..."unity for America" is perhaps a bit on the grandiose side. The divisions in the district don't necessarily mirror those in the country.

I'm sorry Mole but you spew venom in one item, getting on your high horse about how supporters of one candidate were racist, and then you call for unity with these people in another item? I'm sorry but it doesn't work that way.

You have to find common ground before you have unity, and in this case the common ground is understanding why others disagree with you and not calling them racists for doing so.

This was an ugly, divisive contest and you can't participate in that ugliness and division and then suddenly its the next morning, and you want it to be blue skies and sunshine and we all get along. This cd-11 contest was just as bad, if not worse, than the Green-Ferrer mayoral primary, and those wounds haven't yet healed. The party hasn't had unity since and there won't be unity in cd11, not until the hate, the venom, the resentment go away and true understanding and respect for opposing opinions is reached.

To put it bluntly, thanks to the venom of certain people over Yassky's candidacy, there are now no doubt people so turned off by the political process that they either won't vote next time or will vote republican. Why should voter x participate in the democratic party, when this person is going to get called a racist if they vote the wrong way? Are you inviting Yassky supporters to join in unity or are you asking them to leave the party? I'm not sure. If the Democratic party in the 11th CD has room for people of all races, including whites to be members, then they must have room for all members to be able to run for office. You can't say "candidate X" has the right to run and at the same time say "how DARE he!"

The CD-11 is rapidly changing and gentrifying. There WILL be other white candidates for congress, because you can't expect 28% and growing part of the population to just sit back and not participate. We can't expect the racial and class divisions to go away in this district, or in this city, unless we get past the hate and venom and accept these people. What mole and bouldin are saying who cannot accept all the candidates who ran, or who will run in the future if they are not the "correct" race, are guaranteeing is more rancor, more ugliness and more voters turned off. Lighter turnouts every election year. Qualified candidates for office NOT running because they don't have the stomach to withstand the brutal personal attacks. Why run in cd 11 if what you are matters more than who you are.

I am not ignoring the real points made, I am disagreeing with them, which neither you nor bouldin seem to think anyone has the right to do. You're right and the rest of us are wrong, and you are morally superior and the rest of us our racist. That is how you are coming across. Pompous and arrogant, particularly when you go overboard trying to proclaim yourselves less racist and more outraged over racial indignities than anyone else.

If your stepdaughter was in tears she needs to disregard playground taunts. Those little kids couldn't have known much about the election. Their claiming to support Yassky because he promised to build them a free playground does not equate to they're supporting Yassky because they're racists or Yassky's racist. You overreacted and so did she. They were LITTLE KIDS, and maybe they really did want a free playgruond and maybe thats all it was about. Maybe if Chris was promising a better free playground they'd have supported him.

I don't happen to believe you undo the wrong of one race having had chains on their feet, by putting chains on the feet of others. All you do is feed resentment and DISunity. It is not the way to build coalitions. Why should progressives come together when they might think you value some people in the community more than others? You act as if the 28% of white people in this district must be martyrs and second class citizens forever simply because they live where they do and they are who and what they are. Thats how non-nazis were treated in germany once wasn't it? If you want to make Brooklyn and the 11th district better, start by not alienating ANYONE the way blacks have been alienated over the years. David Yassky didn't enslave black people. He's just a progressive guy who was ambitious, and he moved two blocks away and ran for an office, and he just HAPPENED to be white. Nobody had to elect him and he wasn't elected. He just wanted to make his case and he did beat two of the three black candidates who had lived there much longer. Yet he gets racial taunts and vile, ugly accusations. And because he was a white guy running in a black district, thats acceptable?! I just don't want every white guy who ever runs in this district to get villified like he was, it is not fair to them and it brings us all down. This district is gentrifying. Brooklyn is gentrifying. You can't live in a multi-racial district without accepting that multi-races will lead and run it, and that means all races, not one race. It is not the responsibility of the voters of the 11th district to correct the demographic imbalance in the entire congress. It is ONLY the responsibility of those voters to elect the best candidate to represent their interests that they can, and if black voters can think a black leader can best represent their interests, than spanish voters can choose a spanish leader and white voters can vote their race too.

