Detroit faces race issues with mayoral crisis

By Kevin Krolicki

DETROIT (Reuters) - As he waited for take-out to be served up from behind the bullet-proof glass at Motor City Soul Food, Jimmy Ponius said he was saddened by the latest blast of bad news for Detroit, a city used to its share.

With Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick facing trial for felonies including perjury, Ponius said the 37-year-old politician once seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party needed to step aside.

But he also questioned whether Kilpatrick had been fairly treated by the media and public opinion. "As a black man, he's going to have a target on his back. That's a given," said Ponius, 49, an autoworker. "He should have known that."

A mile north is Eight Mile Road, the demarcation made famous by rapper Eminem. The line divides Detroit, some 80 percent black, and a ring of overwhelmingly white suburbs. It is a political fault line in an urban landscape the 2000 Census found to be the most segregated in the United States.

In suburban Plymouth, hockey's Red Wings are on the big screens at Doyle's Tavern, where sympathy for Kilpatrick vanishes.

Mike Massarello, 53, a janitor, has not ventured into the city in a year. He sees Kilpatrick as arrogant. "There are still neighborhoods that burned down in the riots. He doesn't tour those in his Escalade, does he?" he said, referring to bloody race riots four decades earlier.

In a city divided by race, the indictment of a sitting black mayor has laid bare differences civic leaders have worked decades to address and many hoped had been buried.

DETROIT: DEMOCRATIC DILEMMA