The idea is that whites are being oppressed, much as Southern blacks were warned away from polling places by Klansmen and violent cops in the pre-civil rights era. But this Philadelphia neighborhood is almost entirely black, and no white voters - or, for that matter, any voters - complained of intimidation. On the grounds that voter intimidation requires at least one intimidated voter, I walked the fourth precinct in search of a victim.
Angel Rivera, 49, and a friend were enjoying a cold beer on a shaded bench around the corner from the Guild House. Rivera had just finished 10 years behind bars and was exploring his old stomping grounds.
"The neighborhood's more relaxed - no more gangbanging," he said, recalling the bleak public housing that once stood nearby. Over the past 15 years, it was remade into a federally subsidized community dubbed West Poplar Nehemiah: single-family, owner-occupied homes for working-class Philadelphians. The nearby Cambridge Plaza and Richard Allen Homes - where Bill Cosby grew up and set Fat Albert - underwent similar transformations.
Neither Rivera nor the guys from the homeless shelter at Broad and Ridge had heard of any black-power thugs striking fear in the neighborhood. Rather, they kept bringing up teen pregnancy and bad schools. So I moved on, still searching for black racism and an intimidated voter.
A block away, I found Carmen Candelaria, 42, getting out of her car. She reported no trouble exercising her franchise in the last election. And Candelaria - unlike millions of Fox News viewers nationwide - has somehow never heard of the New Black Panthers terrorizing her neighborhood.
