Race matters

I read an article, by Peter Whoriskey of the Washington Post, about how New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and his runoff opponent Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu are urging voters not to make this election about race. Sure, I thought, what a nice idea, though sadly misguided.
This election is about many things and race is one of them, like it or not. Since the 1978 election of Ernest Morial, black leadership has dominated New Orleans politics. So, it’s no secret and it should come as no surprise that blacks want to keep it that way and if not for Hurricane Katrina, it may have been considerably easier to do so.
What’s interesting though is, even though New Orleans has been under black leadership for nearly 30 years, the economic state of the crescent city’s once predominant race has not improved. There still exists a ninth ward. There still exist horribly impoverished areas comprised primarily of blacks. There is also still overwhelming numbers of black on black crimes. With these issues in mind, the race does become about race because New Orleans citizens simply must question what their black leadership has done for them. How has 28 years of black political domination changed the state of black people in New Orleans? Apparently, it hasn’t.
On the other hand, white leadership hasn’t been there since Maurice “Moon,” Landrieu, Lt. Governor Landrieu’s father. So, who’s to say a change in color wouldn’t result in a change in the black economic condition.
If Landrieu does win, his debt is owed to those who got him elected and we know that wouldn’t be the residents of predominantly black neighborhoods in New Orleans because more than likely, they stood with the candidate of color. Does it then become a no win situation for the black community whereas Nagin wins, things stay the same or Landrieu wins and they get ignored altogether?
According to Whoriskey’s article, Nagin “struggled virtually everywhere else” with the exception of New Orleans East, and the Lower Ninth Ward, the city’s predominantly black neighborhoods. Ironically, these are the same financially depressed people who have seen the benefits of black leadership in the city, as they remain poor and welfare dependant. How can a city with a black leader and a majority black population have an economy monopolized by whites and a few wealthy blacks?
I’m not suggesting white will make it all right but black has proven for 28 years that it won’t either.
With that, I refute the claim that this election isn’t about race, because it is. Nagin wants a chocolate city so the black elite can continue to feed upon the poor black, and Landrieu wants vanilla skies so big white businesses can reap the benefits of rebuilding the grand old crescent city and further contribute to the white economic monopoly blacks face in this country today.