In an article headlined, “White Police Chief Could Upset a Balance in Newark,” The New York Times reports that Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker “removed the word ‘acting’ from the title of his police chief, Anthony Campos, a Portuguese-American who, along with Police Director Garry F. McCarthy, leads the city’s 1,300-member police force.”

The Times worries that, “In a city like Newark, where the majority of the population is black and race issues bubble just below the surface, the decision to place two white men at the helm of the city’s Police Department could threaten the good will and unity that Mr. Booker has been enjoying of late.”

The Stiletto cannot even imagine The Times running an article with the hed, “Black Police Chief Could Upset a Balance in New York,” and fretting that “In a city like New York, where the majority of the population is white and race issues bubble just below the surface, the decision to place two black men at the helm of the city’s Police Department could threaten the good will and unity that Mayor Bloomberg has been enjoying of late.”

Perhaps the never-ending miasma of violence that plagues Newark can be explained by not placing great value on getting the best man for the job, but placing “great value on symbolism … a tradition, decades old, that split the jobs of police director and police chief along racial lines.” Instead of second-guessing Booker, The Times should applaud him for creating a new tradition of doing what’s best for the black – and white – citizens of Newark by placing competence over all other calculations.

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