I have been away from Culture Kitchen for awhile. I have been so immersed in a local primary that I haven't had time to post here. But near the end of the primary season and now that it is over, I began to realize that a rather disturbing underbelly was being revealed right in my very liberal, very white neighborhood. I posted on this at Daily Gotham and got pretty seriously attacked by people who thought I was showing "reverse racism." I am hoping I can explain myself better here because the issue is one that is important for Democrats to face up to.

The Democratic Primary in the NY-11 Congressional district was a hotly contested one. The candidate I originally liked was my City Councilman, David Yassky. Eventually I grew to prefer another man, Chris Owens, who impressed me as being the ideal, intelligent and articulate voice for the progressive movement. Months of hard work, soul searching, arguing and a whole lot more ensued. Ultimately, neither won. My new Congresswoman is Yvette Clarke, someone who overall I like, though she has had some problems with telling the truth.

What makes it hard for me to lay aside this primary is the racial issues that it brought up. You see, the retiring Congressman is black in a predominantly black district. David Yassky, who is white, moved three blocks to enter the district specifically to run because he was relying on a split black vote (originally split among four black candidates, ultimately split among three) and a unified white vote to win. Those who objected to this racial calculation on Yassky's part were called racist.

On primary day, my wife, who was campaigning for Chris, received many nasty comments from Yassky supporters, including being called a "dupe," which only barely stopped short of calling her a "traitor to her race."

The day after the election, my daughter was teased by her schoolmates because she liked Chris Owens, one of the black candidates. They told her that Yassky told them he would "build them a playground" (I don't know what that is based on and am not holding Yassky accountable!) and that Chris was a racist. Later they called my daughter a racist for liking Chris Owens. Somehow, supporting a progressive black candidate in this race led to my daughter and wife being viewed as racist.

Many people who opposed Yassky's run viewed race as a central issue in this primary. I did not. But in some ways I was wrong. Racism really does permeate our society and of ALL the people I know, Chris is perhaps the LEAST racist. And yet, he gets blamed for the racism in Brooklyn.

My wife, even more furious than I am at the racism we see around us, puts it this way: "Why are we color blind only when it comes to an election."

I think it is time to face some facts about Brooklyn and about America. And, to be honest, about most whites and Jews in my neighborhood.

A baby born to a black woman in Brooklyn is much more likely to die in infancy than a white baby. Medical care is far worse for black children than for white children. Schools in predominantly black neighborhoods are far worse than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. Blacks are much more likely to go to jail than whites for the same crime. Black males have about a 50% jobless rate. And blacks have a substantially lower life expectancy. From birth to death, blacks have it worse than their on average richer, melanin-deficient neighbors.

That is the reality everyone who is born with considerable skin pigmentation is faced with.

I can only imagine the anger I would feel if I realized that my skin color meant at every moment of my life I am getting the short end of the stick. Being represented for decades by a black congressman would be one of the few indications that progress had been made.

And then I am told it is okay for a white man to move into a predominantly black district with the goal of winning that congressional seat because the black vote is split among three (originally four) candidates. And that it is racist to object to that.

That is what blacks in the NY-11 district are faced with.

I am a white Jew. Yassky expected me to vote for him, originally. And I do feel an affinity for Yassky, perhaps because we both are kind of nerdy Jews. But I also have eyes.

I walk around my local park, (Prospect Park). One end, which happens to face the richer, whiter area, is well-maintained and well-patrolled. The other end, which happens to face the poorer, darker-skinned area, has huge ruts in the paths, fewer patrols and, until recently, missing slats on most of the benches. The benches were finally fixed after years of being crappy on only the poor end of the park.

That has always struck me as a condemnation of Brooklyn and all its politicians.

Joy and I were canvassing in a different, poorer part of our neighborhood. As you go from the park down the slope (hence, "Park Slope") there is a fairly sharp gradation in class...and a gradual increase in melanin pigment. By 3rd Ave. you are in a poorer neighborhood where the smell of the sewage laden Gowanus canal lends a nice perfume to the area.

