Is Philadelphia a “Black city”?

This column was written three years ago, following the Philadelphia Inquirer’s journey into discovering its imagined racist history. I withheld it then because I was suing, and being sued by, the Inquirer. I won my defamation suit against them, they dropped their retaliatory suit against me. I publish this now, better late than never.

I probably will read the Philadelphia Inquirer’s self-flagellating series on race at some point, but I have already read confessions from the (new) publisher that the Inquirer was, and probably still is, a racist institution because of those, you know, roots in white supremacy — because the Inquirer owned slaves and supported slavery.

Neither of those things is true, but as in The New York Times 1619 Project, which I read, truth takes a back seat to white guilt. Also true of Howard Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States,” which opens with Columbus’s arrival in the Americas. That event happened 300 years before there even was a United States. Columbus never set foot on North American soil and Zinn admits he is not a historian and his book is subjective, pushing a particular (poisonous) point of view. 

At least he was honest about it.

In the current U.S. Census “whites alone” are listed twice for Philadelphia — first as 44.8%, and again as “whites alone, not Hispanic or Latino,” 34.3%. The higher number would seemingly include Hispanics who identify as white.

To be as fair as possible, let’s take the lower number — Philadelphia is 34.3% white.

Philadelphia is 43.6% Black. Hispanic, 15.2%, Asian 7.8%.

No race, or color, has the majority.

Philadelphia is called a “minority majority” city, which means nonwhites outnumber whites. That is true. 

But not all minorities are Black. Also true. 

So how is Philadelphia a “Black City” as the Inquirer headline claims? And you know editors put a lot of thought into that headline. 

Unlike, say, New Orleans, no one calls Philadelphia a “chocolate city.”

The closest any leader has came to that was Mayor John Street in 2002 shouting to an exuberant crowd, “Brothers and sisters are running this city! Oh, yes, running it!”

Could be true, starting with Septa bus and train drivers. Our current City Council president is Black. The majority of City Council is Black. We have had three Black mayors, a Black D.A., Black police commissioners, Black sheriffs, Black department heads, and Black members of Congress.

It’s also true we are a (self) segregated city, and a racially polarized city in a racially polarized nation. Even so, people of different colors get along pretty well in Philadelphia. There are many integrated (today’s word, “diverse”) communities within the city limits.

But the numbers don’t lie — this is not a “Black city.”

If I can’t trust the headline, how can I trust the text?