The masquerade is over for Lenora Fulani

By Frank Chapman, People's Weekly World, 1 November 1997

In their latest full-page ad in the Amsterdam News, the so-called Independence Party is telling African American voters to vote "yes" on the Constitutional Convention. In previous ads they told African Americans not to vote or to vote Republican.

The Independence Party is merely a see-through dress for the New Alliance Party (NAP). In 1992 Dr. Lenora Fulani, who has repeatedly blasted Rev. Al Sharpton for supporting Democratic Party mayoral candidate Ruth Messinger, was a presidential candidate in the New Hampshire Democratic primary.

The expenditure for the campaign amounted to $142,162; nonetheless she dropped out of all the subsequent primaries in order to continue to get federal matching funds as a third party candidate. This so-called "vanguard of the left" received $1,033,000 in federal matching funds!

Of course Fulani, in her attack on Rev. Sharpton, failed to point out how once they shared the same address with Fred Newman, the racist, reactionary "cult" leader of NAP, and were both stalking horses for right-wing Republicans.

But the real point of the Independence Party's attack on Rev. Sharpton and the Democratic Party is not a falling out of old friends but rather to push African American voters into hostile camps.

A sure sign of political stupidity is to make distinctions where there is no difference. So Fulani tells African Americans through her paid ads that no matter what, don't vote Democrat, and if you just have to vote, then vote Republican and vote "yes" for the Constitutional Convention.

Both positions are hostile to the political, social and economic interests of African Americans. This has been Fulani's and her party's strategy going back to the presidential elections of 1988 - under the guise of attacking the "two party" system, defeat the Democrats!

Of course, this plays squarely into the hands of right-wing Republicans and, as a result, those who suffer are the working class and oppressed people of color, not the Democratic Party.

Such is, and always has been, the political style of the New Alliance Party, which now masquerades as the Independence Party.

They do counter-progressive "botch work" for the ultra-right, attacking civil rights organizations, the trade union movement and African American leaders.

In Harlem they sling dollars, openly hustle the mentally disturbed, pad the pockets of opportunists and mastermind political hoaxes. In other words, any and all things necessary to acting out their role as the Trojan horse of reaction.