Race-Baiting, Atlanta Style

Vote for me because I'm Black! City politics in Atlanta has sunk to a new low. An incendiary email is circulating among blacks in the city urging the "critical importance of electing a black mayor at all costs" over a white one in November's municipal election.

Attributed to the Black Leadership Forum, the email emphasizes that since Maynard Jackson was elected the city's first black mayor in 1973, a black person had led the city government for the past quarter century and demands that this status quo be maintained. Of the five candidates running for mayor, one is white and has a good chance of winning: Councilwoman Mary Norwood. A recent poll by Insider Advantage finds that Norwood would receive 30% of voters ahead of the two black front-runners, City Council President Lisa Borders who received 28% and Democratic State Senator Kasim Reed.

Political consultant Aaron Turpeau has admitted helping distribute the email. He explained that some blacks worry that blacks would be "getting fewer city contracts" if a white mayor were elected. Black candidate Lisa Borders, is endorsed by the memo only because "she is the best black candidate in the race who has a chance to win the election because she can attract downtown white support." Turpeau urges heavy black turnout to avoid a run-off that Norwood might win.

"The changing demographics which show a more rapid growth in the city's white population (faster and a higher percentage than anywhere else in the country) requires that we critically evaluate all candidates."

But the problem for race activists like Turpeau is not only whites.  David Bositis, an expert on urban voting patterns at the Joint Center, says "Voter dissatisfaction has helped propel white candidates to mayoral victories in majority African-American cities such as Baltimore, Cleveland and Gary, Ind."

Black voters are recognizing that to vote solely on race opens the way to your own exploitation.  If the race-baiting is uglier in Atlanta than usual, maybe that's a sign that the power of racial politics is truly waning.