When Mayor Cherelle Parker announced that she would stop setting aside a percentage of city contracts for minority and women-owned businesses, she showed that she’s probably never been bullied in her life.
I’m going to start this piece on the latest contretemps between Mayor Cherelle Parker and the traditionally marginalized communities that feel she hasn’t spoken out forcefully enough on their behalf with the following term: anticipatory obedience.
Now, anticipatory obedience is, simply put, obeying in advance. In his book “On Tyranny”, historian Timothy Snyder tells us that in authoritarian times like, well, now, people try to anticipate what those who wish to repress them will want in advance, and it gives them that thing.
Sometime today, Mayor Parker is expected to elaborate on her announcement that the city would no longer try to provide 35% of the city’s contracts to businesses owned by women or people of color.
Apparently, this was brought on by a lawsuit the city settled with America First Legal. From what I understand, America First Legal is a group of lawyers that actually believes in reverse racism, a concept so ludicrous that is shows that those who believe it’s existence have never learned that racism, sexism, and all of the other “isms” are based on power. And guess who has that?
In other words, the city decided to obey rather than fight. The Parker Administration’s law department seems to be big on that. Just ask the businessowners that can no longer exempt the first $100,000 they make because the administration didn’t want to fight a lawsuit filed against the B.I.R.T on their behalf.
(Oh, I forgot. There is one group of people the Parker Administration’s law department had no problem fighting: City Workers. If you’re union workers seeking a living wage or hybrid working conditions, the law department had no problem taking you to court. City Solicitor Renee Garcia was an injunction machine during the DC33 strike.)
At a time when Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs are being seen as the boogeyman because the American people decided once again to put a unrepentant racist in the nation’s highest office, this bit of news went over like a lead balloon. Except among her partisans, who believe she’s being practical.
That said, I can’t help but wonder how much of City Hall would have been set on fire by now if the person making this decision were former Mayor Jim Kenney and not the first Black woman to hold the office.
Independent journalist Ernest Owens reached out to the Parker Administration and reported via social media that staying off of the Trump Administration’s radar had nothing to do with this.
But when you consider the lack of support that immigrant communities have gotten from Parker when it comes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity and the fact that she won’t even entertain questions regarding the possibility of the Trump Administration sending National Guard troops into the city because it gets its marching orders from folks who believe that District Attorney Larry Krasner is a George Soros plant, it becomes another example to some of her willingness to practice anticipatory obedience.
But that’s the thing about anticipatory obedience. It rarely, if ever, has the desired effect.
That’s because obedience is exactly what the bully wants. Bullies like it when you cave because it shows you’re scared of them. Going after people who will give you a two-piece if you bully them isn’t as much fun as doing it to people who will look for a corner to hide in.
(Editor’s Note: While you can get a two-piece at Popeye’s, the two-piece I’m referencing here involves punching someone in the gut, followed by a punch to the face. I’ve taught more than a few people the importance of picking on someone your own size through a two-piece. Just saying.)
Now if you followed the mayoral primary in 2023, none of this really surprises you. Parker isn’t from a part of the city where fighters are born. The Northwest section of the city is a lot more Booker T. Washington than it is W.E.B. DuBois, even though if you looked up “Talented Tenth” in the dictionary, you’d probably see West Oak Lane.
But, to quote Snyder, “A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do.”
Too bad that the citizens of Philadelphia didn’t sign on for that.
I’m anxious to hear what the Mayor has to say.
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