I can't imagine a white politician getting away with the kinds of racist remarks New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin makes on a daily basis.
New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin has suggested that the slow recovery and rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina -- which has prevented many black former residents from returning -- is part of a plan to change the racial makeup and political leadership of his and other cities."Ladies and gentlemen, what happened in New Orleans could happen anywhere," Nagin said at a dinner sponsored by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a trade group for newspapers that target black readers. "They are studying this model of natural disasters, dispersing the community and changing the electoral process in that community." ...
"Everybody in America started to wake up and say: 'Wait a minute. What is he doing? What is he saying? We have to make sure that this man doesn't go any further,' " Nagin told a room full of black newspaper publishers and editors at the Capital Hilton. ...
"They thought they were talking about a different kind of New Orleans," Nagin said. "They didn't realize that folks were awake, that they were paying attention."
If this isn't "coded" racism then I don't know what is. Ray Nagin is a despicable racist, and prominent black leaders like Barack Obama should speak up and denounce him.
Deval Patrick, now governor of Massachusetts, is probably worse. And then there's the Congressional Black Caucus.