Does a majority black city have to have a black mayor?

[LeannaM]

ATLANTA - The city that became a post-civil rights movement emblem of the political power held by African-Americans could have a white mayor for the first time in a generation — a possibility that has some in the black community scrambling to hold on to City Hall.

Atlanta Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who is white, is one of the front-runners for the Nov. 3 election, along with City Council President Lisa Borders and state Sen. Kasim Reed, both of whom are black.

"Time is of the essence because in order to defeat a Norwood [[white) mayoral candidacy we have to get out now and work in a manner to defeat her without a runoff, and the key is a significant Black turnout in the general election," the message sent by the Black Leadership Forum reads.

David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington said cities with large black populations like Gary, Ind., Philadelphia, Baltimore and St. Louis have all had white mayors in recent years.

St. Louis still does, and he won by a landslide last election.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32631189

Maybe 20 years ago it was important to have a black mayor. I don't see why it matters now. Why does it matter what race the mayor is?

[cheddar bob]

St. Louis still does, and he won by a landslide last election.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32631189

Maybe 20 years ago it was important to have a black mayor. I don't see why it matters now. Why does it matter what race the mayor is?

Flint doesn't have a black mayor and hasn't for about seven years.

[smogboy]

Give me someone who is responsible, smart, savvy, and reliable. There does have to be a point in our species' evolution when we have to transcend race. Why not now?

[ejames01]

No

A majority black city does not have to have a black mayor.

[blksoul_x]

Fundamentally, YES! That is, if Africans living in amerikkka' had survived a natural order, [[not influenced by the dominate society), a proper ran Black African village should have a structure of social and political governance that regulates community institutions and represent the collective interest of the village.


HOWEVER, THIS IS amerikkka', and under the system of white collective domination/or white supremacy, Black elected officials political power, for the most part, is reduced to a SYMBOLIC affair. In other-words, most Blacks governing amerikkka's monopolized system of social democracy, will not, or may be scared off to administering decisions that solely include the best interest of the Black collective partly due to the fact that they may find it more opportunistic and advantageous to advocate the power of the white collective dollar.


So then, here is the reality, IT DON'T MATTER, in amerikkkas' invarible political arena, whether the person heading a public office in a majority Black populated community is Black, white, or green, regardless if their intentions favor the best interest of the population, he/she/they would be restricted from assisting the village because Black Africans do not control public, private or institutional resources. In other-words, without substantial resources and power, it is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for Black African elected public officials or 'others' supporting our intentions to compete in such a disenfranchised order.


A Black elected public official in amerikkka', is no more than a symbolic reference. Blacks can point to it and claim 'pride'. The 'basic-white' people, can point to it and claim, amerikkka!__go figure!

When will we wake up!

blksoul_atcha!
The BJL, the color you love to hate!

[UFO]

" Time is of the essence because in order to defeat a Norwood white mayoral candidacy"


Wow, And some of you on here wonder why some of us cheered van Jones being fired.
I guess these public officials are not racist either.
At least they didnt look stupid by offending 9/11 victims families.

I just cannot believe how openly racist some people in this nation have become.

[Retroit]

The answer is obviously NO. But unless the racism of blacks is cured, there is always a potential that a less capable black person is elected over a non-black. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to refute our resident racist. I apologize if this is considered a threadjack.

Fundamentally, YES! That is, if Africans living in amerikkka' had survived a natural order, [[not influenced by the dominate society), a proper ran Black African village should have a structure of social and political governance that regulates community institutions and represent the collective interest of the village.

Is that why black afrikkka' is so well run?

HOWEVER, THIS IS amerikkka', and under the system of white collective domination/or white supremacy, Black elected officials political power, for the most part, is reduced to a SYMBOLIC affair. In other-words, most Blacks governing amerikkka's monopolized system of social democracy, will not, or may be scared off to administering decisions that solely include the best interest of the Black collective partly due to the fact that they may find it more opportunistic and advantageous to advocate the power of the white collective dollar.

So blacks are incapable of governing themselves?

So then, here is the reality, IT DON'T MATTER, in amerikkkas' invarible political arena, whether the person heading a public office in a majority Black populated community is Black, white, or green, regardless if their intentions favor the best interest of the population, he/she/they would be restricted from assisting the village because Black Africans do not control public, private or institutional resources. In other-words, without substantial resources and power, it is pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for Black African elected public officials or 'others' supporting our intentions to compete in such a disenfranchised order.

If blacks do not control the public, private and institutional resources and power in Detroit, then who does?

A Black elected public official in amerikkka', is no more than a symbolic reference. Blacks can point to it and claim 'pride'. The 'basic-white' people, can point to it and claim, amerikkka!__go figure!

