Black and White are Shades not Colors

16 October 2020

by David Arthur Walters

The residents of Miami Beach believe the Entertainment District on the south end of the sandbar has been degraded into a ghetto by misbehaving visitors from the mainland, that it has, in effect, been flooded by a crime wave. The political elite led by Mayor Dan Gelber held a workshop to consider the matter, disallowed comment from the public, and laid blame on the nightclubs despite the fact that the misconduct in the area continued apace after they were closed by curfews. The mayor would have the city commission resolve to limit alcohol sales and create an unelected liquor control board even though the clubs are not the source of the problem and a local board would be yet another locus for traditional corruption. Besides, the electorate has already refused to curtail alcohol sales by referendum.

I noted in a previous number in this series that there is an elephant in the political workroom. The wave feared is predominantly black whether it is a wave or not. It is in effect the spreading out over the entire year of a massive, annual Memorial Day event proudly called 'Black Week' by its frank promoters, otherwise known as 'Urban Week.' There was indeed a phenomenal surge of crime during those events. Many residents who had the means left town beforehand as if a hurricane were approaching. Black Week was finally brought to an end by effective police action, but the city was left with a continuous problem in the Entertainment District. We do not know how big of a problem it really is because the political elite would not conduct an exhaustive study of crime in the district over the last few years before making its decisions. Such a study might tend to confirm the feeling that the cause of more crime in the area is the misleadership of Dan Gelber and his predecessor, Phil Levine. In any event, the problem, to the extent it exists, can only be mitigated by effective police action, and not by changing the name of the area to the Art Deco District or the like as proposed by the rebranders.

Now in response to my series, a sincere resident charged me with race-baiting for mentioning the elephant people do not want to identify for fear of being called racists. Race-baiting may be defined as the incitement of racial hatred, often for political purposes. And to charge someone with race-baiting may work to defame someone, to effectually call them a racist and thereby cause people to ignore the fact that prejudice, perhaps even their own prejudice, is the real issue.

“I think you see people by skin color. Why do you have the need to mention skin color in your article? I call race-baiting when skin color is mentioned when it serves no purpose other than to be divisive or create division. I'm not a fan of seeing people by color. Behaviors is how people are judged. If I see litter on the beach, I don't think of the skin color of the litterbug, I see it as a disgusting behavior.”

I would agree with my critic if it were not for present context. The “trash” here is the inimical form of the existing black and white division on the beach, and it should be cleaned up. I have a black friend who takes the bus to work because he is afraid he will be stopped if he drives. I know a black man from up north who worked for Hillary and would be an excellent commissioner here, but he will not run because, he says, “the community is not ready.” Like it or not, the division exists, and here is another opportunity to face it and do something about it other than call people racists for mentioning it.

I had stated unequivocally and clearly that the actual problem we have had with so-called bad actors in the Entertainment District of  South Miami Beach is due to permissive culture, and not to race in the postmodern sense of any "people of color." People used to speak of “the English race” and “the French race” not that long ago, meaning the cultures of the respective nations, so perhaps now we can speak of “the Ghetto race” wherever it exists, and even enjoy some of its culture if it does no harm to others. However that may be, I reiterated time and again that the policy of the mayor and his dwindling bevy of commissioners is at fault for the situation they condemn the nightclubs for. They themselves are members of the “Bad Actors race.”

My critic did not like the fact that I mentioned the Good Old White Boys & Girls that run the city. Their religion and complexion has evolved since Miami Beach was created, but there they are, elected by a minority, and that is our fault. Here is the context:

“Of course the people deserve the leaders that ten percent of the population do elect. That minority has cause not to pay reasonable salaries for fulltime elected officials because then qualified candidates from all walks of life would be attracted instead of the clan of good old white boys and girls who comprise the power elite. That is not to say that the clan is racist. Nonetheless, the elephant in the room no one dared to speak of lest they be called racist was black.”

The reader can see how much I really appreciate the criticism of this critic, who did not know calling someone a race-baiter is insulting, and who thought I was insulting her for giving her the benefit of doubt, that of ignorance or innocence as to the unthinking, commonplace use of the phrase. Indeed, I was gladdened because she got me to thinking more about the meaning of colors with the observation that I am a colorist.

I had conceived of a black elephant kept in the dark. This symbolic elephant happens to be black, in this case, I thought, but could be any color besides white, may heaven forbid, because we know what people say about white elephants! What we have here, I reasoned, is not a symbolic Black Swan but a Black Elephant in the political darkroom, and some folks would keep it quiet while dictating an irrelevant rebranding scheme reminiscent of failed anti-social socialist plans in totalitarian countries; failed because human initiative in the form of free market forces were strangled in a succession of five year plans, leaving half baked structures in the wake.

A Black Elephant is unlike a Black Swan inasmuch as it symbolizes an unexpected event that may have an enormous negative impact on society unless it is recognized for what it is and then appropriately addressed. I appreciate the criticism, and would even be a dog to this fair critic, but I shall not white out what I have written lest I obscure the White Elephant. Perhaps the mayor is a White Elephant! They are very expensive to maintain. The mayor in all his piety would not be a racist, as far as the color black goes, because, after all, as everyone knows, Moses married a beautiful Nubian woman. Maybe he will stop the exodus from the beach by providing for a secure environment whatever the brand might be.