CLEVELAND, OH – For the nearly four years he’s served on Cleveland city council Basheer Jones has lived between South Euclid and Cleveland Heights. The $87,000 a year Cleveland taxpayers pay part-time councilmembers is good enough for Jones and his family; but not the taxpayers paying him. When asked by the host of Follow Suit if he was exposing his children the neighborhoods where he was raised, a fidgety Jones had these “slang” words to say about Cleveland and Clevelanders.
“If I have too much fear I won’t be in the jungle. I’ve got to be Tarzan. You’ve got to be able to speak the language of the apes and the language of the village.”
When the host continues his question about Jones’ children’s relationship with Ward 7 and Cleveland residents he was elected to serve he described them as “these people.” Jones appeared to have been thinking about the effect of his words and how they might be taken politically; so he tried to alter what he’d already said instead of answering the questions about his children’s interactions with his Cleveland constituents.
Jones offered that the “jungle” reference was a “description.” “Not that my community is animals,” he said. The host agreed that they were just talking “slang.” I was born in 1953 during segregation so the only people I know who called American Negroes “apes” and our neighborhoods “jungles” as slang were Anglo-Saxon and Eastern European racists.
Keeping up with his “rapper from the hood” personna, Jones told podcast host Perry Osbey he had to be in a different mindset in the Cleveland jungle when he entered it. He’s like the rapper Chris Rock played in CB4. Albert. He’s also “Clarence” in Eminem’s “8 Mile.” Jones “reps” as if he’s from the tough streets of the “the hood” while living and raising his family in the suburbs; and casting illegal votes that affects the people he steals from but chose not to live around. The truth is he’s afraid of the streets his vote on council has not been used to improve the quality of life.
Jones is the only member of Cleveland city council who has ever walked around the city with someone he calls his “security”; and a woman who holds an umbrella over his head when he’s outside and it’s raining. Dude gets 450 views on his rap videos and calls himself the “Martin Luther King of my generation.” He’s on a head trip and it shows.
Tarzan? B’wana? Master? He needs help while in jail as a non-Cleveland resident for theft in office, obstruction of official business by voting on council as a non-resident, forging the signature of a Cleveland official and a host of other offenses against public administration.
Instead of signing his petitions, civic-minded Ward 7 residents should have mass signed a warrant for his arrest pursuant to Section 2935.09 and 2935.10 of the Ohio Revised Code. Residents Jones didn’t live next door to at 1393 East 94th Street should feel disrespected and used for their complicit “I’m no snitch” silence about his lies and crimes.
Jones rewards them with the characterization that they are the apes in a village who are not good enough to know his family. Jones should have remained in South Euclid and campaigned against Mayor Georgine Welo; or in Cleveland Heights making history as that city’s first “Black” mayor.
The words Jones chose to deflect the podcast host’s question more than implied that he and his family had little or nothing to do with or in Cleveland around Ward 7’s residents. A source who knows the address of his 1670 South Belvoir Road former (or current) South Euclid residence observed Muslim-garbed youth putting Jones campaign signs for Cleveland mayor in a car from it on July 16th at about 1:30 p.m.
Jones’ reference to “Tarzan” seemed out of place for an American Negro. My generation saw both Tarzan and the author who created him, Egar Rice Burroughs, as a colonialist-minded white supremacist. One lone Caucasian running around the jungle in a loin cloth and swinging around on a vine from tree to tree yodeling. All while whole tribes of Negroes cowered in fear and called him “B’wana” for Master.
Hollywood hired a German-Romanian Jew from Austria-Hungary, Janos Peter Weismuller aka Johnny Weismuller, to play the character. In my East Saint Louis, Illinois household my Mother said “no” to Tarzan and the mutha fuckin’ “Three Stooges.” She called the shows ignorant and filth.
In Edgar Rice Burrough’s book Tarzan of the Apes there’s a description of Jones’ hero on page 116.
“The killer of beasts and many black men.” In The Return of Tarzan Burroughs describes Arabs as calling Christians “dogs.”
Jones had better learn about American Negro history instead of whatever he’s been learning on his many travels to the Middle East. He’s among the Democrats in Cleveland who have been characteristically-silent about Judge Ann Oakar’s bailiff, Deidre Mueller, describing East side Cleveland residents in front of bailiff Alicia Gray as “animals.” Republicans, not Democrats, put a candidate in the race against her. Judge Nathan J. Hudak. Judge Pinkie Carr spoke up
With such a fear and low regard for the Cleveland voters he’s asking for votes Jones’ ability to prevail in the primary election shrinks, daily, despite the polling show him at 3rd in name identity. It’s not just that one’s name is known. It’s “how” it’s known and for what it stands.
Basheer Jones. Tarzan. Bwana.
