Ashley Stinnett

Seemingly slipped through the notoriety cracks is  Atlanta’s hotly contested mayoral race. While most eyes tomorrow will be focused on the outcomes in New Jersey, New York and Virginia, the city of Atlanta could have its first white mayor since 1973.

Sorry, wrong color.

Recent polls have shown that city councilwoman Mary Norwood is surging ahead in the field of candidates and could possibly avoid a winter run-off by garnering 50 percent of the vote.

Mayor Norwood?

Unfortunately, here comes the bad news. Race controversy has already reached a maximum boiling point, and at a very rapid pace.

Over the weekend, the Washington Times picked up on this story, reporting on the sad fact that the city’s “veteran” black power wielders feel their economic success over the last couple of decades could be undercut if the white candidate is elected. In fact, the Times reported that two prominent city leaders are urging the black community to unite against Norwood, as if somehow, by voting for a white woman, the city would doom itself financially.

Are we beginning to see a national trend of reverse racism?

One could make the argument that the recent election of the nation’s first black president might not have healed over bad race relations. Earlier this year, the United States Supreme Court ruled that white firefighters in New Haven were victims of discrimination after being denied a promotion because they were, in fact white. After all, we always seem to associate the word “discrimination” with a racist white person.

The good news is a recent Gallup Poll revealed 56 percent of Americans believe race relations will get better in America. The bad news is that this number is only one percentage point higher than it was in 1963. Yes, you read that right, the number of optimists hasn’t changed in over 40 years.

To make matters worse, only 42 percent of African-Americans feel it will get better, according to the polling data. That number has dropped from 50 percent from as late as summer of this year. This is not very welcome news considering how polarizing President Obama and his administration have been throughout most of this year. In fact, Obama is on track to become a much more divisive president than any of his predecessors, and race is playing a key role.

The data shows that. despite Obama occupying the White House, blacks are becoming more and more negative about race relations. And it doesn’t help matters when, every day, media outlets remind us that anyone who disagrees with Obama’s policies is a racist bigot. Do the media, along with the Democratic Party, feel this will help heal bad race relations?

Of course not, because that is the unhinged strategy of divide and conquer. Without bad tension, how can the media help Democrats get elected? Yes, Democrats play a central key to all of this because prominent party leaders have all used the race-card this year in trying to silence critics of the current administration.

Back in Atlanta, a self-proclaimed group of black leaders, known as the Black Leadership Forum, are demanding the city continue to be governed under total “black control”.

Take a look at what happened recently in East St. Louis, a community that is over 90 percent black. City officials in that city recently refused to hire a white former state police commander as police chief because he is white. Even though a lawsuit has been filed, and rightfully so, the overall damage has been done. An attorney representing two of the city’s commissioners, who filed the suit, claim the mayor feels people are not ready for a white chief in that city.

Can you imagine the ramifications if a white mayor of a city with an overwhelmingly white population refused to hire a police chief because he was black? Can you imagine if a fire department refused to promote a group of black firefighters because they were black? Or imagine if a predominately white city urged white voters to vote against a black candidate in fear he or she might be the first elected black mayor in over 30 years and the city could lose its “white control”.

Of course, race-baiters like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be having a field day with any of those scenarios. Even when those guys make a mistake like they did in analyzing the Duke University or West Virginia rape case, the media never asks for an apology.

As absurd as it sounds, America has become comfortable with reverse racism. Discrimination against whites goes virtually unchecked by the mainstream media, as if it is a non-issue in today’s society.

Atlanta residents, along with the rest of America’s voters, should consider the substance and character of the candidate and not the color of their skin. Most Americans feel that is exactly what happened when millions of white voters sent the first black man to the Oval Office.

We cannot afford on one hand to send a message to America that white voters should be obligated to vote for a black candidate, but turn around and endorse a message that blacks must support blacks only. That is not only obscenely racist in itself, but it is promoting hypocrisy with no bounds.

The United States cannot move forward by replacing decades of anger toward one group with brand new anger aimed at the other.

America should never be allowed to become the “United States of Revenge”.

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