Still looking out for No. 1 in the 10th

IN THE 1990S, I lived on Olympic Boulevard, a kind of Mason-Dixon line that divides Los Angeles into the promising north and the more dubious south. On my stretch of the boulevard, in midcity, Olympic separated the nascent gentrification of the new Hollywood from the increasingly strained gentility of midtown and the Crenshaw district.

My representative on the City Council then was Nate Holden, known chiefly for his public gaffes, his questionable ethics and his support for development projects of uncertain merit. Now the district has a new representative, Herb Wesson, the former Assembly speaker who was termed out of the state Senate and needed a new job. Wesson, known as a coalition builder, has none of the rough edges or impolitic leanings that Holden was infamous for. But he could in many ways be worse.

Wesson is a product of an electoral machine that has operated with frightening efficiency in the black political set for a decade or so, ever since its members began realizing that their numbers and influence are in decline. Their response to the long-coming crisis has been to keep the old guard employed for as long as possible -- at least until everybody hits retirement age.

It may not be a winning strategy for their constituency, but it works fine for the city’s black political elite. So it barely raised eyebrows when Wesson put up his shingle in the 10th District last year, warded off potential rivals by plunking down a war chest amassed over past campaigns, then coasted through an election in which he was essentially the only candidate on the ballot.

Money and familiarity are the mother’s milk of politics, I know. But in black circles that milk has curdled into something almost poisonous, a noxious potion that stifles initiative, debate and new ideas.

Consider the case of Holden. His years in office were marked by his mutually beneficial relationship with business owners and developers in Koreatown. It’s a common enough dynamic in local politics, but it grated on me because it only served to magnify the absence of any such dynamic in other parts of the district that were significantly black.

And here was Holden, always controversial but nonetheless integral to the 10th District’s legacy of cultivating African American politicians, doing painfully little for his African American constituents by comparison. Certainly the black community didn’t have a population of business owners or the financial momentum to match Koreatown’s. But that was even more reason to pay attention to what it needed, especially after ’92.

I no longer live in the 10th District. But I still visit, and its less fortunate parts look and feel much the same as they did a decade ago, soaring real estate prices notwithstanding. I realize Wesson has only been on the council for a few weeks, but I find it hard to believe that he will bring about any more substantial improvements during his tenure than Holden did in his.

Part of the problem is that members of the shrinking black political class are beholden to fellow politicians who supported or once employed them. (In Wesson’s case, that includes Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and former Assembly speaker and mayoral candidate Bob Hertzberg.) They have more loyalty to this band of comrades than to the community they’re elected to serve -- the community they continue to extol so passionately in speeches.

So among black politicians, a great divide has opened up between the lofty ideals they claim to honor (God, country, Martin Luther King Jr.) and the more pragmatic concerns they actually worry about (campaign contributions, self-preservation, political horse-trading). This gap is widening among all politicians, of course, but in the black community it is growing faster because there is no hell to pay for it.

Meanwhile, black politicians get no points for touting “black” interests, which have expanded since the 1960s and include racial profiling, gang violence, public education and job creation.

The paradox is that in this so-called age of diversity, we are ever more reluctant to highlight racial differences, especially black differences, and politicians like Wesson are rarely called to account. After all, if he is more willing to help Koreatown than Crenshaw, he’s simply practicing diversity, right? Expanding our political horizons and all that.

Wesson is not malicious or unethical. It’s just that he’s Not Enough, and Not Enough has evolved into a transgression all by itself, a corruption of heart and will. These are extraordinary times for African Americans. They call for people with a vision that reaches beyond their next campaign, whether it’s for reelection or the next office they think they can win.

Speaking of which, conventional wisdom has it that Wesson is biding his time until he can run for the county supervisor seat Burke will probably vacate in the next election. This could be good news -- visionaries in the 10th District, get ready. Dust off your shingle. Your moment may finally be coming.