“Listen up, I have a plan! We shall build up a city in our image and in our likeness. We want a white utopia where all the streets are paved with white gold! All the government buildings are painted white, all the new affordable housing is painted white – we even want the roughest projects to be painted white! We want all white everything! But, the problem is that there are many indigenous Negroes and Latinos that still live here. This is a big problem. Many of us just got here, and they aren’t going to give up power or the land very easily. Oh, what are we to do? First we send in our best N***@ Whisperers to seek out weak minded People of Color (POC) to bring them in as our ‘allies’. We will gas them up, make them feel good about themselves, but most of them will be offered nothing. The power, ALL OF IT to build Our City must remain in our hands, ALWAYS! If we finesse my plan the white way, my white sisters, brothers, and others – this will be OUR CITY!!”

 

Lol! We told you about Harper Bishop, a Deputy Director of ‘Movement Building’ or Movement Destroying at PUSH Buffalo, and who wears many other hats. We spoke briefly about his ambitions since moving into Buffalo from East Aurora NY for political power, and how they’d ruthlessly do almost anything and would sell anyone out to get it. We also spoke briefly about something called Our City Builds. One hat or hood Bishop wears is that of a main organizer for this political coalition designed to be a conduit (or front) for building a new generation of white power in the city of Buffalo.

 

STOP THE BLACK, BUILD THE NEW!!

 

According to Our City; “OUR CITY believes in building a multi-racial, multi-generational, intersectional movement for justice and equity.” One of Our City Builds biggest slogans is “Stop the Bad, Build the New”. It should be “Stop the Black, Build the New!” All they are is another cog in the Buffalo non-profit industrial complex machine holding up the development and forward mobility of Buffalo’s current and next generation of POC movement community. They, like many other fake groups and coalitions, are wasting Black and Brown peoples’ time by trying to advance issues and policies that quite frankly many POC in Buffalo don’t care about. They don’t care because these issues (and even the way they are framed by Our City) aren’t connected to their current state of living.

 

Is OUR City just another front for the White Political Machine? Who Runs It? Who Funds It?

 

Many of the white people organizing Our City and similar organizations aren’t from Buffalo and/or haven’t done any meaningful or deep outreach into Buffalo’s Black and Brown communities. This may be because they are scared of Black and Latino people. They rely mostly on ‘whispering’ in a couple POC’s ear who they can use as ‘allies’ or liaisons to these other communities to help them ‘build’ the city that they want. Not the city that the people living in Buffalo’s disadvantaged communities want. Our City and others connected to them are focused on getting the ‘right’ or the ‘white’ people elected so that they and their friends can latch onto political and financial power. In fact, a more gentrified Buffalo would actually be advantageous for them achieving that goal. Less Black and Brown people living in the city who wouldn’t vote for their backed candidates anyways replaced by a newer, whiter, and therefore more cooperative electorate would be preferable to them. They have tried their hand so far to enter Buffalo politics, but it has mostly been a failure.

 

So who are they really whispering for? Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz!? New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo? Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner? If it’s OUR CITY does that include you? Or is it Just about them and their agenda?

 

Our City Builds thought they had the juice to take out the entire Buffalo City Council in the last election of which most of the members are Black or Brown. It didn’t work! It was an epic failure. Bishop, like Our City, doesn’t know how to win. They don’t have the street or neighborhood power. They have zero street credibility. Nobody knows who they are in the Black or Latino communities in Buffalo. They don’t care! Looking at one of their last Zoom meetings for some type of ‘political education’ you can clearly see why. We’ll get more into them and other whack ass organizations in Buffalo as we move forward. But, before we go, if you are a Black, a Brown, or even a white person reading this: If you get contacted by or come across anyone from Our City Builds, RUN!! Ignore them like the plague, they’re wasting your time.