Rose Parade and Racial Divisiveness
During the May 25 Pasadena City Council consideration of the hiring of a legal team to audit the contracts with the Tournament of Roses Assn., Councilman Isaac Richard demanded and moved that the local co-counsel for the audit be African-American.
In response to Richard’s racial hectoring on this issue, Mayor Rick Cole, in a welcome display of common sense, spoke forthrightly that it was “tremendously divisive to say that only a person of a particular background can play a particular role,” and that he was “uncomfortable with a motion that says we must hire a particular ethnicity.” Councilman Richard backed down.
We can only speculate what divisiveness Pasadena might have been spared had Mayor Cole shown similar leadership during the assaults on the Tournament of Roses itself.
GLEN J. KISSEL, Ph.D.
Pasadena
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