Since I hold HDP Chief Clarence C.O. Bradford in the highest esteem a man can hold another man, it pains me to analyze the news accounts that have already done what his adversaries intended to do - besmirch his character and greatly lessen his chances of seeking higher political positions in the near future. However, I’m much more concerned about the intrinsic damage that has been done to Bradford’s status as a positive role model for our young people who we constantly exhort to be the best they can be.

When an absolutely peerless African-American male like Chief Bradford is reduced to the status of being “just another nigger,” it sends a powerful and very negative message to every young Black man (struggling to do the right thing, so that they can dig themselves out of the muck and mire of racism that relegated their parents to be denizens in America’s urban jungles), that it’s hopeless to keep hope alive. After suffering through a trumped up trial (that the prosecutors even called ridiculous) and watching how the devious system will lie, plot and scheme to put an arrogant, 65-year- old African warrior back in his place, I’m not about to take for granted that Bradford can’t possibly be convicted, when he goes to tried on Jan. 21, 2003.

You can be sure, Bradford, who is not only the top executive of the top law enforcement agency in the fourth largest city in America, but a lawyer himself—isn’t taking his innocence for granted. However, even when “Justice prevails,” as we’ve heard African-Americans who have been victimized by our double-standard judicial system, but wasn’t proven guilty because they weren’t poor. Then again, they often are broke financially and spiritually, even when they beat the rap, after taking that torturous ride one can find themselves taking, in spite of their innocence, no matter how frivolous the charges might be.

The political insight I’ve gained, since I’ve been forced to peruse news in the mainstream media in such minute deal, tells me that Bradford was the victim of his own brilliance. When a Black man is as faultless and honorable as Bradford has proven to be, his adversaries jump at any chance to bring him down, no matter how nitpicking it might be. And nitpicking is just what the charges against Bradford are and I doubt if any trial lawyer in America would disagree with me. However, when you look a little deeper at Bradford’s case, you realize that it could well be a political move.

Dirty tricks politics notwithstanding, but, perhaps Rep. Sylvester Turner has impressed upon far too many of Houston’s racist, powerbrokers and political kingpins, that 2003 is definitely “Turner Time.” If so, the perjury fiasco has to lessen Bradford’s benefit to Turner’s campaign and does irrefutable damage to any thoughts of him running for mayor after Turner’s time is term- limited. There is no way “all of Houston,” wants to see 18 consecutive years of Black mayors, who could very well also appoint Black police chiefs. Just a thought. But think about it, when you think about how politics are played in the land of the free.