Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, a rising figure in the Democratic Party, was initially derided for her response to rising tensions leading up to Gray’s funeral over the weekend, when she said Sunday that officials “gave those who wished to destroy space to do that.”
The mayor is black. The council is almost two-thirds black. The school superintendent is black. The police chief is black, and a majority of his officers are black.
Race riots inevitably end in contention over what social woes led to the trigger point, with one overarching element: a white power structure ruling a black populace.
Baltimore left behind that vestige of segregation long ago, yet the city nonetheless has been perched on the edge of chaos for much of this week, as African American protesters took to the streets to express grievances over police abuse and urban neglect.
“We ain’t talking about color,” said John Baptist Watkins III, 53, sitting on the steps of a boarded-up brick row house on North Avenue, as men nearby peddled drugs — one of the few ways to earn money in this part of town.
Even the city’s African American elected officials, Watkins said, “have no clue what is going on in the city.”
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