![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Meet the new boss...
Oct. 5th, 2007 12:14 amToday was election day in Memphis. Not being a resident of the city proper, I couldn't vote in the mayoral election, but as I have to go there every day, the issues of crime and poverty and race relations affect me, and therefore I had a certain interest in the victor.
The victor, in this case, was the incumbent, Dr. W. W. Herenton, the man who shepherded Memphis into its present state of high crime, poor infrastructure, widespread unemployment, and continued racial tensions, whose primary motivations are to build stadiums and to ruin the schools. He wins with 57% of the voting population voting against him (plurality wins in Memphis, and we typically have six or seven candidates), and a victory speech where he talked about the value of loyalty and all the white people who were out to get him, complete with anecdotes about how he was booed on national television (he assumed it was because of the color of his skin, and not his record as mayor).
*Sigh* Four more years of this.
n.b. Racial tensions in Memphis began long before Herenton was mayor, and I'm certain he had no easy task running for mayor initially or running the city when he was first elected in 1991. Playing the race card sixteen years later, after having defeated another well-qualified black candidate, smacks of divisiveness.
The victor, in this case, was the incumbent, Dr. W. W. Herenton, the man who shepherded Memphis into its present state of high crime, poor infrastructure, widespread unemployment, and continued racial tensions, whose primary motivations are to build stadiums and to ruin the schools. He wins with 57% of the voting population voting against him (plurality wins in Memphis, and we typically have six or seven candidates), and a victory speech where he talked about the value of loyalty and all the white people who were out to get him, complete with anecdotes about how he was booed on national television (he assumed it was because of the color of his skin, and not his record as mayor).
*Sigh* Four more years of this.
n.b. Racial tensions in Memphis began long before Herenton was mayor, and I'm certain he had no easy task running for mayor initially or running the city when he was first elected in 1991. Playing the race card sixteen years later, after having defeated another well-qualified black candidate, smacks of divisiveness.
