nyc mayoral race

I remember sitting in the Columbia University dining hall overlooking Harlem, and talking with a group of students from the suburban New York Metro Area, New Jersey, Westchester, Long Island...

And I said, "You know what, I bet we'd have better discussions in Contemporary Civilization and Poli Sci. if more students from the neighborhood went here."

They were aghast.  "But that would mean letting kids in who have lower SATs, who aren't qualified!"

"Maybe, or maybe not," I replied, "but you're not getting my point.  We sit in class and have these idealistic discussions about poverty and equality and yet most of us are so privileged, so much the same, that we don't know what we are talking about.  I'm arguing that having more kids from from the City would improve the discussion for everyone, for all of us."

My comrades were again aghast, "But that would go against meritocracy!"

"Would it?" I aked, "How do we know?  How are you so sure?  NYC is a big place."

Now, with that conversation I was just making a simple point.  I was tired of my "sincere" classmates talking about urban realities that they really had no idea about.  In my experience, race and class really do make a difference in people's abilities to talk about and discuss many issues.  It's just true.  We all have blinders and prejudices, especially to our own privilege. And those blinders affect everything, including how we run our government.

As I've grown older I've realized, however, that that conversation was also about so many things...including who gets to be a partner at a top firm downtown, or who runs the Oncology department at the research hospital, or whose name gets inscribed in stone as a top funder of the University, heck, even who might become Mayor of the City of New York.

Now, I'd love to think that advocates of Bloomberg were saying they were voting for him because he represented the best candidate for improving the lives and education of New York City's children, of all races...that he represented the best chance for New Yorkers of all colors to work in leadership positions and develop high-powered resumes and experience and overcome the racial divide that has plagued the city's politics and civic life. But that argument is not one we're hearing for the most part.

Can one make that argument in good faith? That is the crux of the matter. For myself, I am left feeling like the assumptions inherent in my fellow classmates' responses about qualifications and meritocracy are part of the dynamic of the discussion of why some Democrats are abandoning their party and voting for Bloomberg.

Personally, I think there's a great of deal of blindness here. A large part of political rhetoric is saying...."Look, here, we did this! We made this work!" Voting for a Republican in this context, with control of our nation's most powerful city and rebuilding after 9/11 at stake, is not merely a one-time event; Boomberg's reelection would have cascading effects that flow from it, including powerful ones about racial voting and party dynamics in the city of New York.

Now, if enough Democratic voters in New York are committed to giving their votes to Bloomberg to give him an assured victory, either through a positive assessment of the man, or a negative assessment of his opponent (and we have to face facts...if it is clear that that's what some voters are gonna do at some point, that's what they are gonna do...) then where are the voices that are addressing that fact?

Where are the folks looking out into the city, and saying...New York is a big place, we need to make a change in how we do things to overcome this divide. Where are the folks looking out into Harlem and Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx and saying..."Where is the future Democratic Mayor of New York and how can we get him, or her, to Columbia University?"