Half right is still half wrong

Colbert King writes in Saturday's Post that the current election discussion and results aren't about race, but about respect. See "The District, beyond the politics of race."

He gives the example of heavy African-American support for Councilmember Phil Mendelson, who crushed his opponents in the at-large race, and garnered more votes than either Adrian Fenty or Vincent Gray in the mayoral race, and for Assistant Police Chief Diane Groomes, who has been a favorite of people concerned about high quality police presence ever since she was a Sergeant in the old MPD District 5 (which at the time, included about 3/4 of the H Street NE neighborhood).

He's right that it wasn't about race, and not wrong that it was about respect. But it was about respect as a subset of a commitment to social and redistributive justice as the primary political and social agenda guiding the city.

If you're white and committed to that agenda, then you'll get the votes (Phil Mendelson) or support (Diane Groomes). If you're not committed to it, white or black, getting elected can be a problem. It was a problem for Mayor Fenty. (And it is for Jack Evans, when it comes to running a citywide campaign.)

Because of his civil rights bonafides, David Clarke was elected City Council Chair in DC multiple times, and he was white. This I would aver is another illustration of the same point.

So that means that DCist is half wrong too. See "Colbert King Restores Sanity to the Post's Op-Ed Page."

When ANC6A was still part of the problem (before redistricting effective with the 2002 election), I ran afoul of a group of ANC Commissioners who didn't support historic preservation, probably rightly so, because they saw it as a displacement mechanism. I had successfully secured a grant to the Near Northeast Citizens group from the DC Historic Preservation Office to begin a historic preservation study. This was not seen upon as a good thing by the traditional neighborhood stalwarts such as the H Street CDC, who were more into an urban renewal agenda, and keeping the neighborhood from becoming attractive to people with choice.

(In other words, as long as H Street remained disinvested and s***** and the Capitol Hill Historic District ended at F Street NE, you didn't have to worry about people with choices wanting to live north of F Street generally and north of H Street specifically. That's why the CDC mostly tore down historically eligible properties and pursued an urban renewal agenda. But the New York Avenue Metro Station changed everything, making living north of H Street extremely desirable, because of relatively low cost housing located within easy walking distance of the red line subway.)

My then mentor asked me, "why can't you just compromise?"

I said, "by definition, compromise isn't compromise when all the compromise comes only from one side, in this case, me."

The social justice-redistributive agenda is usually one way. You can be for it. But generally, within that coalition, there is little room for concessions, in this case, resources, for the other side, which again, in this case, is what we might call the "livability agenda."

The City Paper Loose Lips column from last week is about the most accurate media writing about the issue thus far. See "Vince Gray Takes Charge." From the article:

Bridging the city’s racial divide will probably be a tall order for Gray. Polls and precincts show that Gray clearly has the support of black D.C., but little love in the white parts of the city. The weekend before the election, his supporters were casting his him as the worthy successor of black civil rights heroes. “I’m going to vote for Martin Luther King, Jr. because I know that if he were alive and able to vote on Tuesday, he’d vote for Vincent Gray,” the Rev. Walter Fauntroy told supporters at a Saturday pep rally. His support at black churches on Sunday was in a similar vein.

On Tuesday night, it was clear that the election didn’t just vanquish four years of Fenty; many of Gray’s most passionate supporters were also shut out of the mayor’s office during eight years of Anthony Williams.

When Adrian Fenty beat Linda Cropp in the Primary election 4 years, the sense of getting back access to the spoils and benefits from government among the traditional political and economic elite that came to the fore in the city when Marion Barry was Mayor was palpable and heavy.

I truly believe that the fact that only a few people from this group of people benefited--mostly those who benefited were Fenty's fraternity brothers and training partners, and other people he knew through his tenure as Ward 4 Councilmember--was a big reason for the coalescing of support around Vince Gray.

It was also why R. Donahue Peebles considered running for Mayor, because he was flabbergasted that with his bonafides (being Mayor Barry's golden boy) he didn't get a development deal involving Stevens School.

It shouldn't be a surprise that the City Paper is so far more accurate about the state of the election and what it means. The Loose Lips column tends to be far more direct than writing within the Washington Post about how things work in the city. The Washington Post is part of the establishment and the establishment isn't too keen on outing itself. (See "The D.C. Lobby" and "THE DISTRICT'S POWER BEHIND THE SCENES: Washington Post-connected business group wields influence over city's legislative agenda" from the no longer published Common Denominator.)

How do you think I have learned? I've read the City Paper for 23 years. Cover stories on people like David Wilmot and Whayne Quin and coverage in the news columns about how development works in the city, as well as the weekly Loose Lips columns have taught me quite a bit, complemented by experiences of my own...