Please tell the Mayor, the President, and all the other black elected officials that they are mere symbols.

When will we wake up!

When pathetic pathological racists like you become educated.

blksoul_atcha!

The BJL, the color you love to hate!

I don't hate your color, I hate your ignorance.

[humanmachinery]

blksoul_x, no cultural or ethnic group lives in a vacuum, though being white often allows some people to pretend they do. The whole cannot avoid being influenced by its parts. That is the reality of a 21st century post-ethnic society, even if many parts of this country remain segregated by real estate and commerce.

Yes, there are a number of white people in the United States who cling to the delusion that the WASP is the American cultural ideal, and this country has allowed them to do so for a long long time. Those people are fighting a losing battle; cultural hegemony is a dead end. The pockets of wonder bread resistance are slowly dying away, and it's getting harder and harder to avoid reality. You can't understand America if you don't understand cultural pluralism. Ethnocentrism of any stripe is a cancer on the mind, and a distraction from productive approaches to the real issues we face.

he idea that one ethnic group is inherently superior to others, and constitutes the ideal by which all others should be measured is the road to self-destruction, and I don't care whether it's the "natural" way of thinking or not. Hatred and persecution and fear of the unknown are normal parts of the human condition, but they are not useful.

Carl Sagan once put it far more eloquently than I could:

To whichever little group we happen to be born, we owe passionate love and loyalty. Members of other groups are beneath contempt, deserving of rejection and hostility. That both groups are of the same species, that to an outside observer they are virtually indistinguishable, makes no difference. This is certainly the pattern among the chimpanzees, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. Ann Druyan and I have described how this way of viewing the world may have made enormous evolutionary sense a few million years ago, however dangerous it has become today. Even members of hunter-gatherer groups—as far from the technological feats of our present global civilization as it is possible for humans to be—solemnly describe their little band. whichever it is, as "the people." Everyone else is something different, something less than human.

If this is our natural way of viewing the world, then it should occasion no surprise that every time we make a naive judgment about our place in the Universe—one untempered by careful and skeptical scientific examination—we almost always opt for the centrality of our group and circumstance. We want to believe, moreover, that these are objective facts, and not our prejudices finding a sanctioned vent.

<...snip...>

Of course, worldview consensus is comforting, while clashes of opinion may be unsettling, and demand more of us. But unless we insist, against all evidence, that our ancestors were perfect, the advance of knowledge requires us to unravel and then restitch the consensus they established.

Once you consider someone else a second-class citizen, something less than human… exploitation and abuse become inevitable.

I get why some might find group identification positive and valuable. I'm not oblivious.

The flip-side of ethno-cultural pride is taking credit for what others have achieved by osmosis. That is, thinking that somehow the great and admirable qualities of those who share your heritage can somehow mean that you too are a better person. As if because I share some lineage with the guy who invented the steam engine is cause for me to take pride.

You see this in nationalism. In that case, people can be prone to think of themselves as better people than those of other nations in some fundamental way based on an accident of geography.

Truth be told, this whole concept is academic to me in a way it is not for many others. I have very little ethno-cultural heritage to stand on. Those ancestors of my family who spoke Polish or Gaelic are all dead. The Roman Catholicism that was central to their lives has no resonance for me.

I am a mutt, and while I realize that my ancestors of various European backgrounds have done some great things, they are also responsible for a laundry list of high crimes and misdemeanors against humanity. That is the way of the world. I would prefer not to define myself by their actions, but rather do my best to improve upon the world they have left me.

I'm a poster child for post-ethnicity. About all I could claim now is some sort of generalized Eurocentrism, and I'm not about to do that, as it smacks of white supremacy. So you see my problem. I cannot claim any particular group to belong to.

And I draw a distinction between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is about loving a place, while nationalism involves the element of disparaging other places. Unfortunately, the distinction is not often clear for many people. One is sincere and justified love of country; the other is one-upmanship.

It's hard to crack this, but I think it has something to do with whether we view "pride" as a "zero-sum" game. Pardon a lapse into game-theory terms here.

Let's assume there's only one pile, of a limited supply, of "pride" in one's origins. Everybody wants it, it's non-divisible, you can't negotiate about it, and somebody is gonna be the sucker without a chair when the music stops. This means that an attempt to assert pride in my own group is gonna be perceived as a direct threat to *your* ability and right to feel pride in *your* group. Hence, we puff ourselves up and cut down others, bully-fashion. This has to do with a great deal of our self-esteem--it's not enough that *we* individually know we're king shit; it demands acknowledgement from others.

