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The saddest thing about Mayor Jim Holley's comment about the city-subsidized Portsmouth Renaissance Hotel - "It's got my black picture in the lobby, but it's a white hotel" - is not that it is redolent of a time when facilities were separate and hardly equal. Or that the sentiment is both offensive and wrong.
It's that anybody living in Portsmouth, in 2008, might agree with him.
Holley, a racial warrior in his early career, with a few careless words Tuesday night did mortal damage to his current image as the father for Portsmouth's rainbow family. He also dramatized his unfitness to be the leader the city needs today.
The context for Holley's comment was itself divisive - a debate over whether to assign the city's stamp of approval to a redundant convention center pushed by state Sen. Louise Lucas as a project funded largely by the black community.
"I wanted the African American community to have an opportunity to do something we've never been able to do before, and that's be part of the economic development of Portsmouth," she said late last year.
Investors included some of the city's most prominent people, and included connections to two City Council members, a fact that added a pungent note of cronyism to the whole affair.
On Tuesday, a divided City Council refused to endorse low-cost financing for the Victory Village convention center, in part because members hadn't been assured that no city money would be one day required.
Saying no to one of Virginia's most powerful and popular legislators took enormous courage. But that vote was lost in the outcry over Holley's comments that the city needed a convention center for blacks - presumably as an alternative to the place he called "a white hotel."
If institutional and municipal bigotry, in a place like Portsmouth, is a pale reminder of its past vigor, there remains an undeniable legacy of racism in the lack of access blacks have to the capital needed for big projects.
The answer to that is to ensure that good ideas can find financing, no matter whether the backers are black or white. A conference center that replicates another city-backed project a few miles away is hardly a good idea.
Worse, anyone - like Holley - who thinks that building separate facilities are an answer to centuries of racial divisions is someone lost in the politics of another age. Racism is hardly a thing of the past. It never will be with attitudes like Holley's.
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ATTENTION twomiler!!!
You must live on a different planet than I do. Equal opportunity, welfare, food stamps, hiring preferences for government contracts or jobs, a PUBLIC apology from President Clinton. What more do you want? How many of these things were available to whites when "whitey" ran the country? The fact is America has apologized for decades, but people like you in America don't want apologies, you just want to receive the benefits of the double standard, and talk about "fair." The idea of Portsmouth taxpayers supporting private business is outrageous whether it's 12 or 50 million, or 50 thousand dollars. Holley should not resign over a controversial comment. He should resign because he, like the rest of the council, are incompetent, and they have failed the citizens of Portsmouth. But, people like twomiler will keep the man there, because to them, an incompetent black man is better than ANY white man. And then they'd have the audacity to preach to me about fairness and what is due blacks.
Apology & Recall
Those wanting Mayor Holley recalled, are asking for things that will not cause change for most citizens of Portsmouth. An old man, who has dealt with real racism, apologizes for a bigoted statement & or is recalled, to what gain? Will there be in Portsmouth, better access to funding for projects built by Black owned companies? Will all, whether Black or White, be satisfied with what goes on in Portsmouth, as a whole? The mere fact that people are demanding a resignation/recall & or apology, is change from the old Jim Crow days in Portsmouth. We paid taxes, & unlike you today, really had no say, in anything, period. Dr. Holley's comment was out of place, only due to changing of the guard. He recalls, as I do, comments far worse, being made with impunity, & also protected by law, by his opposites in race.
Portsmouth's heart has to change. Apologies have been due us for far longer.
KIMCHI ....THANK YOU FOR POSTING RECALL INFO
Thanks for the information. Please keep this up in all blogs that may be following. I will be signing tomorrow. Do you know what is the "magic" number of signatures that are required. I am sure that based on the election it isnt many and I am also sure the number gathered will be many times over what is required. I personally have talked with 25-30 people that will sign. I am emailing Ted in the next 5 minutes. Again, Thanks for the update.
Petition
A petition is going out all over the city at this time. Ted Lamb is heading it up. If you are interested in signing a petition you can e-mail him at tedlamb@hotmail.com.
Caution
We should be careful, not to come close to implying, that large groups of people, which whom we may disagree, are idiots. Unless the inference is intentional, then that is quite another matter. Also, we need to tread lightly in wording coming close to implying that a person accepted, on merit, & graduated, with honors, from one of the finest universities in our nation, is an idiot.
Jamie
"I do know why...a number of Black people feel it's better to have an incompetent idiot in office - who happens to be Black - than to not have a Black person in office at all."
I'm a Democrat, but I'm afraid the same thing is going to happen in the presidental election. I'm not an Obama fan, and race has nothing to do with it, and I don't like McCain either.
jamiegumm
If more people thought like you Portsmouth wouldn't be in the shape that it's in now. Thank you for telling it like it is.
Holley was recalled
Holley was recalled in 1997. It's my understanding he was re-elected in May 2008. He cannot be recalled until a year after his election and with proper petitions. If I'm incorrect please feel free to tell me and others how this process works.
I think the biggest problem
aside from the fact that Mayor Holley is a buffoon, is that there are so many people who support him anyway just because he is a black man. If he were a white bigot, black people would be rightly outraged by such comments, and white citizens would be calling for his scalp. But he can get away with it because he isn't white. Why are Portsmouth's black taxpayers not demanding better? Nope, no double standard here. But these same people will wonder why so many whites are still distrustful. The sad thing is that if you are white, and have the audacity to speak, you are labeled a racist. Well then, I guess I am a racist, because this man is shameful. By the way folks: go to the Renaissance and see the number of black people who stay there and then tell me it's a "white" hotel. It's time for us to point at a problem, say "that is the problem" and then have some honest discussion about a solution.
Okay, P'town
Those calling for the Pilot to put this *editorial* on the front page and keep the topic hot . . . we're supposed to *make* the news, folks, and the paper is supposed to *report* the news.
If you P'town folks want your mayor to resign, use the power of a petition, a demonstration, or something. We can't get to the point where we think newspaper reporters are supposed to do all of our political lobbying for us!!! Really! Cheers, MGM