Redemption

Critics say Dianne Wilkerson is trying to play the race card. She is, with a twist -- and it's likely to work.

by Yvonne Abraham

It is late afternoon on a recent Monday, and Caleb Desrosiers, a 26-year-old candidate for state Senate in the Second Suffolk District, is going door to door in the Hyde Square neighborhood of Jamaica Plain. One of the residents, a gregarious woman called Deryl, saw stories about Desrosiers in the paper and is introducing him to the neighbors to help him out. Most of the houses here are rambling and pretty, surrounded by midsummer blooms. Almost all are owner-occupied, mostly by white professional folks, although there are a few black and Latino families here too. Desrosiers, who seems shy around these people, hangs back from their front doors and lets his emissary do the talking.

"This is Caleb," Deryl tells a middle-aged white woman named Nancy, who seems annoyed at the intrusion. "He's running for state Senate." This elicits a blank stare until Deryl adds, "He's running against Dianne Wilkerson."

"Bingo!" Nancy says, breaking into a big smile. Though she may not follow politics too closely, Nancy knows that Wilkerson was nabbed late last year for not paying $52,000 in taxes, and then for violating the terms of her house arrest. "I think she should be out!"

If all the voters in the district felt the way Nancy does, then Desrosiers, a tall, bespectacled, clean-cut Haitian-American, would be sailing into the Senate. He's young, he's fresh-faced, and he's been around politics a long time for someone his age -- he worked on Suffolk DA Ralph Martin's reelection campaign, for Congressman Joe Moakley, and, most recently, as an aide to House Speaker Tom Finneran. That he is green as a candidate, unwilling or unable to sell himself aggressively the way a true retail politician does, is hardly relevant to people like Nancy. For her, Desrosiers's most important attribute is that he is not Dianne Wilkerson.

But the Second Suffolk extends far beyond the gaily painted wooden houses of Jamaica Plain: it also includes the thriving churches of Mattapan, Roxbury, and the South End, where Wilkerson's woes -- and her success at casting herself as a victim of the white establishment -- only strengthen her standing. Here, her defeat is no fait accompli.

"I think she got caught up in that political thing," says Rick Baxter, a tall, heavy-set black man in his 30s who lives on Columbus Avenue, in the South End. "Seems to me she's being treated unfairly. You gotta look at it with a grain of salt. She's not the only one [avoiding taxes], but she's black and a woman and I hear she's outspoken."

"I wonder how she allowed it to happen," says a young South End woman who worked on Wilkerson's campaign in 1992. "But we all make mistakes. If she'd been a white male, it wouldn't have [been such a big thing]."

Desrosiers has garnered inches and valentines from both major local dailies, which have cast him as the politically pure idealist to Wilkerson's jaded shyster. Wilkerson knows what it's like to be on the right side of that equation: in 1992, she was the idealistic, potential-filled innocent, and incumbent senator Bill Owens was the villain. But according to many political observers, this contest won't go to the unblemished newcomer. Wilkerson is still the favorite in this race (though she had just $3120.76 in her campaign account as of December 31), and if she wins the primary on September 15, it will not be in spite of her legal problems but because of them.

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Last September 29, the Charles Street AME church, in Roxbury, was jammed. The story of Wilkerson's failure to file taxes for four years had just broken, and ministers from all over the city -- members of the Black Ministerial Alliance -- had urged their parishioners to come out on this Monday night to show their support for the embattled senator. And come out they did: there was barely room to turn one's head in that church. Hundreds of people had shown up to tell Wilkerson they forgave her and supported her. Minister after minister, including even the Reverend Michael Haynes, the normally low-profile dean of the black religious community, gave fervent speeches in support of the senator, loaded with let-he-who-is-without-sin rhetoric and heavy with praise for Wilkerson's record as a "voice in the wilderness" on behalf of minority constituents.

"I know a lot of you are disappointed," Wilkerson told the crowd. "I apologize to you." Throughout her speech, the senator placed heavy emphasis on the word you, as if to say you and nobody else: "I'm determined to find a way to continue to do my job if you choose -- if you choose -- to continue to allow me that honor." That strategy allowed her to be humble before her supporters while remaining defiant and critical of the establishment, the true villain of the evening.

