Thomas Stith opened his mayoral campaign yesterday criticizing incumbent Mayor Bill Bell for making excuses about Durham’s problems rather than taking action. I think he’s got a good point. Bell’s reaction recently to the four homicides in rapid succession reminded me of Mayor Harry Rodenhizer’s reaction to a similar homicide cluster in the early ’90s. Rodenhizer said something to the effect that if it were just drug dealers killing each other, he didn’t see much of a problem. Bell wasn’t as politically incorrect as Harry, but his response was just as dismissive of the problem. “Homicides occur everywhere,” he said. After four murders in a week maybe a little outrage would be nice, a little anger. I’ve known Bell since 1985 and have great respect for him, but that wasn’t the right response in this situation.
Durham has been in a rut for more than 20 years politically. The Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, which began as a civil rights organization with noble goals, morphed into a “make whitey pay” organization in the ’80s, similar to what the NAACP, also with a noble lineage, has also become. Under the irresponsible influence and later the actual leadership of Dr. Lavonia Allison, the Committee played the race card at every turn, resulting in hesitation to crackdown on crime because, well, that would impact more black youth than white youth, and that would be racist.
Bureaucratic and political incompetence, corruption and cronyism of a level that would make the Third World look good were rampant in the ’90s. City-funded loans were given to friends and relatives and never collected, city council and school board members were evicted from homes for not paying their rent, a city councilman used city funds to lease a car for his girlfriend, publicly funded shopping centers and housing developments went bust. And more recently, Durham, which used to have a national reputation for its tap water, can’t seem to produce anything wet that won’t cause retardation or poisoning. It seems we can’t run a yard-waste landfill without creating dump fires that burn for days. Our Housing Authority director used city credit cards for personal expenses and had to be fired. It seems every public project we begin results in millions in cost overruns, including a rec center that is costing more per square foot than it costs to build a hospital. We can’t seem to keep up with potholes as well as our neighboring communities do, and the Durham Police Department made itself a national laughing stock in the Duke lacrosse investigation. Still, the same people stay in their elected and appointed positions.
All of this waste, incompetence, corruption and disappearing money are ignored for two reasons: Too many in the black community see it as appropriate wealth redistribution to right past wrongs, and responsible politicians are afraid to say anything because they’ll be branded racists. I can’t wait to see if Stith, who seems to want to break with the Durham tradition of looking the other way, will be called a racist. No. More likely, he’ll get tagged with the Uncle Tom moniker. Just look what happened to Bill Cosby. The Durham Committee is probably meeting as we speak.
Reyn Bowman, who does valiant work trying to make Durham look good, wrote last week that Durham gets an unfair shake, image-wise. In many ways I agree. But, also in many ways, Durham is its own worst enemy. All the good things about Durham are eclipsed by the governmental incompetence, crime and irresponsible racial politics. If Durham is truly going to rise, the political status quo must be dealt with.
