I must be cranky because I am again moved to humor and not sympathy for the plight of others. But when you get what you deserve, sow what you reap, I don't have much sympathy. Case in point:
But in New York's 11th District, Yassky's candidacy has touched off a controversy about race and turned a sleepy primary contest into an emotionally charged debate over minority political representation. The 11th District is one of the dozens of majority-black seats created in the aftermath of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. And Yassky, unlike his three primary opponents, is white.Live by the race card, die by the race card. I have no sympathy for members of a party that would allow ads that state if Bush is elected, black churches will burn and the other awful things that they have said over the years.
The City Council member's bid has not been well received by the district's black establishment. Rep. Major R. Owens (D), the retiring 12-term incumbent, labeled Yassky a "colonizer." Local black leaders have staged events to pressure the 42-year-old Brooklyn Democrat out of the race. A Web site was launched. Al Sharpton is calling on prominent white politicians, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), to take a stand against Yassky.
In the past 3 1/2 decades, the number of black-held House seats has increased fourfold, from 10 in 1970 to 40 today, a byproduct of the Voting Rights Act's intent to improve black participation in politics. Black House members hold senior status on committees including the tax-writing Ways and Means, the Judiciary and the Homeland Security committees. And the Congressional Black Caucus is an influential force within the Democratic Party.
But some Democrats have come to recognize the downside of these majority-black districts. For instance, they can spark racially polarized politics, pitting blacks against other minorities and whites, particularly as the districts become more gentrified and ethnically mixed.
In a black district of Memphis, a white candidate who is among 15 Democrats vying for the seat being vacated by Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr. (D-Tenn.) has encountered racial hostility similar to that experienced by Yassky. Stephen I. Cohen, a Tennessee state senator, said in an interview with a Jewish newspaper, the Forward, that he is entitled to the same treatment Ford, who is black, has sought as he campaigns statewide for the Senate. "Don't judge me by my race but by my record," Cohen said.
And Al Sharpton, wow, how racist is it to try to get a person removed from the race because of their skin color. I thought we should judge by the content of the heart not by the color of the skin. I guess that really was a dream.
You can be amused by the rest of the story here.
