Council Member Paints a Frank Portrait of Prince George's

At a recent civic association meeting in Fort Washington, our representative on the Prince George's County Council, Tony Knotts, dropped by to conduct what amounted to a remedial course in grass-roots politics. It was the kind of primer that you might give to a high school civics class -- which was perfect, given our political IQ.

"I need you all to show up for County Council meetings," said Knotts, a Democrat whose district covers much of southern Prince George's. "Too often, when I am advocating on your behalf, I look out across the council chamber, and no one is there."

Here we were on the eve of some of the most exciting midterm elections in recent memory -- with our own race for U.S. Senate among the most closely watched in the nation -- and we were being reprimanded, in effect, for not knowing the most basic part of how the game is played.

"If you want to know how places like Fairfax County get more services and amenities than Prince George's, it's because they have more civic participation, more residents participating in government," Knotts said.

"We have a tendency to vote politicians into office and then forget about them until the next election," he said. (That's assuming we bothered to vote. Only about 30 percent of the county's eligible voters showed up at the polls for the September primaries.) "That's not how you get things done."

Of course, many members of the South Potomac Citizens Association -- and other civic groups throughout the county -- understand this. They devote considerable time and energy to organizing and keeping their neighbors informed about political goings-on. But there is still too much apathy; too many people who just don't give a damn.

"I was taking one of my children to school the other day, and I could hardly believe what I saw," Knotts told us. "The motorists would not even stop for the school crossing guard. Whenever she raised her hand and tried to help the children cross the street, the cars would speed up, and the drivers would curse her as they flew past. Then you have parents dropping their children off for school who won't even stop the cars to let them out. I saw one woman slow her car down just enough to let her daughter jump out, then she hit the gas hard so the car door would shut. If the child had missed the curb when she jumped out of the car, she would have fallen back into traffic."

These were not out-of-control teenagers speeding through a school zone; they were middle-class parents. Their behavior certainly doesn't square with the seven-page spread about Prince George's that appears in the November issue of Ebony magazine. Check it out. We are celebrated as "America's wealthiest black county," with glossy photographs of an African American couple in front of a home custom-built on acres of open space; a black man posing on the deck of his 62-foot yacht; another standing next to his indoor swimming pool in a room that appears to be the size of a small hotel lobby.

People like that are among my neighbors in Fort Washington: black doctors, lawyers, engineers, defense contractors, you name it. We have African Americans in the county who have become rich beyond their wildest dreams.

"We're like 'The Jeffersons,' " Knotts said, referring to one of the first television shows to feature an upwardly mobile black family.

But there is a flip side to this success. In our rush to the top, we appear to be forgetting the lessons that got us there. Speeding through school zones, endangering students and crossing guards alike, dropping kids out of moving cars and putting them into failing schools -- what a metaphor for our lack of self-respect.

Little wonder that the campaign for the U.S. Senate by Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a black Republican who lives in Prince George's, resonates among the county's black residents. We've become a people drawn to personality over principle. With the flamboyant boxing promoter Don King now signed on as a supporter, Steele wows black audiences by showing up at campaign appearances with banner-waving entourages, pushing through a crowded room the way one of the King's boxers might do in en route to the ring before a fight. It's a great show.

"When Steele is in the room, he stands out, and everybody recognizes him," Knotts said.

His Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Ben Cardin, is a liberal white politician who moves quietly through a room, talking about the issues one-on-one. His strength as an elected official becomes a campaign handicap among those more attracted to flash and flair.

With the Ebony article on Prince George's are three full-page ads for Chevrolet, one of which could have been designed especially for black residents who feel the county's successes have been overshadowed by media reports of crime and poverty. It features a sultry black woman and a 2007 Tahoe with 20-inch rims and other luxury features. "Style and sophistication," the ad says. "Exactly what the game's been missing."

Actually, the county has an abundance of style and sophistication, along with lots of Tahoes and sultry black women. What's missing is substance, and we won't find it just by looking to politicians. We have to become activists ourselves.

E-mail:milloyc@washpost.com