Here in Dallas, we’re America’s crime capital.

Our police chief is seen by more and more people as–how to put this

politely?–not up to the demands of his job. The bill of indictment would

fill a day’s worth of Corner postings. But Chief Bolton has one thing going

for him: he’s an African-American. Despite the fact that black Dallasites

are bearing a disproportionate brunt of the crime, black leaders here are

going to the mat for the chief. Yesterday, the chief’s top defender on the

city council, a black council member named Don Hill, came to visit the

editorial board here at the Dallas Morning News. He’s a very friendly man,

but he laid down the law. He said, in so many words, that it doesn’t matter

whether Bolton brings the crime stats down, as long as he makes a show of

trying hard. He said that he believes the newspaper is out to get Dallas’

first African-American chief. He said that if the city moves to fire Bolton,

there will be “racial unrest”–he said he wasn’t promising a riot, but

that conditions would be ripe for one. And he said that even if the black

community is suffering disproportionately from the crime Bolton is not

preventing, it didn’t matter because African-Americans feel good about

having one of their own running the police department.

It’s hard to imagine a more cynical view.