We saw something horrifying. A baby wandered, unattended, out into the street. Luckily, cars stopped and passerbys rescued the child. There was a playground where the child had wandered from. I was angry that the parent had let the child wander off. But then I noticed the playground had no gates. Every single playground in the whiter, richer part of Park Slope has gates to keep the children from wandering off. Not in the poor, black area, though. No gates to protect the children.

Even in terms of self-image, blacks have serious disadvantages [1].

Now let's consider when race was first mentioned in the NY-11 race. Chris Owens and Yvette Clarke did not mention it first. Yassky did at every event I saw him at in the early days of his campaign. Every single early forum he spoke at, he introduced himself as "the white candidate running." I always felt it was a joke, making fun of himself. But I also now see it as belittling, probably unintentionally, the fact that race is a stark fact of life for most of the district, affecting the child mortality rate, life expectancy, incarceration rate and unemployment rate of the community.

Yassky started bringing up race at every chance. Only after that did Yvette Clarke and Chris Owens respond.

I will be honest. I never thought they should have responded. Or, perhaps, Chris should have responded that he thought he was the best candidate regardless of race, that Yassky was cynical for moving into the district where he could win because of a split black vote and assuming a unified white vote, and that if you want to talk race that Chris is the only candidate who reflects the diversity of the district. (Chris is the son of a black father and Jewish mother).

Which brings us to Chris. I know Chris and he is not racist. I cannot put it plainer than that. His mother is Jewish. His uncle was a rabbi. I have never felt that Chris had anything but respect and friendship for Joy and myself. And I have to emphasize that we are pretty damned pale.

Yassky's support came almost exclusively from whites and Jews. Chris' support came from all ethnic groups in the district. So I see no evidence whatsoever that Chris is racist. It makes no sense given the mutual respect and affection he has with his mother. It makes no sense if you spend a mere two minutes interacting with Chris. It makes no sense if you look at the faces of his supporters.

And yet my daughter gets bullied because her peers are repeating the Yassky talking point that their parents repeated without thinking of the effect it would have on their children. That is why I feel angry enough to further beat this supposedly dead horse. The talking points used by the Yassky campaign have echoes and my daughter was extremely upset by one of those echoes. Her friends don't understand nuance any better than she does. They will just remember that their parents called Chris racist. But it seems that their largely wealthy, white parents don't understand much nuance either since they seem to have no clue what society looks like if you go to the other end of the Park. Because there is no way they would think society is in any way color blind if they simply compared their neighborhood with the neighborhoods across the park.

I need to emphasize that I do NOT consider Yassky racist. Yassky would have made a perfectly good Conrgessman, though I would have preferred Chris. But I have come to see his supporters as either racist or, at best, ignorant of just how unequal our society is. I do blame Yassky for a certain amount of cynicism in moving into the district specifically to run with a split black vote. That isn't racist. It is opportunistic as even the NY Times admitted. Yassky WANTED to represent all members of the district well. And I do think Yassky would have been a perfectly good Congressman.

But that is beside the point. By taking that opportunity to move into a district with a split black vote, by bringing up race at the outset, and by letting your opponent be called racist unfairly, Yassky has added unintentionally to the racial unfairness in the district. And underneath it all is the stark fact that for many blacks in Brooklyn, being represented by a black Congressman was the ONLY sign of progress to them and had Yassky been elected, he would have been taking that away from them. That does not invalidate his right to run...but it is a factor for a majority of residents of the district.

There is, of course, a class component to all this. But for me it is hard to ignore the different level of melanin pigmentation that fairly clearly labels the classes.

When I posted this on Daily Gotham, I got several kinds of comments. Most had to do with accusations of "reverse discrimination" on my part and even a suggestion that my daughter should just ignore the schoolyard "taunts" because they aren't important. What I noticed was that not one single white liberal who commented had anything to say about the examples of blatant inequality I gave right in our district, including the fact that there is such a decreased life expetancy for blacks and that playgrounds don't have gates in the poor, black part of town. All they did was defend the right of a white to run, something I never questioned.

It isn't easy for rich, white liberals to face up to racial inequalities and even the subtle racism within our own ranks. And I have no idea how to reach them.