Results tagged “racecard”

If you're a local news junkie, you've probably seen TV spots from Public Advocate candidate Bill de Blasio around his Park Slope home that prominently featuring his family, who in case you missed it, include his African-American wife and their two children. Well, now his fellow City Councilman Charles Barron accuses him of pandering to the black community with campaign ads.

Governor Paterson was back at the scene of the crime today, attempting to wipe the slate clean and put the lid on what has been a disastrous campaign on his part of critiquing the "orchestrated" treatment of him from the media and how it illustrates that we are not in a postracial society. Paterson returned to the Errol Louis's radio show where he first made the remarks last week. Today he said, "I was wrong to get into an assessment of how the media views me. I do not think that race has anything to do with my poll numbers anything to do with my political issues in this day, and shouldn’t have said it. Straight out."

After Governor Paterson has accused the media of racism as it details his political problems, more and more people are telling Paterson to stop. First it was President Obama—of course Paterson didn't pay any heed to that, later saying, "Part of what I feel is that one very successful minority is permissible, but when you see too many success stories, then some people get nervous,"—and other politicians and commentators. Now it's former NYC mayor David Dinkins, who says, "Definitely he should get off the racist thing. Right or wrong, it’s a fight you sure can’t win."

Governor Paterson does not appear to be backing down from his comments about racial bias that have brought quite a bit of fire his way since making them Friday. Paterson told the blog The Borrero Report, “I have been quiet for seventeen months on this issue. I played by the rules...Part of what I feel is that one very successful minority is permissible, but when you see too many success stories, then some people get nervous." Paterson once again brought up how much he hates being called "the accidental governor," did not back down on calling out NY1's Dominic Carter for his coverage of the governor's late night out at a Manhattan night club recently and also said that "it seems that I have to work twice as hard as others." And while it was reported over the weekend that an Obama official placed a call to the governor's office asking not to be dragged into Paterson's problems, a spokesman for the president made that explicit today. Obama's spokesman said, "Whether or not race plays into (media coverage of the president), I don't think it is the case. The President doesn't think it is the case."

If Governor Paterson expected to look up after his comments Friday that we are not living in a "postracial period" and found a reaction of one person daring to applaud his nobility, building slowly toward a standing ovation, then he was sadly disappointed with the reality of the actual response. After the governor went on the radio and claimed that the media was orchestrating his perceived failure and that President Obama would be the next target, everyone seemed to respond with a "not quite, Dave," including reps for the president himself.