NUTTER: Legacy
A city in which residents of all neighborhoods are safe to walk the streets without fear of violence and crime; a city in which employment opportunities are abundant and the educational supports need to take advantage of them are available to all; and a city that has shed the self-image and outside reputation of being corrupt and contented.
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In the debate on Sunday Nutter did not get his share of time to talk, partly because he did not push his way in like Evans. Nor did he project much warmth.
He is the only candiate that I've personally met. In person he is warm and quite at ease and carries on a thoughtful discussion that he does not try to dominate. He is truly interested in the issues and fully understands the problems. He has an interpersonal style that gives me confidence he could lead the bureaucracy effectively and draw in the talent that can make progress on many of the city's problems.
The Inquirer notes regularly that he is more popular with white voters than with black voters. What people fail to see is the progress the country is making and the talk that "Nutter is too white" comes from those who actually fear the progress.
I've been a college professor with a teaching career that spans over 35 years, 25 at Temple University. My adult experience spans almost all of the civil rights events.
35 years ago black students were too often affirmative-action babies. 25 years ago the test scores on exams of black students at schools around the country (I talked to my colleagues at other universites about this)were no longer any different from the scores of white students and black students were taking positive leadership roles intheir universities. However, 25 years ago the two groups mostly led separate lives outside of class and clustered "with their own" in the class room. Now when I teach classes the students are disperse by race and in the computer labs whites and blacks help each other irrespective of race. We are actually seeing a new generation coming along that is achieving the ideals of Martin Luther King.
Michael Nutter (and people like Stanley O'Neal, the black CEO of Merrill Lynch) are showing that race does not have to matter and blacks and whites can work comfortably together.
That Nutter is doing worse in the black neighborhoods shows the perennial problem that working-class and poor neighborhoods latch onto ideas and understand social changes later than middle-class neighborhoods. Look at all the hillbillys who still have long hair and wear John-Lennon granny glasses.
I would hope that those in the race business would learn that we really do have to work together to bring Philadelphia back. The civil rights old guard has to wake up and recognize that Nutter is the future. Divisive rhetoric is losing its punch with the younger generations and will fade into history.
Nutter was much more assertive in the WHYY debate and projected a more human face while looking more like a leader. He shows he can learn how to do better. He is still my favorite.
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