Jonetta Barras says what everyone is thinking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She is SO full of ----! Just like Obama, Gray did not get elected JUST because blacks voted. Look at the numbers people. There are a whole lotta white folks - many with lots of money and influence - who were pissed at Adrian. Take a drive through upper NW. The blue yard signs within blocks of Lafayette and along Reno were very, very telling IMHO. There are many Williams' admin veterans who've been frothing at the mouth about Fenty. The unelected "powers that be" were not consistently fans of Adrian the Maverick and less than thrilled that Rhee sometimes told them (and their money) to jump in a lake.

Don't be fooled by the simplistic assessment of a race-based election. (Jonetta doesn't seem capable of much beyond this.)

Nothing in DC happens just because black people want it. (Yes, even during Barry years.)

Actually YOU are full of it. If Fenty won 85-15 white/black vote and Gray won 85-15% Black-white vote then it DOES mean that people voted based on race. The only yard signs you saw in ward 3 were the loud empty barrel Gray supporters, but the DC Election board site shows that very few Ward 3 supporters less than 15% voted for Gray. Yard sign polls are for people who want to see what they want to see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I never thought I'd see so many intelligent people in this city sounding like Reagan Republicans. How long before we start hearing terms such as "welfare queen" being used to describe Gray supporters?

Jeff, this is what I thought Barras captured accurately in her screed, what I mean when I say I thought she nailed it. I agree with you, and I am a wee bit sickened by the post-election stuff coming out of the mouths of my (white, OK) neighbors. I guess I didn't know them so well as I thought.

I'm not surprised. Even though white DC residents are overwheminlgly Democrats, their reasons for being Democrats often stem from social or national issues that are irrelevant to a local election. Many are fically conservative. Many would support a Michael Bloomberg-type of Republican for mayor if such a choice was available. This does not make them racist or irrational.

In other words many DC residents in the higher tax brackets are tired of seeing their ridiculously high taxes going in to a black hole with no positive outcome. People who are on welfare for generations and generations. A school system that is so bad it breeds the highest rate of adult illiterates in a region that has the most college degrees etc etc. If I don't like throwing good money after bad makes me a fiscal conservative then so be it.

[Anonymous]

what makes my white neighbors racist, it turns out, is the putrid stereotypes they're spouting post-election regarding Gray voters. I don't want to repeat this stuff here. But honest to God, some of it is straight out of African colonialism. Or maybe plantation-era thinking where the white massah needs to protect the emotional black folk from themselves by knowin' wass' best.

You nailed it.

[Anonymous]

Well, I'm not thinking that!

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Here is what I don't get. Blacks predominately supported one candidate. Whites primarily supported another candidate. But, only the blacks are considered to be all kinds of terrible things (including "racial" according to Barras). Wouldn't simple logic dictate that whites are just as bad? One group thought that a candidate was more likely to serve its interests and another group believed another would serve its interests. Maybe they were right, maybe they were wrong, but the both acted in a similar manner. Why was it only wrong for one group?

Oh, I know. Whites are smart. Blacks are stupid. That's simple.

Yeah, you nailed it. Maybe we should start a new approach and ask, "Why are white voters voting based on race?" Hmmm.....interesting.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I never thought I'd see so many intelligent people in this city sounding like Reagan Republicans. How long before we start hearing terms such as "welfare queen" being used to describe Gray supporters?

Jeff, this is what I thought Barras captured accurately in her screed, what I mean when I say I thought she nailed it. I agree with you, and I am a wee bit sickened by the post-election stuff coming out of the mouths of my (white, OK) neighbors. I guess I didn't know them so well as I thought.

As I pointed out on the other thread, the Barras piece is just the flip side to the Courtland Milloy column. They're both equaliy fucking imbecilic. Of course, to some folks around here, Milloy's just speaking truth to power, and Barras is committing an unspeakable evil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I never thought I'd see so many intelligent people in this city sounding like Reagan Republicans. How long before we start hearing terms such as "welfare queen" being used to describe Gray supporters?

