DVD: Street Fight
Marshall Currys Street Fight, about the controversial 2002 Newark mayoral race between two very different Democrats, is a terse, raw gem of a political documentaryas scrappy and no-nonsense as its title suggests. The film also sets up the requisite binary opposition that drives most classic dramas: a clear-cut underdog vs. top-dog conflict. The challenger in the race is squeaky-clean, 32-year-old Yale Law grad Cory Booker who was born in upscale N.J. suburbs but now resides in Brick Towers, the low-income Newark housing project. The incumbent is 66-year-old Sharpe James, a former Newark street kid, who was elected mayor in 1986. By 2002, James had become the archetypal Rolls-driving, yacht-owning, strip-club-haunting fat cat, with the ethics of an Atlantic City street pimp.
The opening minutes of the film record the shaky beginnings of Bookers almost naively altruistic campaign, as he solicits votes door-to-door in a Newark housing project. Here, too, is where you first witness James shameless intimidation tactics: High-ranking cops confront Bookers team and order them off the premises. Of course, this is a neglected neighborhood whose police presence is usually nilan irony not lost on Booker.
Turns out James regularly uses the Newark police as his personal goon-squad, serving his every sub-Maoist whim: mobilizing officers for petty assignments like removing pro-Booker posters and roughing up Currys camera. James uses some familiar Rove-like tactics, too. He not only feminizes Booker by calling him a faggot, but also plays on intra-racial prejudicesspreading rumors that Booker, a light-skinned African American, was actually a white Republican and might even be Jewish. One of Currys gotcha moments, however, happens in a late scene where the mayor declares a certain busload of pro-James canvassers to be an all-volunteer force from Newark; upon further inspection, these volunteers are actually paid employees, shipped in from Philly.
Street Fight serves as another sobering reminder of just how fragile American-style democracy can still be. More importantly, Curry spotlights the two Newarks that began emerging during Sharpe James tenure, mirroring the dubious Bloomberg renaissance: Like NYC, Newark saw low-income housing being replaced with exclusive residences serving the upper-middle classdevelopments that Booker refers to as symbols of a renaissance, not the substance of a renaissance.