Today my daughter was teased by her schoolmates because she liked Chris Owens. They told her that Yassky told them he would "build them a playground" (I don't know what that is based on and am not holding Yassky accountable!) and that Chris was a racist.

This is the result of the CD-11 rancor. And it is based on many false premises that were perpetuated by Yassky's campaign, his followers, and the white-dominated press.

And, after saying for months that race doesn't matter in the CD-11 race, I am furious because really, it does. How can it not? Racism really does permeate our society and of ALL the people I know, Chris is perhaps the LEAST racist. And yet, he gets blamed for the racism in Brooklyn.

My wife, even more furious than I am at the racism we see around us, puts it this way: "Why are we color blind only when it comes to an election."

I think it is time to face some facts about Brooklyn and about the CD-11 race. And, to be honest, about most whites and Jews in my neighborhood.

A baby born to a black woman in Brooklyn is much more likely to die in infancy than a white baby. Medical care is far worse for black children than for white children. Schools in predominantly black neighborhoods are far worse than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. Blacks are much more likely to go to jail than whites for the same crime. Black males have about a 50% jobless rate. And blacks have a substantially lower life expectancy. From birth to death, blacks have it worse than their on average richer, melanin-deficient neighbors.

That is the reality everyone who is born with considerable skin pigmentation is faced with.

I can only imagine the anger I would feel if I realized that my skin color meant at every moment of my life I am getting the short end of the stick.

And then I am told it is okay for a white man to move into a predominantly black district with the goal of winning a congressional seat because the black vote is split among three (originally four) candidates.

That is what blacks in the CD-11 race are faced with.

I am a white Jew. Yassky expected me to vote for him, originally. And I do feel an affinity for Yassky, perhaps because we both are kind of nerdy Jews. But I also have eyes.

I walk around Prospect Park. One end, which happens to face the richer, whiter area, is well-maintained and well-patrolled. The other end, which happens to face the poorer, darker-skinned area, has huge ruts in the paths, fewer patrols and, until recently, missing slats on most of the benches. The benches were finally fixed after years of being crappy on only the poor end of the park.

That has always struck me as a condemnation of Brooklyn and all its politicians.

And yet we are told it is racist to think it is wrong for a white man to move into a predominantly black neighborhood specifically to run in a race where three black candidates are splitting the black vote. Yassky was assuming whites would vote for him and so he would win.

Joy and I were canvassing between 3rd and 4th Ave. in our neighborhood. As you go from the park down the slope (hence, "Park Slope") there is a fairly sharp gradation in class...and a gradual increase in melanin pigment. By 3rd Ave. you are in a poorer neighborhood where the smell of the sewage laden Gowanus canal lends a nice perfume to the area.

We saw something horrifying. A baby wandered, unattended, out into the street. Luckily, cars stopped and passerbys rescued the child. There was a playground where the child had wandered from. I was angry that the parent had let the child wander off. But then I noticed the playground had no gates. Every single playground in the whiter, richer part of Park Slope has gates to keep the children from wandering off. Not in the poor, black area, though. No gates to protect the children.

The only part of our society that my Park Slope neighbors expect to be color blind are elections. They don't understand that if you are screwed your whole life because of the color of your skin you might not like the kind of racial calculus a man like Yassky is making when he moves into the district to run.

Now let's consider when race was first mentioned in the CD-11 race. Chris Owens and Yvette Clarke did not mention it first. Yassky did at every event I saw him at in the early days of his campaign. Every single early forum he spoke at, he introduced himself as "the white candidate running." I always felt it was a joke, making fun of himself. But I also now see it as belittling, probably unintentionally, the fact that race is a stark fact of life for most of the district, affecting the child mortality rate, life expectancy, incarceration rate and unemployment rate of the community.

Yassky started bringing up race at every chance. Only after that did Yvette Clarke and Chris Owens respond.

I will be honest. I never thought they should have responded. Or, perhaps, Chris should have responded that he thought he was the best candidate regardless of race, that Yassky was cynical for moving into the district where he could win because of a split black vote and assuming a unified white vote, though he has every right to run, and that if you want to talk race that Chris is the only candidate who reflects the diversity of the district.

Which brings us to Chris. I know Chris and he is not racist. I cannot put it plainer than that. His mother is Jewish. His uncle was a rabbi. I have never felt that Chris had anything but respect and friendship for Joy and I. And I have to emphasize that we are pretty damned pale.

Yassky's support came almost exclusively from whites and Jews. Chris' support came from all ethnic groups in the district. So I see no evidence whatsoever that Chris is racist. It makes no sense given the mutual respect and affection he has with his mother. It makes no sense if you spend a mere two minutes interacting with Chris. It makes no sense if you look at the faces of his supporters.

And yet my daughter gets bullied because her peers are repeating the Yassky talking points that their parents repeated without thinking of the effect it would have on their children. That is why I feel angry enough to further beat this supposedly dead horse. The talking points used by the Yassky campaign have echoes and my daughter was extremely upset by one of those echoes. Her friends don't understand nuance any better than she does. They will just remember that their parents called Chris racist. But it seems that their largely wealthy, white parents don't understand much nuance either since they seem to have no clue what society looks like if you go to the other end of the Park. Because there is no way they would think society is in any way color blind if they simply compared their neighborhood with the neighborhoods across the park.

I know I need to emphasize that I do NOT consider Yassky racist. I have come to see his supporters as either racist or, at best, ignorant of just how unequal our society is. I do blame Yassky for a certain amount of cynicism in moving into the district specifically to run with a split black vote. That isn't racist. It is opportunistic as even the NY Times admits. Yassky WANTED to represent all members of the district well. And I do think Yassky would have been a perfectly good Congressman.

But that is beside the point. By taking that opportunity to move into a district with a split black vote, by bringing up race at the outset, and by letting your opponent be called racist unfairly, Yassky has added unintentionally to the racial unfairness in the district.

There is, of course, a class component to all this. But for me it is hard to ignore the different level of melanin pigmentation that fairly clearly labels the classes.

If this diary seems too late and a bit rambling it is because it is written in anger on behalf of my upset daughter. But believe me, even though I prefer Yassky to Clarke, since Clarke is certainly qualified, I do think it is better for this district to be represented by a black woman who can serve as a role model for the children of the district (those who survive the higher infant mortality rate) than to see yet another wealthy white lawyer go to Congress.