Congratulations Mayor Bystander!

I didn't see this coming; but then, I haven't been following New Orleans politics.


Nagin reminded voters that "he had manned his post throughout the ordeal,"

So Nagin gives himself high marks for his leadership during Katrina, huh? Interesting.

From his victory speech:

"It's time for us to stop the bickering. It's time for us to stop measuring things in black and white; yellow and Asian; it's time for us to be one New Orleans."

Gee...then why campaign on racial divisiveness?:

A "raft of well-financed funded white candidates lining up to challenge Nagin, fueled anxiety among black voters that the city's white power structure was aiming to reclaim City Hall, which since 1978 has been occupied by a black mayor."

Nagin at times tapped in to such fears, noting during a meeting with evacuees in Houston that "very few" of his opponents "look like us."

And let's not so quickly forget Nagin's "chocolate city" comment, for which he apologized, in this fashion:

"I'm really sorry that some people took that the way they did, and that was not my intention," the mayor said. "I say everybody's welcome."

So...he's not sorry for saying it; just sorry for the way people "took it the way they did".

As long as we are fixated on "race", like this, we will never "get over it"; we will never arrive at a point where we can behave in a manner that is consistent with the notion that "skin color doesn't matter"; not until we stop obsessing over it and keeping it alive.



I wish him and the people of New Orleans the best of luck and a bright future. Hopefully, one day, that brighter future will include conservative Republican mayoral leadership and voters whose wisdom looks beyond the content of a man's skin complexion.