Black Leaders Call on N.C. Politician to Quit: Republican said Blacks grow up in a Urban 'Moral Sewer'

Black leaders called Friday for the resignation of a white county commissioner who sent out a mass e-mail saying teachers cannot reach urban black youngsters because they have grown up in a "moral sewer." Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James did not back down from his comments, saying his concerns about high dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births and incarceration among young blacks are no different from those expressed recently by comedian Bill Cosby. "My point was that we've got to talk about this and we've got to be willing to have the guts to resolve it," James said. "Candy-coating isn't going to make the pill any easier to swallow." About 100 people representing Charlotte area civil rights groups and churches held a news conference Friday to bash James's comments as bigoted and offensive. "It is our opinion Bill James is a racist," said Lenny Springs, a former member of the NAACP's national board and a director of supplier diversity for Wachovia Corp., based in Charlotte. The Rev. James Samuel, pastor of Charlotte's Little Rock A.M.E. Zion Church, said James needs to apologize to the black community and resign his seat on the board. "By categorizing the black community as a moral sewer, we are individually and collectively offended," he said. "I remind Mr. James that immorality is not the exclusive product of the urban community and morality is not the exclusive product of the suburbs." [more] and [more]