Where was the tolerance? Where was the respect and human dignity in all of this? If you want unity, show tolerance. Don't just yell "you're wrong!" and "you're racist" and "those kids are racists" Hey I live in that area too, its a tolerant progressive area all the way around. You can't expect unity when you act as if you're the only morally superior, politically correct, person around and you look DOWN on other people in the district and their kids. It doesn't work that way.

This is why people get turned off by politics, why even loyal democrats sometimes don't vote because they get beat over the head by high and mighty progressives and our superior ideals and our superior nobility. What happens is that we hurt our own causes and our candidates lose. Chris Owens was the best candidate, but that was in our opinions, and we do not need to treat other voters and supporters like idiots, or call them racists or worse, just because they didn't think that way. If a regular democrat who was on the fence about this election read this blog the last few months, they'd get the impression that they shouldn't even MAKE their own decision, because somehow Chris Owens was the only candidate any NON-idiot would vote for. What was being said on this blog was "don't make your own decision, let us make that decision for you, you are just a voter, but we are noble, superior and holy and we know what is right, not you. Suddenly Chris Owens was not only the person you THOUGHT was the right candidate. He was the right candidate PERIOD, fact, because we the progressives have decreed it and we know all and see all.

You ask why our progressive candidates lose more often than not? Maybe its because the arrogance of our beliefs overwhelms and turns off voters, who just want respect for their own views and to make decisions on their own, without being preached to, and called idiots, racists, or worse if whatever decision they make isn't the right or holy one that we have decreed. When it comes to self righteousness, the progressive left is as bad as the right. No wonder many voters decide the middle is the safer ground, where they'll get hassled less and disrespected less.

I was going to ignore your most recent rant, Wallner, until I came across this gem:

If your stepdaughter was in tears she needs to disregard playground taunts.

I'm going to guess that you don't have kids. Because no parent, or for that matter no decent human being, would tell another parent that their kid needs to suck up playfround bullying, especially not while they're excoriating said parent for being self-righteous. Leaving aside that you're hyperventilating at Mole (and myself) for the dastardly act of reminding other liberal whites that America has a history and present of glaring racial disparities - that's just low.

Now, Mole is a nice guy, but I really am not, especially not when some douchebag guttersnipe takes it upon himself to go after my friends' children. That, I really, really do not like. In fact, I like it so little that if I discover another comment from you regarding anyone's kids, not just Mole's, I'll use my editorial discretion and ban you for life.

Have a nice day. Asshole.

All I'm doing is participating, and if you can't handle it, you are not a true democrat. A blog is supposed to invite comments, not just be a column, yet you only seem to want positive comments, and you want to ban people who react the wrong way to what you type. Its not right. Deleting one's posts who responds to your messages is undemocratic, it says you can't take criticism. I posted here last night that I honestly, legitimately feel Mole overreacted to those kids taunting his kid. That was my opinion, to which I'm entitled. Yassky promised them a nice new playground, maybe they really just wanted a nice new playground. Instead mole seems to think those kids are all racists and should be reprimanded for taunting his non-racist daughter. I don't buy it. Its an overreaction. In my opinion.

Wallner,

You keep erecting the same sorry strawmen over and over again. I find your absolute deafness to the oposing view pathological. You are still arguing against the opponents in your head, not the people who have repeatedly tried to explain thier position regarding Yassky's ill-concieved run in CD-11.

It's no use trying to explain again, you'll just talk past the poster and address the phantom reverse racists you keep imagining. You are stuck, Wallner, and nobody here can help you anymore.

Anonymous Coward, I have heard the arguments I just do not agree with all of them, can't you respect that? Also it is not just me, as stated, the New York Times, the NYCLU and other civil rights groups all agreed. There was an overreaction in cd 11 by the anti-Yassky forces, the man had the right to run and the right to offer his services to the district. That doesnt mean he should have been elected, I didn't support him either. But you cannot expect there to be 28% of one ethnicity in the district and not have candidates of that ethnicity once in a while.

Racism is a huge problem in this country, but I just don't believe the way to solve or combat it is villifying and ridiculing any candidates who run for office. What was done to Yassky was disgraceful in my opinion. He shouldn't have run, but if he wanted to make his case in cd 11, that right should have been respected, and neither he nor anybody who voted for him should be called racist.

rwallnerny, you are good. You caught Mole's act.