Racial Issues

To Baltimore voters, next month's Democratic primary for Prince George's County executive may seem familiar. That's because it looks a lot like the race in Baltimore three years ago, when voters had to choose a successor to Kurt L. Schmoke, the city's first African-American mayor. As in that race, when the city elected Martin O'Malley, Prince George's voters must select a replacement for the county's first black executive, Wayne K. Curry, at a time when crime is rising, schools are failing and a general malaise has taken hold.

BOWIE - On "Unity Day," the speakers denounced bigotry and extolled diversity. Despite some hateful graffiti, racial harmony can grow in this Prince George's County city, they said. An NAACP official proclaimed: "I don't believe that Bowie is a community that is divided by racial hatred." That's when four New Black Panthers crashed the party. In black fatigues, they filed into the senior center. White supremacists are at work in Bowie, the Panthers' literature charged, and blacks should "crush" any "straw-chewin', tobacco-chewin', racist redneck" who assaults an African-American.

DOES "The Boondocks," a new comic-strip featuring black characters and written and drawn by a black artist, succeed in exploring racial issues -- or is it just racist?Since the Los Angeles Times introduced the strip April 19, about 250 readers have telephoned or written to comment. Many people passionately criticize it as racist and accuse it of promoting violence and negative stereotypes of blacks. But an almost equal number say the strip portrays their lives accurately and with humor and critically exposes stereotypes.

Well-crafted commercials suggesting that Ellen R. Sauerbrey was an enemy of civil rights drew a record number of African-Americans to the polls this week, but some observers believe the long-term price could be a more deeply polarized Maryland.One of five voters Tuesday was an African-American -- and 90 percent of them voted for Glendening partly because they were fearful of Sauerbrey. Exit polls point to the black vote as Glendening's margin of victory."We won tonight," Glendening said after the result was clear, "because the people of Maryland stood up for a fair, just, inclusive and compassionate society."

Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. lashed back at his Republican challenger yesterday, calling Paul H. Rappaport's assertion that Curran told state troopers he would not represent them if they were sued by the American Civil Liberties Union "an out-and-out lie.""He either has zero credibility or he owes me an apology," the three-term incumbent said as the once-quiet attorney general's race became increasingly vitriolic.Rappaport did back down slightly from his earlier statement that Curran himself threatened to withhold state representation in a ACLU lawsuit charging that the state police and members of a drug interdiction team had used race as a factor in conducting traffic stops and searches.

Returning yesterday from a trip abroad to confront another racial uproar in Baltimore's Police Department, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke denounced protesters who for two days have demanded that his police commissioner resign or be fired.The protesters charge that Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier has not done enough to root out racism in the department, which they say contradicts statements he made in a sworn deposition made public Tuesday, in which he said there is racism on his force.Schmoke, who said he will not fire Frazier or ask him to resign, gave the commissioner his full support and said he has confidence in the reforms Frazier has implemented over the past year.

Fifty years after President Harry S. Truman desegregated the military, there has been a recent "retreat" from Truman's goals, the NAACP said yesterday.When Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in July 1948, he said his goal was "equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services."President Clinton marked the anniversary at a ceremony in Norfolk, Va., at the commissioning of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman yesterday. Clinton called Truman's order integrating the armed forces "one of the best decisions any commander in chief ever made."

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton must soon decide whether the government should create a separate classification for Americans of multiracial or multiethnic heritage, a symbolic issue with potentially far-reaching implications.The issue, equally contentious if less visible than the question of apologizing for slavery, stands to test the president's political agility in the latest role he has assumed for himself, moderator of a "national conversation" on race.On one side are mixed-race Americans demanding that the government quit putting them in boxes that convey only one-half -- or one-fourth -- of who they are. On the other side are civil rights organizations worried that new ways of counting race will dilute the political strength of minorities -- and contribute to the erosions of recent economic gains made by blacks and Latinos.

A truce reached two months ago between Baltimore's police commissioner and the highest ranking black commander has been shattered, renewing a feud over racial issues that fractured the department's command chain.Col. Ronald L. Daniel charged last night that Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier has harassed two black majors who supported Daniel during the upheaval in April and said the department's law office has stymied his efforts to obtain data on racial disparity on the force.Daniel, considered the No. 2 officer in the department, said he no longer will head an effort to implement reforms recommended by the watchdog Community Relations Commission, a task assigned to him by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

Prime-time network television is not the place you might expect to find a serious discussion of race -- especially during a season drowning in sitcoms about young friends.But, contrary to notions of network entertainment as essential mindlessness, an informed and highly charged discourse on ethnicity, power and race is now taking place every weeknight on ABC, CBS, NBC and even Fox.To an extent without precedent, millions of Americans are bearing witness nightly to symbolic representations of some of their deepest feelings on one of the deepest issues in the national psyche.