The air was thick that night with the belief that Wilkerson was being persecuted simply because she was black. And speeches were laced with pointed references to the Reverend Eugene Rivers, another prominent black minister who had broken ranks with the clergy present and criticized Wilkerson in the press. "Dirty linen should not be aired in public," said one minister.

In the weeks that followed, Wilkerson's problems came to be perceived even more emphatically as racial rather than financial. At a second church rally to support her, Harvard professor Cornel West reportedly said, "Any time there is a self-loving, self-respecting, and self-determining black man or woman, he or she is one of the most dangerous folks in America." Then, after her sentencing, Wilkerson finally explained that she'd been unable to afford her tax payments because a landmark judgment she'd won, to desegregate public housing in South Boston and Charlestown, had brought her death threats from Southie, and she'd had to pay for security. She declined to elaborate, and her story was greeted with skepticism by the larger political community (in fact, though she said she received the death threat on New Year's Day 1991, the first year she failed to pay taxes was 1989). But her neighbors and constituents rallied to her defense.

Wilkerson refused to talk to the press for months, granting an interview to the Globe only recently ("I guess . . . I should be mad at somebody," she told the paper). Ron Marlow, her chief of staff, says the press has otherwise been unfair to Wilkerson, and he's surprised that, given her unjust treatment, "she isn't more cynical than she is."

She refused to be interviewed for this story. Marlow said the senator was uncomfortable with the fact that the Phoenix had spent time with Desrosiers the day before contacting Wilkerson's Senate office. Marlow said the other papers had already made it clear they wanted Desrosiers to be the next senator, and that Wilkerson didn't want to be a part of articles that gave him -- or her own financial problems -- any more ink. Inexplicably, Marlow also refused to make available basic facts about Wilkerson's record as a senator, to discuss her accomplishments, or even to talk about issues for which she stands.

The implication was that if reporters wanted to write about Wilkerson with the senator's cooperation, they should do so on Wilkerson's own terms. It's a useful position for her to take. And it's certainly worked for other politicians whose animus against the media, and dogged focus on their perceived persecution, successfully deflected attention from their own weaknesses. Billy Bulger, Marion Barry, and even James Michael Curley -- twice elected from prison -- come to mind. As does the most recent model, former mayor and current congressional candidate Raymond Flynn. In the aftermath of the Globe's front-page hatchet job last fall, Flynn painted himself as a man more sinned against than sinning -- an Irish, working-class victim of lily-white, patrician editors who'll never understand what it is to hoist a few in brotherhood after a hard day's work.

The voters who will cast ballots for Wilkerson already know enough to make up their minds. "She's a very effective representative of the people in our district," says developer Kenneth Guscott. "She did an excellent job as chairman of the insurance commission, and on housing [issues], and she attends all the hearings and she's involved in the community."

Among her supporters, Wilkerson's legal work for the NAACP, and her success in desegregating public housing, go a long way. As a senator, she has been an outspoken (if sometimes unpredictable) advocate for her constituents, especially on housing and community development issues. She has insisted that tax breaks for insurance companies be tied to community investment. She tacked amendments onto the convention center bill to ensure hiring quotas for minorities and women. Successful or no, she has won a reputation for speaking her mind with little regard for the consequences. In 1994, she and fellow Democrat Lois Pines sided with then-

governor William Weld to defeat the Democrats' welfare-reform bill, holding out for a less regressive one. It was a move that struck many of her colleagues as spectacularly naive, but it cemented her image as the maverick crusader.

All of which makes her current incarnation -- as the strong black voice cut down by a white establishment because she was getting uppity -- even more convincing. Not to mention politically useful.

"It's a very complex situation," says Janis Pryor, who worked on Wilkerson's first campaign but quickly grew disillusioned with the senator. "She shouldn't be rewarded for breaking the law by being reelected, but it doesn't work that way in the real world. You have to examine the culture of the black church and the history of the black community. Many of our leaders have been targeted for abuse and persecution. If they could do it to Martin Luther King, you know they can do it to lesser people. Are there black elected officials who have been accused of things and done them? Sure. But as a people we always have to consider the possibility that they were set up."

