"Street Fight," y'all! "Street Fight!"

I watched an incredible documentary last night called "Street Fight."

STREET FIGHT chronicles the bare-knuckles race for Mayor of Newark, NJ between Cory Booker, a 32-year old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law School grad, and Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent and undisputed champion of New Jersey politics.

Fought in Newark's neighborhoods and housing projects, the battle pits Booker against an old-style political machine that uses any means necessary to crush its opponents: city workers who do not support the mayor are demoted; "disloyal" businesses are targeted by code enforcement; a campaigner is detained and accused of terrorism; and disks of voter data are burglarized in the night.

Even the filmmaker is dragged into the slugfest, and by election day, the climate becomes so heated that the Federal government is forced to send in observers to watch for cheating and violence.

The battle sheds light on important American questions about democracy, power and -- in a surprising twist -- race. Both Booker and James are African-American Democrats, but when the mayor accuses the Ivy League educated Booker of not being "really black" it forces voters to examine how we define race in this country. "We tell our children to get educated," one Newarker says, "and when they do, we call them white. What kind of a message does that send?"

STREET FIGHT tells a gripping story of the underbelly of democracy where elections are not about spin-doctors, media consultants, or photo ops. In Newark, we discover, elections are won and lost in the streets.

For me, this movie was yet another wake up call (as if there weren't enough) to the sad state of American politics where substance is mostly irrelevant in the face of style and volume, where truth is expendable, and where respect between candidates is quickly abandoned in the interest of "winning." Not only that but the issues of race brought up by the campaign are equally, if not even more, disturbing than the political elements. A Black man in the office of Mayor telling another successful Black man that he is not Black at all, that "You have to learn to be an African-American and we don't have time to train you"? That was one of the more mild indictments made, on the record, by Mayor Sharpe James. Really bodes well, doesn't it? "Idiocracy" was another movie I saw recently and while it was not very good, after watching "Street Fight," it's central theme has never felt more true, that America is getting dumber and dumberer by the day. If you're looking for another reason to give up all hope for American politics and America's intellectual future as a whole, then "Street Fight" is the movie for you!

P.S. In the fridge here at work, they have fat-free half and half. How the hell do you make cream fat-free?