The 2010 mayoral election may prove to be the last black-majority vote in the nation’s capital.
Census data released Thursday shows the place once nicknamed “Chocolate City” has shed black residents over the past decade. That combined with more white people moving in has the District’s black population standing at 50 percent.
It’s almost certain that three years from now, when the next mayoral election cycle will kickoff, the city will no longer have a black majority.
Already, the racial politics that have long simmered beneath the surface of local politics in the city have begun to boil over. They were more than apparent as Mayor Adrian Fenty battled for survival against D.C. Council Chairman Vince Gray last summer. As The Washington Examiner reported in August, even something as simple as a new recreation center fell prey to the political spin machines that infused fears of white gentrification into a debate over who built the Deanwood rec center.
“Fenty is getting ready for white people moving into the community,” one Ward 7 resident told The Examiner, referencing the recreation center.
Be ready for that type of spin to deepen next time around as fears of disenfranchisement are fed by politicians in black-majority neighborhoods.