"But good God!" Pryor finally says. "In Dianne Wilkerson's case, the facts are there!"

Hardly relevant, says James Jennings, professor of political science at the Trotter Institute at UMass: as long as some black voters perceive a racial dimension to the matter, they'll support their candidate even if the facts are there. "Whenever a black voter perceives an unfair attack on one of their elected officials, it motivates people to come out and make a statement," Jennings says. He cites the example of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., the black congressman who in 1967 was accused of misusing funds, contempt of court, and conduct unbecoming a member of the House, yet was reelected overwhelmingly in a special election later that year and again in 1968. Then there's DC mayor Marion Barry, also black, who was reelected even though, while in office, he was caught on videotape smoking crack cocaine. Wilkerson's crimes are tame by comparison.

"It very well could be that the attention the media has been throwing on this issue could work to Wilkerson's advantage," Jennings says. "The black community periodically lets the powers that be know that they're independent and self-determining people. When black voters see the mainstream media picking on a black elected official, they see it as an attack on the whole community."

That may be underestimating Wilkerson's constituents, other observers say. "There is a segment of voters in Dianne Wilkerson's district who will believe she's being persecuted because she's black, and will vote for her because of it," says Kevin Peterson, who is helping to run city councilor Tom Keane's current congressional campaign in minority neighborhoods. "But they only represent a minority of [the] voters [who support her]. Most will say she's done a good job."

Wilkerson doesn't need that many votes to win in September. Turnout in the almost completely minority district is low: just 10,000 voters go to the polls on primary day. A sympathy turnout would probably be enough to keep her in the State House, if her supporters show up at the polls the way they did last year in the churches.

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So what's a Wilkerson opponent to do?

"It would be political suicide for anyone to try to take Dianne on the tax issue," says Kevin Peterson. Another Democratic contender, attorney Arthur Williams, who has contested for the seat twice before, says he tries to avoid Wilkerson's personal finances completely. "We're not bringing it up," he says. Instead, Williams talks about Wilkerson's legislative failures and charges that she hasn't delivered insurance-rate breaks to her constituents.

Desrosiers says he never raises Wilkerson's tax transgressions intentionally, but then again, he doesn't have to. "The tax thing is there for the taking," he says. "People are well informed." But when Wilkerson's finances do come up, Desrosiers argues against the race-discrimination rhetoric. "I tell them she didn't even file before she got elected," he says. "And she's an attorney who went to one of the best schools in the country. [I tell them] that they won't have the same opportunity [for leniency] if they don't file their taxes."

He's more forthcoming with his view that Wilkerson's indiscretions have lowered the standing of the Second Suffolk's Senate seat. "Whoever succeeds her will have trouble convincing people we can play on the straight and narrow," he says. "That's going to be 10 times harder now."

Desrosiers is clearly not of the school that says the black community's dirty laundry should not be aired in public. He accuses Wilkerson of playing the race card. "We need to stop crying race all the time," he says. "If we keep playing it, people will never believe us. [Former House Speaker Charlie] Flaherty went through it [accusations of misconduct]. Even our president, and they're white people." Sometimes, Desrosiers sounds a lot like Eugene Rivers, who, for all his initial bluster over Wilkerson, is taking a much lower profile -- and a more conciliatory stance -- these days. That does not augur well for the young senatorial hopeful.

Desrosiers says he's taken some heat from the black establishment for his positions, and for opposing Wilkerson at all. "I didn't go through their litmus test," he says. "I tell the Black Ministerial Alliance, you can't call for young people to get involved and then not hear us out. Church and state should be close, but in terms of campaigns, they shouldn't be involved. I was cultivated by a broad range of people. I don't live in a vacuum, and nobody should."

Desrosiers is visiting some churches himself, but he's not banking on drawing their support away from Wilkerson. "I have to go straight to the voters," he says.

Thing is, Wilkerson seems to have gotten to them first.

Yvonne Abraham can be reached at yabraham@phx.com.