Mainstream media, we’ve got to
hand it to you. You put forth your best efforts to try to get a white woman to command the Atlanta City Hall post for the first time in a
generation. You did everything but yank white Atlantans out of their homes and
drive them to the polls yourself.
Your media coverage was
egregiously one-sided and often tinged with searing racial themes. You blatantly tried to
ignite ethnic animus in whites and amplify their historic distrust by stating the electorate was divided strictly along racial
lines – when that was not close to the truth. Both candidates, former state Senator Kasim Reed and former city Councilwoman Mary Norwood, captured a significant
number of “crossover votes,” as you like to call it.
Often it is the mainstream
who decry blacks’ alleged knee-jerk proclivity to inject race into every situation. But
this time, it was the media, inside and outside of Atlanta,
who not-so subtly tried to invigorate the white electorate in order
to make the whitening of Atlanta
complete. It seemed the local media in particular mounted a campaign to further gentrify the city and drive the
black population to the outlying suburbs and counties:
Peep out the sampling of
national coverage of Atlanta’s
mayoral race:
Christian
Science Monitor: For a city
that has not had a white mayor since 1973 and sees itself as the iconic
post-civil rights epicenter of African-American politics, the campaign has been
a shock to the system. To some observers, it suggests that Ms. Norwood simply
has used the levers of racial politics more effectively than her five
African-American opponents.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: More than 56 percent of Reed’s votes came from predominantly black
districts. About 15.6 percent of his votes came from predominantly white
districts. The rest came from mixed districts. The reverse was true for Norwood. Sixty-two
percent of her vote came from white districts and 14.5 percent of her vote came
from black districts.
Los Angeles Times: For much of the tight runoff contest, race was a
closely watched factor. To many blacks, Atlanta
— which in 1973 became the first major Southern city to elect a black mayor —
is a potent symbol of African American success and the triumph of the civil
rights movement. It is nonetheless a city that has grown whiter and more gentrified
in recent years.
And there were features about race deciding Atlanta’s mayoral outcome
in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, ad nauseum. There was no other reason this local election would become a national phenomenon except because of the racial factor.
Reed, thankfully, hovered above the racial rubble created by media members. He completely dismissed the racial topic
altogether and engineered an improbable, heart-stopping fourth-quarter-type
comeback from a huge deficit to pretty much claim the CEO spot in city hall. –terry shropshire
