The mayor led a respectful and timely Internet vigil Tuesday evening.
It was the right thing to do in the wake of such a monstrous murder of a black man on television by a white police officer with everyone in the nation watching.
However, over time and through his hiring policies, the mayor has proven he is not a friend of the minorities populating this city today.
He has done virtually and physically nothing but to give the appearance that minorities have a chance of becoming employed by the city.
The city’s lack of black and brown people in its employment rolls, their near nonexistence in minor positions and in leadership positions especially at city hall which is overwhelmingly white, makes a joke out of the seriousness the mayor pretended to show during the vigil.
The vigil was a perfunctory and insincere performance by the mayor.
He does not care about integrating the city workforce. He does not care about minorities.
He plays lip service to caring about them.
He does not mingle socially with minorities.
He prefers city hall white and unmixed by the racial imperative so important in the modern world.
Those who strongly support the mayor, those closest to him, his coterie of friends and those he’s hired over the years, with the exception of one or two out of hundreds have all aided him in perpetuating a nearly all white workforce.
The old Everett is what he wants to preserve above all.
The new mixed Everett with black and brown people leading the next generation of city employees is non-existent under his leadership.
In longer than ten years as the mayor, the city’s workforce – and even that of the school department – which is also under his sway, remains largely and almost entirely white.
The mayor needs to do more than to lead well meaning vigils and talk the talk of crimes against minorities and how they must stop.
He needs very badly, almost urgently, to walk the walk, to embrace the minorities here and to reward them, as he has re- warded so many others, with jobs and benefits and advantages which remain the domain of his preferred white appointees.
The small number of minority appointees to city and school jobs is appalling in this city.
This must be changed.
The mayor must be transparent and proactive about this. The numbers tell the story about the mayor’s racism. The numbers do not lie.