Signs attacking Lewiston mayoral candidate Ben Chin with a racist Asian caricature and communist imagery have appeared on at least two buildings in downtown Lewiston. It’s not clear who installed the signs as they don’t include any legal disclaimers, but both buildings are owned and managed by backers of incumbent Mayor Bob Macdonald. “The future of Lewiston is too important to be sidetracked by filth like this. Macdonald’s friends can plaster racist caricatures over every building in town; it will only make me fight harder to bring people together to revitalize Lewiston and improve our city’s reputation,” said Chin, who faces Macdonald an three other candidates in the election on November 3rd. The signs, which refer to Ben as “Ho Chi Chin,” are the latest in a series of racially-tinged attacks on Chin. Last week, the Maine Republican party launched a Tumblr blog and Facebook page with a photo of Chin superimposed over an unrelated photograph of black demonstrators and fires set during a conflict with police in Oakland, California.
If you ever doubt what today’s GOP is really about, all one need do is to observe what’s happening in Lewiston, ME. It’s a story of one man trying to make a difference by running against the status quo that is the Consersative White power structure controlling Lewiston. As often happens when entrenched interests feel threatened, especially when money’s involved, things can get ugly. In this case it’s a story of a mayor who’s been in power long enough to forget who he works for. He’s a man of the people when he needs their votes to keep his job, but any other time he can be found serving the interests of the rich and powerful.
Ben Chin wants to shake things up and make Lewiston a town that works for those who live there, not just for the wealthy who control the levers of power. He’s clearly a threat to Mayor Macdonald and his wealthy friends, because they’ve decided that playing the race card is a GREAT way to showcase their belief that White Makes Right the way things are currently is the way things should be ad infinitum.
If you can’t beat ‘em on the issues, getting personal is about you have left.
According to documents filed with the Androscoggin County Registry of Deeds, both of the buildings where the signs have appeared are owned and operated by Normand and Constance Rousseau and Joseph Dunne. Normand Rousseau is a former City Councilor and one of Mayor Macdonald’s largest donors in his 2011 and 2013 races. Dunne is a property manager with a long list of shell corporations and one of the worst histories of code violations and tenant abuses in Lewiston. Last month, Macdonald defended Dunne in a newspaper column, calling him “a big-hearted landlord.”
Throughout his campaign so far, Chin has referred to Dunne and a small group of other problematic property owners as “corporate slumlords” who “use legal and financial structures to shield them from liability, taxes and, apparently, moral decency.”
Chin’s campaign platform includes plans to crack down on the abuses of corporate slumlords and encourage owner-occupied properties in Lewiston’s downtown.
When one has nothing positive to offer and nothing to sell that says you want to make your corner of the world a better place, cheap personal insults are often a good place to start. Ridicule your opponent for being different, for looking “unAmerican,” thinking in ways different from accepted mainstream groupthink, or even for having a “foreign-sounding” surname, and Macdonald’s campaign is about what you could expect.
I know nothing of Ben Chin other than he’s someone who’s decided the status quo in Lewiston no longer works. He believes the city needs change and he’s willing to offer himself as an alternative, an agent of the change he believes is needed to move Lewiston forward. That he’s running clearly presents a threat to the established (White and Conservative) order, who probably think they stand to be hurt financially should new leadership be installed in City Hall.
If Mayor Macdonald was willing to engage Chin on the issues, this would be just another municipal election of interest to no one outside Lewiston. That Macdonald and his supporters almost immediately defaulted to racism and cheap racial stereotypes is very much in step with today’s Republican Party, who’ve spent almost seven years using cheap, offensive racial attacks against The Black Man in the White House ©. All they’ve really done is demonstrate just how thoroughly morally bankrupt they are and how little they have to offer.
We may be talking about a municipal election in small-town Maine, but it’s symbolic of the revival of racism as a Republican campaign strategy. Those of us outside Lewiston may not be able to vote, but we can send a few bucks Chin’s way to support an American citizen with a positive message. It may not seem like much, but it’s a step towards a more inclusive and accepting America and away from the racism and self-interest of Bob Macdonald and his supporters.
