Color of Cabinet Has Fenty on the Defensive

To Mary Filardo, executive director of the 21st Century School Fund, the mayor's secretive approach might explain some of the angst about his appointments.

"I wonder if the race concern isn't a surrogate of the issues of process," said Filardo, who is white. "Washington is funny that way. When people are upset about anything, they turn it into race."

Those who work closely with Fenty said he has a clear template for the kind of deputy he will hire.

"He just looks at your work ethic and dedication and the energy you bring to the table," said Josh Lopez, 23, who worked on Fenty's campaigns and was appointed by the mayor to the Commission on Latino Community Development.

William Lightfoot, a former D.C. Council member who co-chaired Fenty's campaign, said he believes there is a generational shift of thinking in the mayor's office. Fenty, born to a black father and white mother two years after Washington's race riots of 1968, came of age at a time of far greater opportunity for blacks, Lightfoot said.

"The criticism in large part comes from older Afro-American people who grew up in a time when we were very racially conscious because there was a great deal of segregation," said Lightfoot, who is black. "Today we live in a world where people of Adrian's age did not live through segregation."

But Guitele Nicoleau, a black Ward 7 resident who headed the education committee on Fenty's transition team, said Fenty would be unwise to disregard race as an issue that could have a direct bearing on his ability to govern.

Nicoleau said that whether parents, teachers and administrators in a school system whose student body is 84 percent African American will respond to Rhee is a real question.

"It's an issue of visibility and trust in a city where race matters," said Nicoleau, who recently left her job at the Public Education Network. "Race matters in this case for another reason. There's an element of shame in this system because it is [predominantly] black and has the money it needs but still can't produce results. People hold a private shame because they have not been able to self-govern. They may not want her to succeed as an Asian American."

Gie Kim, president of the D.C. chapter of the Korean American Coalition, thinks such fears are overblown. She said Rhee's presence presents an opportunity to bridge racial gaps in a city whose Asian population is just 3.1 percent.

"This can be seen as a positive thing because whether you're a parent who is African American or Asian American, all parents want kids to do as well as possible," Kim said.

At Eaton's Barbershop on U Street NW, Troy M. Johnson, 72, who is black, said he's willing to give Rhee a chance. After all, he said, African Americans have been in charge of the system for so many years without success.

"I feel like African Americans had the school board all along," Johnson said. "Adrian Fenty is the best thing that has happened because this ain't no Chocolate City no damn more."

Staff writers Ashlee Clark, Jenna Johnson, Omar Fekeiki, Theola Labbé and Robert E. Pierre contributed to this report.