{"id":34651,"date":"2013-11-11T11:12:41","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T11:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=34651"},"modified":"2013-11-11T11:12:41","modified_gmt":"2013-11-11T11:12:41","slug":"biracial-cool-bill-de-blasios-fresh-electoral-asset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=34651","title":{"rendered":"Biracial Cool: Bill de Blasio&#8217;s Fresh Electoral Asset"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2013\/11\/biracial-cool-bill-de-blasios-fresh-electoral-asset\/281173\/\" target=\"_blank\">Biracial Cool: Bill de Blasio&#8217;s Fresh Electoral Asset<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\" target=\"_blank\">The Atlantic<\/a><br \/>\n2013-11-06<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.noblemaillard.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Noble Maillard<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Law<br \/>\n<em>Syracuse University<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The New York mayor-elect&#8217;s family\u2014both fascinatingly ordinary and shockingly modern\u2014proved to be one his greatest strengths.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bill_de_Blasio\" target=\"_blank\">Bill de Blasio<\/a>, and I\u2019m not a boring white guy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>How\u2019s that for a political opener? This is how the New York mayor-elect describes himself. At an August fundraiser for the Young Progressives for de Blasio, his daughter Chiara introduced him to the crowd, making an appeal for a new kind of inclusive city politics. Flanked by her entire family, she remarked, \u201cIf we\u2019re gonna bring new ideas to the table and create a world, a society \u2026 where everyone has a chance, we need to start listening to everybody\u2019s ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What are these bold and inventive ideas of the new mayor? Some of them follow a traditional Democratic nesting doll scheme: good government followed by more jobs succeeded by affordable housing topped off by better schools. Add in reason, compassion, equality, and whoomp! There it is\u2014a consummate progressive platform. But the de Blasio campaign offered another idea that most campaigns can\u2019t: the racially integrated family.<\/p>\n<p>Like it or not, it works.<\/p>\n<p>De Blasio is white. His wife, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chirlane_McCray\" target=\"_blank\">Chirlane McCray<\/a>, is black. Their two children, Dante and Chiara, are biracial. Their campaign literature relentlessly spotlighted the effortless interracial cool of Brooklyn bohemia\u2014that wonderful, eucalyptus-scented world of woody brownstones, aromatic teas, and gloriously integrated Cheerios breakfasts. His website features his family and marriage first, ahead of \u201cIssues.\u201d At his rallies, his wife and children are the feature rather than the curtain call. His mailings ask recipients to \u201cMeet the BROOKLYN FAMILY who\u2019s fighting to change New York.\u201d They picture the smiling family, drinking orange juice and playing <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Trivial_Pursuit\" target=\"_blank\">Trivial Pursuit<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2013\/11\/biracial-cool-bill-de-blasios-fresh-electoral-asset\/281173\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Biracial Cool: Bill de Blasio&#8217;s Fresh Electoral Asset The Atlantic 2013-11-06 Kevin Noble Maillard, Professor of Law Syracuse University The New York mayor-elect&#8217;s family\u2014both fascinatingly ordinary and shockingly modern\u2014proved to be one his greatest strengths. \u201cI\u2019m Bill de Blasio, and I\u2019m not a boring white guy.\u201d How\u2019s that for a political opener? This is how [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,26,20],"tags":[15381,4330,4329,1234,2711,596,6001],"class_list":["post-34651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-bill-de-blasio","tag-kevin-maillard","tag-kevin-n-maillard","tag-kevin-noble-maillard","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-the-atlantic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34651\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}