Photo: Aurelia Ventura / Courtesy
By: agustin.duran@Real America News.com Posted Aug 31, 2023, 20:28 pm EDT
A jury in Los Angeles sentenced Mark Ridley-Thomas, a former African-American councilman, former supervisor, former assemblyman and former California senator, on seven felony counts: bribery, conspiracy, four counts of wire fraud and one count of mail fraud, in a scheme that obtained benefits from USC for himself and his son while he was a supervisor in Los Angeles County.
However, the African-American community, in general, did not stop supporting him until the end. Even when he was found guilty, many people he worked with for more than three decades, including family and colleagues, did not believe that the official was responsible for all the charges against him. In fact, they think Thomas is innocent.
Especially since the former South Los Angeles official has never admitted guilt and has repeatedly said what he did was possibly wrong, but never crossed the red line into illegality.
Thomas supporters have accused prosecutors and the FBI of dishonesty; In addition, during his trial, racism against African-Americans was suggested as the reason for the case, but everything was useless. Last Monday, Federal Judge Dale S. Fischer sentenced Mark Ridley-Thomas to 42 months in prison, a $30,000 fine, and three years of probation.
That day, more than 100 people were present in court to hear the sentence, and according to some columns and newspaper reports, most of the people were sad and many even cried when they heard the final verdict.
In the judge’s room there were various personalities, such as the intellectual Cornel West, who called the official a “life brother” and described him as “one of the great public servants in the history of the state.”
Sheila Kuehl, a former Los Angeles supervisor, described Thomas as “a good and honorable man,” while Jackie Goldberg, president of the Los Angeles school district, called the official a “social justice warrior.”
Throughout the criminal case there was such support from the community and his colleagues, that they raised up to $1.5 million in a fund for his defense; press conferences were held demanding that he be released, and pastors from several churches prayed for the former supervisor.
Unfortunately, this type of support is not replicated within the Latino community. Gil Cedillo lived it firsthand.
Cedillo was an official who fought for the Latino community for almost three decades and to whom the driver’s licenses of the undocumented in California are largely owed; He was also the author of the Dream Act that allows students without documents to access public and private financing to be able to continue with their university studies, among many other achievements.
However, his being present at a racist-toned conversation, and his inaction at the time, was enough for some members of the community and some of his colleagues to want to remove him immediately, and then dump his legacy in the city dumpster. history.
At the end of 2022, in the last months of Cedillo’s political career, many of his colleagues did not want to be seen talking to him or taking pictures with him who at one time was also an activist, senator, assemblyman and a true leader for the community. latina. He was now simply branded as a racist who should be punished, as if he had been the person who made the inappropriate comments, but he did nothing to stop them, many argued.
I wish we were like African-Americans and, before condemning, see the entire context of the official, not to ignore what he did, but to repair the damage in the appropriate dimension, but without throwing away a career and an example for many.
As a community we need political maturity that allows us to form our own judgments and take action, without being tied down by the media or external interests, which on many occasions simply want to obtain political benefit from any unfortunate situation.
I am sure that if the Latino community were more united and, like African-Americans, we showed our solidarity with knowledge of cause until the end, we would be stronger and we would advance faster for the benefit of all.
Agustín Durán is editor of the Metro section of La Opinión