Rick Redding was an original founder of this website.
In West Virginia last week, Jerry Abramson was talking about how Louisville was doing at the time of the city-county merger seven years ago. The issue was a big one that divided the community.
During the course of an interview there, Abramson said that back then, the city’s population was getting “poorer, blacker and older.” He should have known that a charged comment like that one would be used against him. So what if the city population was getting blacker, it’s just not something you can talk about publicly.
His nemesis, Ed Springston, got a copy of the tape and posted it on his site. And took us back to those old battles between the city and county. Springston, who ran in the Mayor’s race in 2006, says the comment proves his point that the city needed merger more than the county.
We asked Chad Carlton, the mayor’s spokesman, about the mini-controversy, and he gave us a quote about how the Mayor was speaking of the demographics of the time and that anyone who knows his record that he’s always tried to bring people together…yada, yada, yada.
Credit to Springston for trying to make an issue from one comment in a 49-minute interview. The truth is that Abramson’s critics ought to be jumping on what he’s done in the last year, starting with the debacle over Cordish’s $950,000 spending spree. Carlton says Economic Development Director Bruce Traughber will get around to going up to Baltimore to check the spending records. No rush, though. He’s on vacation.
Abramson’s position, in which he accepts the Cordish explanation that all the money was spent on the Sports and Social Club, is unacceptable. That’s what the Jerry-haters should be focused on.
12 responses so far ↓
1 Steve // Jul 13, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Abramson cited pre-merger concerns that the city getting “poorer, blacker and older.”
Why was it a concern that black residency was increasing? The Mayor had already mentioned “poorer,” so why was “blacker” a bad thing?
Maybe he was implying that more blacks equates with higher crime.
Or white flight. Or fear that lily-white surbanites would be too scared to venture downtown, with its darkening complexion.
It was a clumsy — make that buffoonish — statement, especially for someone who has held elective office for a quarter century — and a couple of years too long, evidently.
2 AB // Jul 13, 2009 at 3:55 pm
What a stupid way to phrase the situation. Does anyone else want to barf when you arrive at the airport and get hit with McCheese welcome video on the big screen by security?
3 TaxMan // Jul 13, 2009 at 7:52 pm
That is the most racist thing I have ever heard (is what you would hear if those comments came from the mouth of a Republican).
Since they did not, let’s just say those comments were “unfortunate”
4 Archie Bunker // Jul 13, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Maybe his “blacker” comment was intended to illustrate the need for diversity in the city?
5 tired // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:39 am
I’m so tired of no one being able to make a freakn comment with out someone screaming they are racist! dang. the truth is the truth, if he would have said whiter, no one would have said a darn word about it. no, not all blacks are poor, not all whites are poor. but it is what it is in certain areas and that’s just the simple truth. GET OVER IT ALREADY AND STOP USING THE RACE CARD!!!!!
6 Chuck // Jul 14, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Since Jerry is a jerk, it doesn’t surprise me that he would say that. He’s been spending decades refining how to be an arrogant jerk. There is a lot of disdain from the mayor towards the poorer part of the city. Its been evident throughout the years. How many trips does he do to community conversations in say Portland or Shawnee or Parkland.
He has the black vote for his own purposes. He uses those folks to get what he wants and if that is 6 terms as mayor of Louisville. He doesn’t care and you can see it in the general conditions of anywhere west of 7th street. Its the rundown buildings, the crumbling factories, the closure of businesses, and all social ills going with that. I remember that things even in the 60s and 70s were much different. All hell broke loose when they wiped out the local black business community back in the 50s and 60s and were doing red lining. That is when the crime issues started in the West End plus the white flight which was encouraged by certain powerful people in the business community. That way they could split us up into three different jurisdictions. Sure it was all Jefferson Co. but still there is a class and racial distinction to all these areas being that the average income east of Bardstown Road is 85000 or more. The West End is in the mid 20s to mid 40s. And the South End mid 30s to mid 50s. They have done this division for a reason. Mayor Jerry has followed their plans well. He gets the Democrat vote by saying the right things but acts more like a neocon Republican.
7 boo hoo // Jul 14, 2009 at 1:20 pm
The general conditions past 7th street are due to the people who live there and don’t take care of their neighborhood. The mayor can’t go door to door and say, hey you, quit sitting on that porch all day drinking 40’s and smoking dope out in the open, clean up that garbage, stop letting your kids run wild in the streets, etc. People with any care about themselves or their community would step up and take care of that themselves instead of always blaming a politician. You do not see people east of Bardstown rd acting that way because they care about the place they live and want it to be nice.
8 slim // Jul 14, 2009 at 7:03 pm
My question for Jerry is this: How many blacks are too many?
9 Carter Burger // Jul 14, 2009 at 9:39 pm
I keep waiting for the day for blacks to wake up and realize that Democrats are not their friends like they propose to be.
The Republican Party was created in opposition to the expansion of slavery into Kansas. Democratic governors like Orval Faubus of Arkansas, Lester Maddox of Georgia, and, George Wallace of Alabama all fought integration. Ironicly, the Republicans have, in recent years, allowed the Democrats to cast them as the party trying to keep the blacks down.
10 Sirico // Jul 14, 2009 at 10:16 pm
-Maybe the Republicans have been cast that way because it is true.
From The New Republicans:
“The GOP’s inability to court the minority vote”
By Steven Lee
The party of Abraham Lincoln struggles to court the minority vote. For the past several decades, Blacks have supported the Democratic Presidential candidate overwhelmingly. In 2004, Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry won 90% of the Black vote. In 2008, the GOP lost 96% of the Black vote and 67% of the Hispanic vote. As Sophia A. Nelson points out in “It’s My Party, But I Don’t Feel Part Of It,” 2008 was “the worst showing for the Republican Party among minorities in its 150-year history.”
How will the party redefine itself moving forward in order to attract the minority vote?
Nelson, a black Republican, says the party must confront its poor relationship with black Americans. In the 2008 GOP convention, only 36 of the 2,000 delegates were black. Former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele, a black Republican, recently said that the Republican party does not concern itself with issues affecting blacks.
Although she identifies herself as Republican, Nelson voted for Obama in 2008 after “struggling with [her] conscience.” In her words, she was dismayed by the “racially coded Republican ads and speeches aimed at scaring working-class and rural white voters about Obama.”
11 Carter Burger // Jul 15, 2009 at 9:44 am
Nothing in your cut and paste indicated that is is true, Sirico.
12 Sirico // Jul 15, 2009 at 3:06 pm
How does ignoring black issues and trying to play the race card against a black candidate for president (Obama), NOT qualify for “trying to keep the blacks down”?
How can you not make that connection?
Remember these are BLACK REPUBLICANS that are making these statements against the REPUBLICAN PARTY.
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