What You See Is What You Get

A Detroit school board president who can barely write stepped down after "pleasuring himself" in front of the school superintendent a few days ago.

After submitting his resignation Thursday, Mathis sent a letter to colleagues Friday saying he wants to stay on the board and blaming "ongoing health problems" for his "poor judgment."

The letter came the same day The Detroit News published online a two-page complaint from Superintendent Teresa Gueyser that accused Mathis of touching himself during a private meeting this week. She called it his "usual habit" and wrote she's documented his "inappropriate behavior for months."

Meanwhile, an ordained minister who also sits on the board — a man who lost custody of his own children following allegations of abuse, neglect and domestic violence — thinks Mathis should be given another chance.

But he has the support of at least one member, Reverend David Murray, who said the 55-year-old shouldn't quit."I don't think Mr. Mathis meant any harm to Teresa Gueyser," Murray said. "It happens to a lot of young men. They engage in behavior they feel is harmless, and it's offensive to certain people."

Still, this isn't really about Mathis' indiscretions or Murray's ongoing cluelessness. Not really. It's about democracy in Detroit -- and why too many of us deserve exactly the sort of idiots who are running our city into the ground.

See, this is the government you get when you vote for someone only because you've seen him or her on TV before, not because you know/care about his or her policies. This is the government you get when you let your pastor tell you which levers to push in the voting booth, rather than think for yourself. This is the government you get when you are more concerned with how much of a "Christian" a candidate makes himself out to be than with his personal history. This is the government you get when you're more concerned with keeping "yalls boys" employed, with helping them save face, rather than holding them responsible.

Of course I want better for our city. And we sure do need better than the multi-ring circus that continues to be local and regional politics around here. (There are plenty of Mathis-like doozies infesting politics  from Detroit to Lansing straight up through the Upper Peninsula.) Further, I recognize that there are some good folks in office here, both on the school board and elsewhere.

But they're too few, too far between. Far more good candidates have come and gone without the majority of Detroit voters giving them so much as a second glance. Meanwhile,  jerry-rigged local "political machines" and poorly informed voters continue to turn over the keys to the city's institutions to kooks, crooks and boobs. It's gotten so frustrating over the years that many people who would make fine mayors or council people have thrown up their hands and refused to run, unwilling to inject themselves into the foolishness we call local politics.

For instance, even now, on that same school board where Mathis sat and Murray still does, we've got two open seats. But nobody's stepping up to fill them, figuring they either won't make any difference since the board has been trumped by an emergency financial manager or they won't be able to cut through the idiocy and ass-backward ambition driving some others on the board.

(Meanwhile, places like Minnesota openly embrace brilliant political minds like Keith Ellison, a Detroit native who now serves that state as the first Muslim elected to Congress)

Fact is, this city doesn't make enough room for real intellectuals in our politics, doesn't embrace the conscientious thinkers who might actually do us some good. Hell, too many of us don't care that the school board president could barely write a sentence. We're too busy listening for the didactic speechifying, the pinstriped grandstanding, the sounds of star power. We want people who look and sound good, who make us "feel" better, even if they can't fix squat.

Too many of us Detroiters love to admire the folks who cut such handsome figures in their suits -- but it's not until it's too late that we notice just how empty they are.