From afar, one might read the results of last week’s mayoral election and wonder if the nation’s capital might be on the brink of race riots.
Katie, bar the tour buses! Ready the National Guard! Cancel those class trips! Rarely has a city seemed to be so clearly cleaved along racial lines.
The results of the definitive, Democratic primary did show an electorate divided by race — and class and geography. Middle class blacks living east of Rock Creek Park and the Anacostia River voted to “spank the brat,” as in Mayor Adrian Fenty, and to elect D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray. White Democrats who reside in Upper Caucasia, in the city’s northern and western precincts, gave their support to Fenty.
Are racial tensions at a boiling point?
No, and no again. There is little racial tension in Washington, D.C. This is a narrative about power in the suites, not the streets.
What we witnessed Tuesday was a bloodless coup. Four years ago, Fenty beat council Chairwoman Linda Cropp and ousted the black ruling class; a week ago the black ruling class took the city back — period.
We’ve had our share of real racial conflict. We had bloody race riots in 1919, touched off by bogus charges that a black man groped a white woman, which triggered pitched battles through black and white neighborhoods. In the 1968 uprising after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., rioters burned storefronts, the feds brought in troops and parts of the city remained wrecked for decades.
I can still taste the tension many Washingtonians felt in the summer of 1990. Mayor Marion Barry was on trial on various cocaine raps, from possession to conspiracy. Blacks believed their man had been set up by white lawmen, namely the FBI. Down at federal court on Constitution Avenue, the Reverend Willie Wilson held daily rallies. Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan came to the capital and ratcheted up racial hostilities. White and blacks nearly came to blows over parking spaces. Simple transactions could become ugly.
We are past that time and those tensions. Blacks are more comfortably in power, which they proved last week. And not every political race was colored by race. Kwame Brown won the nomination to chair the city council with high vote tallies in most wards, white and black.
Middle class blacks expect Mayor Vince Gray to restore their control of the government and the city. Can he? He can mollify them by appointing more blacks to top jobs. He can invite them back to a city hall that Adrian Fenty seemed to close off — to whites and blacks, in my view. And he can hold town hall meetings to make Washingtonians feel more connected to the government.
But could Mayor Gray redistribute wealth and services from white Washington to black Washington, as Marion Barry predicted last week?
Not likely and not quickly, but his election would ensure racial peace, which we have had for decades.
Harry Jaffe’s column appears on Tuesday and Friday. He can be contacted at [email protected].
