Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics

9 Target Practice

199 CHAPTER 9 Target Practice Universalizing the Interests of Blacks for All The role of black leadership [in the twenty-first century] should begin with the acknowledgement of its limitations. The limitations include the leadership ’s inability to solve every conceivable problem facing the [black] community. It should recognize that the black community’s problems are American problems that require an American solution. Donald Cunnigen Toledo Mayor Jack Ford and Dayton Mayor Rhine McLin’s support of black interests extended beyond their State of the City speeches and related addresses. For example, in an interview, Ford once asked, “Why run for mayor, if you’re not going to help black people? That was the point.”1 As noted, in his inaugural address Ford framed the policies and programs that were designed to have an impact on the quality of life of blacks by appealing to his constituents with the message found in Isaiah 58: helping the most needy was helping everyone . Ford’s efforts with minority contracting, described in chapter 5, are another indication of his approach to universalizing the interests of blacks. In those efforts Ford managed to effectively secure major political, construction industry, and university support from white leaders to improve the quality of life of blacks in Toledo. He was able to persuade all these leaders that the interests of blacks in minority contracting were relevant to all of them. McLin’s efforts with housing and related initiatives critically involved maintaining supportive working relationships with white 200 TARGET PRACTICE county and city leaders, including members of the city and county commission, the business community, and organizations like the DMHA (see chapter 6). While her role was largely supportive in each context, she effectively facilitated white leadership support for policies and programs that were in the interests of blacks. I have labeled this approach toward securing policy gains for a particular racial constituency as a third tier in the study of race politics, one that applies the understanding of targeted universalism to the existing scholarship on racialized and deracialized mayoral political actions. Jack Ford and Rhine McLin are examples of mayors who did not explicitly advocate for race policies. However, neither did they seek the fulfillment of race-specific policies by deemphasizing race (for example, by replacing a racial label with the “urban” label) through deracialization.2 Rather Ford and McLin are examples of twentyfirst -century black mayors of non-majority-black cities who were successful in their active pursuit of policies and programs designed to improve the quality of life of blacks because they noted the racial significance of policies and programs where appropriate. They are examples of black mayors using targeted universalism in rhetoric and policy introductions. Their strategy recognized and identified the interests of African Americans in Dayton and Toledo as black interests. But many sympathetic whites who were willing to support the mayors’ efforts on behalf of all city residents also supported the strategy. In some instances the mayors’ advocacy of the interests of blacks was framed as simply the “right” thing to do. As Ford indicated in his 2004 State of the City address regarding the city’s smoking ban, “It is the right thing to do, period!”3 McLin, though indirectly, invoked a similar argument as she spoke of her city’s long-standing Third and Main Streets dilemma in her 2005 State of the City address . Many African Americans (including students) who utilize public transportation transfer at this intersection, and it was the subject of contention, as white constituents in the downtown area allegedly often accosted transitioning blacks whom they viewed as deterrents to their pursuit of customers. In response, McLin commented: “We TARGET PRACTICE 201 [the commission] have also directed our focus at the human element as well—our own civility. . . . We believe it was important to remind people about the value of personal interaction as we go about our daily lives. The Civility Resolution encourages all of us to remember the basics of courtesy and respect.”4 Hence both Ford and McLin in their own way addressed the quality of life of blacks in their cities by responding to concerns with programmatic infusions and policy introductions that were framed in speeches as the “right” thing to do and as important for lived and shared human experience, not solely as issues that affected black residents. While many other leaders, black and white, have long framed matters concerning the...