The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's article on Umoja Fest in Seattle this weekend quotes supposed community activists saying black advancement here requires more meetings on police oversight, more money for (failing) public schools, and that gentrification and income differentials are de facto evidence of racism. But my favorite claim is that the monorail (buried by voters last fall) is coming to black Seattle, the clear inference being that's another sign of Whitey's callous quest for lucre.

"Umoja," a Swahili word which means "unity," is what the festival is all about. But for many who have Central District roots, gentrification has made unity difficult when their community is disappearing...Tony B. Conscious, community activist and Pan-African artist said, the community is slipping into the hands of those without its best interest in mind. He performed a spoken word piece to express his frustrations. "You see this was my neighborhood, overcrowded and underrated, now their building condos and monorails because its 15 minutes away from downtown," Conscious said.

B. More Conscious, Tony. The monorail is over; has been over since last fall. Stanchion One was never built. A Vote Of The People. Maybe you didn't participate. And about those evil condos. Free market. The prior landowners made out fine. Probably moved to Kent or Federal Way, in fact.

Omari Tahir, senior advisor and historian, said there needs to be a sense of culture instilled into young people. "We are trying to keep our cultural base here," Tahir said. "The new racism is economic apartheid."

Actually, Omari is also a convicted Mayor-beater who has previously called himself "a refugee of the African slave trade" who suffers from "delayed stress syndrome due to racism." Yep. We should really want to hear from him about instilling a sense of culture in young people. Omari, the new accountability is about black fatherhood. Put that in your megaphone, OK?

Michael Taylor, longtime community member and former president of the Pacific Northwest Black Community Festival Association, admits the black community in Seattle has issues of its own to sort out. "We are engaged in a culture clash that is why there is no collective progress in our community," Taylor said. "There needs to be visible accountability. We need community meetings to deal with these issues of gentrification, police harassment and lack of school funding," Taylor said.

Let me get this straight. Progress of economically-challenged blacks in Seattle depends on more money for the failing public schools, more police oversight, and the "issue" of gentrification?

With such beliefs granted legitimacy ad nauseum in the mainstream media, it is no wonder that the whole racial Kabuki dance in Seattle finds a convenient locus in the historically black Central District. The P-I writer refers to it as "their" community," but since when does one racial group have a moral claim to constitute the majority of any community in perpetuity? Clearly-defined free market forces continue to bid up Seattle residential real estate. We have especially attractive natural amenities in the region; constrained urban boundaries, and thanks to the state's Growth Management Act, a limit on suburban residential density, as well.

The only constant is change. We can either adapt, or flail against the currents. The real story about Puget Sound's black community is dispersal, signs of economic progress, and the growing middle class, increasingly evident in South King County. The paint-by-numbers "blacks struggling to hold on in the Central District" reportage has runs its course. Unless of course, it is really the P-I's aim to write for people like this.