“You’re not scared to be seen talking to us?” he asked with a bemused look.
“About what,” I replied?
“He ain’t scared,” said his companion.
I shrugged my shoulders at Mayor Otis Johnson who had asked the question and City Alderman Van Johnson who had made the pronouncement on my feeling about being seen with them.
We were at the gate of our flight back to home after the annual Chamber of Commerce’s Lobby-fest in Atlanta. They looked dapper. Black men wearing black. The Mayor with a baseball cap and the Alderman with a fedora.
I was the white guy in faded jeans, dirty tennis shoes and, I suppose in an effort to show solidarity, a black long sleeve tee shirt. I haven’t had a hair cut in a while but I got a tan.
What I was supposed to have been scared of was having an integrated conversation in 2011 with a City Council who has made racism front page news again. Five black council members voted for two black finalists to become City Manager. Four white Council members wanted a white finalist too.
It’s like watching the History Channel.
They appeared confident and smug.
“I’m doing what I think is best,’ the Mayor says. “In the end that is what you have to do.”
I nod my head. Who can argue with that?
“I’m just glad that it’s not 2008?”
“Because of your heart attack” I asked?
“No, because I was up for re-election,” he explained.
I ask if he enjoyed the Lobby fest and he tells me that he didn’t go.
“The important stuff happens at the Capitol,” he explains. “I don’t need to go to no party where everybody drinks and eats.”
Everybody else at the Capitol disagrees with that assessment and were there.
We’re called to board. “When I’m done I’m going to frame my collection of Streeter cartoons,” he says as we walk down the gangplank.
Mark Streeter is the political cartoonist for the Savannah Morning News.
“I’ve got my share,” I tell him.
“I know you do,” he smiles.
Then we take our seats. No first class on this tiny plane. The Mayor is in front of me giving a speech to the guy sitting next to him. I would turn around to see what Van is doing but I really don’t care.
I ponder these things. A collection of framed political cartoons will represent a legacy. The search for a City Manager has turned into blanket assertions of race. Black is pitted against white. And 250 miles from Savannah where this is all happening, I’m asked if I’m scared to be seen with a black Mayor and Councilman in front of mostly white people who are flying to Hilton Head and don’t know about any of this stuff anyway.
It is sad.
I wonder how far we have all really come. It makes me miss St. Martin where race simply isn’t an issue.
