Commentary : Next Baltimore Mayor May Be White. What’s Bad About Stating That? : Politics: A newspaper took heat over a headline, but some thought it was a good sign.

It was the headline that launched a thousand telephone calls and e-mails.

Well, not quite. But it apparently seemed like that many to E.R. Shipp, ombudsman for the Washington Post, as she described how the response “poured in throughout the day.”

Some readers were outraged over a headline on Page 1 that summarized the outcome of the Baltimore Democratic primary like this:

“White Man Gets Mayoral Nomination in Baltimore.”

“It made me cringe,” said the first caller. “I was extremely disappointed,” said another. It “added to the racial divide,” said another.

Silly me. I actually was delighted when I saw that headline. Maybe I’ve been covering politics too long. I did not think it added to the racial divide. I saw it as a sign that the divide has narrowed, at least in Baltimore, a city that is two-thirds black.

But Shipp, a longtime acquaintance who also is black, didn’t like the headline, either. In her weekly column, she described it as “a rather boneheaded decision” and noted that the Post’s own Deskbook on Style clearly states that “race and ethnic background should not be mentioned unless they are clearly relevant.”

The paper also apologized in a “clarification” the next day on Page A2 that the headline “distorted the role of race in the election.”

That’s debatable. As one who keeps an eye on mayoral races in Baltimore and other big cities, I don’t think the Post should be too hard on itself.

Just as it was big news when the College of Cardinals chose a Polish pope, it is encouragingly significant these days to see a mostly black city judge a mayor not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his candidacy.

Race hardly is irrelevant in the politics of Baltimore or any other major American city. When the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper where I work, ran the headline “Gary Elects Its First White Mayor Since 1967” after Democrat Scott King was elected in that almost 90% black Indiana city in 1995, I don’t recall that telephones rang off the hook at the newspaper’s switchboard.

Maybe the relevance in Gary’s case was more obvious, especially to those who know history. In 1967, Gary and Cleveland became the first two major American cities to elect black mayors. Both events were considered to be great, progressive breakthroughs. At last, major American cities were opening doors for blacks to reach the higher levels of political power.

Three decades later, black voters in many ways have turned away from racially oriented politics to results-oriented politics. Although a number of black mayors have exemplified this trend, it is more dramatic to the casual observer when a black-majority city elects a mayor who isn’t black, as in Oakland, which last year elected former California Gov. Jerry Brown. In Baltimore, Martin O’Malley, a 36-year-old lawyer, city councilman and guitarist in a Celtic rock band, seemed to many to be an unlikely choice for an electorate that is two-thirds black. When the race card was played, it mostly was against O’Malley. He was accused of being an opportunist, benefiting from a black vote split. At one widely covered rally, one of his opponents openly called on blacks to vote for a candidate who “looks like you.”

But O’Malley took the high road, with a platform centered on an anti-drug and anti-crime agenda in a city plagued by both. In the end, he easily outdistanced his challengers with 53% of the Democratic vote in a city where the Democratic nomination traditionally is tantamount to election.

In November, he faces developer David F. Tufaro, 52, a Republican, to see who will succeed Democrat Kurt L. Schmoke, the city’s first elected black mayor, who decided not to seek a fourth term.

Significantly, the Baltimore Sun noted, black voters were more likely to vote for a white candidate in this race than whites were to vote for a black. That’s hardly the first time that’s happened.

If black racial politics of the past three decades are beginning to sound less resentful and more relaxed, it will be for the same reasons the ethnic politics of other groups have relaxed. It will be because more avenues have opened up for cooperation across racial and ethnic lines to confront common problems like jobs, schools, crime and city services.

If so, that’s happy news. Unfortunately it does not fit easily into a headline.