Anita Bonds’ misguided focus on race
By Editorial Board
D.C. COUNCIL member Anita Bonds (D-At Large) is not the first District official, nor sadly is she likely to be the last, to try to use race to her advantage. But her awkward comments about the role that race will play in the city’s upcoming election and voters wanting their “own” should not go unchallenged.
Ms. Bonds appeared Monday on WAMU-FM’s “Kojo Nnamdi Show” with the five other candidates vying for the citywide seat in the April 23 special election. She was asked about recent comments by a union official endorsing her. The official said there is a strong desire within the black community that the seat be held by an African American.
“Happy to hear that,” was Ms. Bonds’s response. She said, “People want to have their leadership reflect who they are” and longtime residents “fear” being pushed out by the city’s changing demographics. “The majority of the District of Columbia is African American. .?.?. There is a natural tendency to want your own,” she said.
The horror, the horror. Seriously, that's a perfectly reasonable thing for any politician to say. But, it's not okay with the Washington Post editorial board. This stuff's personal. If they help push blacks out of power in Washington D.C. their lives will be a lot better, so they are going to be as anti-black as they gotta be to get the job done.
Ms. Bonds, The Post’s Tim Craig reported, appears to be trying to rally black voters to her bid by noting that the council, now with seven white and six black members, has never had eight white members.
But, it will soon, at least in the Washington Post editorial board's dreams of cashing in big on their real estate investments.
Ms. Bonds told us she is aghast that anyone would interpret her remarks as a plea to vote for her solely because of her race; she said she was merely expressing appreciation about having received the union endorsement. Her spokesman stressed that the campaign has never used race as a basis to garner votes and that the council member was simply responding to a direct question that should not be taken out of context. ...
But the failure of Ms. Bonds to make clear that a candidate’s skin color should not be the determining factor was disappointing, particularly since the council on which she hopes to continue to serve will have to deal with challenges confronting a city undergoing dramatic demographic change.
Translation from Editorialese: Challenges to include blacks not letting the doorknob hit them on the butt as they leave D.C. for places where the locals don't have their hands on The Megaphone like we do here at the Washington Post.
