the Royal Room in Columbia City, Wilson stated that her campaign had not created the ad and she had nothing further to say. Harrell responded that darkening his photo made him appear more threatening.
 
The next day, Charles Douglas, Executive Director of Common Power, the organization that actually posted the ad, issued this statement, which the Wilson campaign included in a press release:
 
“The claim that we ‘darkened’ Mayor Harrell’s photo is both offensive and untrue,” said Charles Douglas. “As a Black man leading an organization primarily run by people of color, I know firsthand the harm caused when racial tropes are weaponized in politics. To suggest that Common Power engaged in such tactics is a sensationalist smear that reeks of desperation from a mayor who has repeatedly contributed to inequality and hurt the very communities he now claims to represent.”
 
As a light-skinned Black woman, I can’t imagine ever making a statement saying that showing my skin as a slightly darker shade of honey would be seen as threatening. And in a region that has celebrated Norm Rice as Seattle’s mayor, Ron Sims as King County Executive, and Larry Gossett and Girmay Zahilay as King County Councilmembers, I would never have the audacity to insult them by comparing my privileged oppression to theirs. I was speechless.
 
Once again, at the South Seattle Emerald debate, Katie Wilson kept silent rather than point the finger at a Black man. That gets her points in my book.
 
It's bad enough dealing with lies and gaslighting at a Federal level, I don’t need it here at home. It’s tough enough being a Black woman in this Post Second Reconstruction era. Since I’m no longer living in Seattle, I don’t have to make a choice in this race. And I know how complicated it is for Black progressives who get continually burned by supporting non-Black progressive candidates who sling us under the bus at the first sign of contention. I can only be grateful there are good candidates, like Girmay Zahilay, who actually serve, to choose from in other races.
 
As for those in the Black community who have knowingly spread the lies, especially the ones who have held themselves up as paragons of faith and virtue, who stand before teary-eyes crowds of white people at fundraisers and present themselves as one of the good ones, we see you and who you really are. Opportunism disguised as purity eventually reveals itself for what it really is.
 
Finally, a plea to the universe: please make this the last time I have to write anything like this. Amen.

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