I hear that Councilmen Randy Wright and Anthony Burfoot are going to hold a news conference at 2:30 2:00pm this afternoon to announce a plan to hold citywide conversations on the issue of race. Interesting, since Norfolk United Facing Race presented council a proposal to do the exact same thing at the council meeting last week and, as of this writing, NUFR has not been contacting about partnering on this venture. As I am unaware of any other organization in the city that has experience with facilitating such discussions, it will be interesting to hear how they plan to accomplish this.
UPDATE: I see that their announcement is on PilotOnline.
The group will consist only of civic league presidents…The group’s first meeting will be held in February. Topics will include community policing, code enforcement and workforce housing.
Hmm………
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Since when has experience even been necessary for a politician?
Another topic could be “How to hold a fake racial dialog facilitated by a Handkerchief Head Knee-gro and his trusty caucasion sidekick and part-time oppressor, Randy.”
this is a joke right.
No, Twilight Zone. Just insert weird music.
I was unable to attend the press conference but I did catch the news coverage. It was, shall we say, interesting. The 6pm coverage was better but the 5:30pm coverage is on the website http://www.wvec.com/ (on the right hand side under 13 News video)
Curious, I wonder how much time this couple spent on worrying about their race and all the Americans that want to hold them back?
http://www.gatewayva.com/biz/virginiabusiness/magazine/yr2006/jun06/rich_singh.shtml
And how, exactly, does that relate to the issue at hand?
This is yet another example of the imperial council telling the citizens the way they see it. The tail is wagging the dog.
I assume, Vivian, that Tom is talking about that “hundred pound elephant,” the distribution of wealth. (That’s a VERY small elephant, BTW.)
I heard on the radio today that the murder rate for Blacks in the U.S. is 19 per 100,000, and for Whites it’s about 3 per 100,000. (BTW, that includes White Hispanics. The rate for Hispanics is about 9 per 100,000, so that leaves the non-Hispanics Whites below 2 per 100,000.)
How’s that for a conversation starter?
Crime data can be interesting. Note here
how the murder rates decrease when Democrats are in charge and increase when Republicans are in charge. This is Virginia data.
What are your sources?
Here’s a public reference for Virginia data:
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/vacrime.htm
The demographic of sharpest contrast when it comes to crime is gender.
National 2005 arrests from FBI data
Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter 89% male
Forcible rape 99% male
Robbery 89% male
Aggravated assault 79% male
Overall 82% of those arrested for violent crimes were male. 67% of those arrested for property crimes were male.
OK, that’s the crime rates. Where is the “Republicans in charge” or “Democrats in charge” data? Is that in the G.A.? How ’bout plotting the crime rate vs. % republicans in the G.A.?
Go for it.