If it's a "non-zero-sum" game, then we take it for granted that "pride" is a ridiculous thing to quantify. We recognize that my self-esteem, as a person or as a group member, is in no way necessarily related to your self-esteem, individually or as a group. There is no logical, necessary connection; only one that we allow, if we're insecure enough. Thus I can be proud to be white, you can be proud to be black, and we can both be proud to be Americans, without believing that such things are in conflict. There is no one limited "pie" of which we all demand a slice; like the free market, self-esteem can be multiplied, not just added or subtracted.

This might seem a bit simplistic; perhaps it is. But experience has taught me that self-esteem is not only each person's healthy right, it is our duty to ourselves. When mature, balanced and virtuous enough, we will recognize that we can be proud of who we are, for our own sakes, and not need to lord that over the world. What difference does it make if I am proud and 1000 are proud with me, or I am proud and 1000 are indifferent?

I have no problem in celebrating the achievements of minorities--as long as neither they, nor we, continue to insist upon separation, or especially a non-divisible form of pride. We do not need to tear others down in order to build ourselves up. In time, perhaps we'll learn this better.

We are divided, and it's ok to see differences between people, and to celebrate those differences. We're a very diverse species and we should be proud of that.

Sometimes that means acknowledging that Group A has accomplished more than Group B, or maybe that Group A has accomplished less than Group B. But that doesn't make the groups unequal. We can choose how equal to let everyone be, regardless of their strengths and faults.

It's okay to have strengths and faults!

To pretend that everyone is exactly the same, that nobody's special or better or worse... shouldn't be a requirement for equality. If equality is based on ignoring differences, our hypocrisy only forces us further into inequality.

[gazhekwe]

No, but there is a caveat. Any mayor, whatever their race, will govern based upon their view of the system that runs the country. Someone like CAY was definitely pushing back against what he perceived as discrimination by the system. In some ways, that hurt the city very much. A white person who thinks like CC would be governing as if the system was colorblind, and ignore any evidence that there could be improvements to equalize things. So whoever the mayor is, there need to be some checks and balances to preserve an even hand, and make forward progress and prosperity a focus for all citizens.

[ccbatson]

Of course not...unless the voters are racist.

[elganned]

The question is without merit and is predicated upon a number of unfounded and unvoiced assumptions.

So I ask the corollary question, since sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: Does a majority white country have to have a white president?

Let that bounce around in your brain for a while and you'll know the answer to the topic question.

[vetalalumni]

The question is without merit and is predicated upon a number of unfounded and unvoiced assumptions.

So I ask the corollary question, since sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: Does a majority white country have to have a white president?

Let that bounce around in your brain for a while and you'll know the answer to the topic question.

Nice elganned.

[Danny]

If the people of United States elected Barack Hussien Obama to be the nations' first African American President. I'm sure the each majority black city will get a white mayor.

[elganned]

Quid pro quo, Danny?
"We'll let you have the presidency if in return you give us back the major cities?"

[ccbatson]

Same answer elganned....as per MLK...by the content of character, not the color of skin.

[Bobl]

A quick answer to a silly question:
No.

[EastsideAl]

Can a majority white city have a black mayor? I think there are actually fewer examples of this happening, but there are several, like David Dinkins in NYC, Tom Bradley in L.A., and Willie Brown in S.F.

The big answer, and its a good one, is that American politics seems to be becoming increasingly color blind. Something that I, frankly, didn't think that I'd see in my lifetime. Now, if only the Detroit area could somehow get past its ugly racial divisiveness, with people on either side of the divide pointing at the other and yelling "racists"!!

[elganned]

Same answer elganned....as per MLK...by the content of character, not the color of skin.

Well. Something else we agree on.

[ccbatson]

Now apply the philosophy more broadly and you will have grown as a person.

[elganned]

Now be less pontifical and condescending and you will have grown as a person.

[ccbatson]

Why would that make me grow as a person?

[Stosh]

Well, SOMETHING has to!

[ccbatson]

How do you know that I am not continually doing that already?

[elganned]

Then this would simply augment the process. Win/win for all of us.

[Zacha341]

Well stated! I really don't care if the mayor is purple with polka dots, so long as his/ her color is not that bold-faced arrogant "corruption" as we've endured in Detroit... I've never been much impressed with the idea and social construct that I should endorse, be happy to give-a-pass to, or otherwise "justify" corruption because the person[[s) doing it looks like me.

I've always been of the mind that the fallout of endorsed, cocooned corruption will eventually [[and IRONICALLY) be born upon the backs of those coddling it!! And we see that has happened. Duh! We need strong, ethical leadership, mindful of their public service first.

Persons not compromised and compelled to serve their own greed and rhetoric by setting up self-serving fortresses of justification and cronyism. IMO.

If the people of United States elected Barack Hussien Obama to be the nations' first African American President. I'm sure the each majority black city will get a white mayor.