It's well before Halloween, but a caldron of hatred is brewing in D.C.

Network News

X Profile
View More Activity
Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Why do so many people seem to be hoping that the presumptive D.C. mayor-elect Vincent Gray will fail? Predicting it. Betting on it. Just-you-wait-and-seeing on it. Declaring that his victory in the Democratic primary last week was "devastating" to black children, as Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee put it, and that the city is already heading "backwards."

"Once again D.C. returns to the days of corruption, graft, and incompetence . . . and the D.C. voters only have themselves to blame."

You'll find thousands of comments like that posted anonymously on The Washington Post Web site, alongside news stories and columns about the election. The volume of similarly expressed thoughts is so great as to give the impression of a massive mind meld, intent on subverting Gray by sheer force of ill will and contempt.

Gray, whose victory over Mayor Adrian Fenty probably means the departure of Rhee, and Gray's black supporters are now right up there with President Obama as targets of white, racist sentiment not seen publicly expressed since the 1950s.

"Let us hope that the splendid Ms. Rhee will get a job with people on her level - Phillips Andover or Exeter, Choate, Dalton. She was a class act and she had to deal with slime. Let's hope she gets a job where she can deal with kids with 100 IQs or even higher," one poster wrote.

There was no shortage of white people denouncing so-called "black racism" during the D.C. mayoral campaign. Any concern expressed for the way low-income black people are being displaced from the city was interpreted to mean that blacks don't want whites moving in.

Complaints that Rhee cannot communicate with black people as effectively as, say, Police Chief Cathy Lanier, and that maybe a more qualified black superintendent could do a better job, is taken as evidence of black prejudice against Koreans.

But this torrent of racist views aimed at blacks and expressed ad nauseam through mainstream media garners hardly a peep, except from black people.

"I'm an African American who grew up in D.C. and if this is an example of what the 'new educated residents' are bringing to this city, we are in big trouble," one poster wrote.

"I feel very sad, it is like listening and reading the comments made after Obama was elected. I wonder how long it will take before someone starts to question Gray's birth place," another wrote.

"These comments demonstrate the polarizing effect of Rhee. The polarization of attitudes doesn't matter to or for her. But it has had and may continue to have a devastating impact on the necessary debate over education and the important decision-making and planning that lie ahead. Very sad," still another wrote.

Such postings generate more bile from fans of Fenty and Rhee. And although there are also crude postings from Gray supporters, they don't come close to matching the Fenty faction in quantity or potency.

CONTINUED     1        >

© 2010 The Washington Post Company

Network News

X My Profile