Are blacks in Oakland, California being edged out of power, or are they exhibiting a new maturity by voting for a white politician? The question has resonance for the entire state, as blacks are a declining percentage of the new majority of ethnic groups increasingly setting their imprint on the political landscape. PNS commentator David Gaither is an Oakland based journalist who writes regularly for the black press.

OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA -- This city of some 300,000 across the Bay from San Francisco has joined the growing list of major US cities -- including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Los Angeles -- voting to replace a black mayor with a white one.

Oakland's mayoral race gained national attention when former California governor Jerry Brown entered the race. Brown -- the only white candidate -- swept the field, outdrawing all 10 of his opponents with 60 percent of the vote and will become Oakland's first white mayor in 20 years.

"The people have spoken," says Shannon Reeves, local NAACP president, himself a mayoral candidate. "He received as many black votes as he did white votes."

Reeves, 30,  who ran third on a platform calling for self-help, feels black and white voters were tired of black candidates who never delivered the changes they promised.

"White folks voted for Brown because they were tired of black leadership and many black voters voted for Brown because he is white too," Reeves says.

Others point to lack of unity in the only major city in the state with a predominantly black population -- a city long viewed as a center of black political power.

A single black candidate backed by the black political establishment and endorsed by black leaders could have posed a threat to Brown despite his celebrity status, according to Geoffery Pete, community activist and owner of a popular night club.

"One of the worst things in the world is not to lose, but to give up power," says Pete, adding "No one was willing to subordinate their own individual interest for the sake of the community."

To some black critics like Chauncey Bailey, however, black support of Brown underscores a vacuum in leadership. Bailey, a reporter for the Oakland Tribune and news director of the nation's only 100 percent black- owned television station, says blacks went for the "great white hope."

Other activists see the black vote for Brown as a sign of new political maturity. "We can't vote based on skin color, but based on what's in our self-interest," said David Hilliard, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, who worked early on in the Brown campaign. "If black leadership hasn't delivered, why not try something different?"

Cobie Kwasi Harris, a political scientist who chairs the Black Studies Department at San Jose State University, says black voters made calculated and informed decisions based on which candidate could deliver most to the public sector. After all, Harris asks rhetorically, what have blacks ever gotten out of the private sector but lynching?

"The public sector is where most blacks have found paths out of poverty and that's where most want to see a mayor play a strong role."

To Harris, the black political role has long transcended special interest or identity politics -- blacks' vision of a just, non-racialist society inspired the civil rights movement that has benefited all other ethnic minority groups. Last year, blacks on the Oakland School Board selected a Chinese school superintendent on the understanding that Asians had been most successful at negotiating their way through the public school system.

Over the last decade, despite competition for jobs and housing from newcomer populations, blacks have continued to vote for "justice" issues -- over half voted against the anti-immigrant ballot proposition 187, for example. In the Bay Area, they voted against ending bilingual education.

"We are fair players in the public arena," says Harris. "We don't single out particular parties we have a grievance with -- we look to the broader picture.

"We're about change for the better for all people."