(Community Matters) Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Tanisha Anderson and Michael Brown . . . real reasons to question procedures and responses, the deployment of deadly force, because of someone’s race. There are real issues of race in America and in Austin – too many real ones for irresponsible cries of wolf. We should be hyper vigilant about squandering our attention to this issue.
I’m furious that Mike Martinez’s surrogates are sounding the race card against my friends Marc Winkelman, Tom Meredith, Dan Graham, Adam Loewy and Mickey Klein – implying that their mailer (a completely independent expenditure by their outside PAC) is racist for “dollar bills, shadowy figures and ominous fonts.” We could have and didn’t cry this false alarm when the same motiff was deployed in the mailer against Steve Adler – despite this imagery too often being deployed against Jews.
And, it’s not racist to question whether voters should desire that the mayor of their $3 billion city have a college degree. We require degrees for many mid managerial level jobs, even graduate degrees for executive positions. It’s an honest question to consider when putting together a list of criteria for someone to run your city (with a range of answers among many, obviously) – no reason for unnecessarily reactive & incendiary responses. Certainly shouldn’t be exploited to cry wolf.
There are real race problems to deal with. Let’s elect the best mayor capable of guiding our city and solving so many & mounting problems including race, economics, traffic . . .
Community Matters 