Jeff, this is what I thought Barras captured accurately in her screed, what I mean when I say I thought she nailed it. I agree with you, and I am a wee bit sickened by the post-election stuff coming out of the mouths of my (white, OK) neighbors. I guess I didn't know them so well as I thought.

As I pointed out on the other thread, the Barras piece is just the flip side to the Courtland Milloy column. They're both equaliy fucking imbecilic. Of course, to some folks around here, Milloy's just speaking truth to power, and Barras is committing an unspeakable evil.

This!

[Anonymous]

But maybe what's going on with black supporters of Gray is as tacit and subconscious as what's going on with white supporters of Fenty. I don't think my support has anything to do with race. What white supporters of Fenty think their support was rooted in race?

[Anonymous]

I am white, a long time DC resident and live in Ward 3. My children go to a very good public school (one of the "JLKMMEO" or whatever the accepted abbreviation is). Our school was good before Fenty and Rhee came along. It will be a good school after they leave. But schools in other wards? They have been terrible for years. I feel sorry for Ward 7 and 8 residents who did not recognize that perhaps drastic change was what is needed to improve their schools. Maybe Rhee did not have all the answers and maybe those schools would continue to be terrible under a second Fenty adminstration, but why not try something different? The status quo is not working over there. I supported Fenty and am disappointed that the neighborhoods that could benefit most from drastic school reform (closing underenrolled schools, firing ineffective teachers) were not on board.

[Anonymous]

True, Wards 7 and 8 need jobs but they also need better schools. Schools are entirely within the authority of the local government, jobs creation is not (as other PPs have noted).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:True, Wards 7 and 8 need jobs but they also need better schools. Schools are entirely within the authority of the local government, jobs creation is not (as other PPs have noted).

We seem to be holding politicians accountable for it at the national level. I don't see how it is any bit unfair to hold them accountable at the city level. Mayors actually have the ability to attract business to their jurisdiction, run job training programs, etc. So in a way they are more in control than the President.

[Anonymous]

They're both equaliy fucking imbecilic.

Yes. The stereotyping, taunting, blaming, myopia and simplistic rationalizations on BOTH sides are making me sick.

[Anonymous]

Your list of issues is a good one to illustrate why no change ever happens. Everyone's for change--until anything changes. Seriously, either nothing will happen in the next four years except feel-good B.S. ("Maybe Gray will entice *Janey* back from his disastrous stint in NJ!"); or a sizeable percentage of DC residents will be pissed off at Gray.

As I've said before, may God grant Gray the balls to be a one-termer.

[Anonymous]

Here's a question for you Dorrie: Ever hear of BRAC?

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_Realignment_and_Closure)

One thing everyone in the country agreed on was that military bases needed to be closed. "It's a no-brainer!" Of course, it's taken decades to even start to close bases, and it's a political battle to the death every time we try.

Are you arguing that the residents of Novato, CA were supposed to be *grateful* that their air force base was closed???

C'mon, let's be adults here. There are incredibly difficult decisions that had to be made. The status quo meant hemorrhaging money on half-empty, crumbling facilities. It's the easiest thing in the world to wave your hands and say, "it wouldn't taken much more planning to make things work". It's always easy when you don't have to do it.

[Anonymous]

Not Ward 3. My point is, there were *plenty* of folks who were incensed because *their* school was closed. Period. The vast majority of parents with a child in a shuttered local school would have preferred that that local school had stayed open. "After all, why not renovate *my* school, and shutter those two other schools--their kids can come to my kid's school. It's OUTRAGEOUS that Rhee closed my kid's school! It makes no sense!! GRR!" Meanwhile, the parents in the school that remains open are pissed off that "all these outsiders are imported into my kid's school, disrupting everything." Again, some folks seem to think that "reform" means that everyone is happy. Reform usually means that in the short-term, no one is happy. Or at least a voting majority are unhappy.

You can talk about how everyone would've been happy as a clam if only Rhee had done differently whatever pissed you off personally. But everyone is not you. If she'd addressed your particular concerns, it would've pissed off someone else.

Rhee's replacement will either do nothing, or will piss off folks just as Rhee has.