Until he made himself into an instant joke-line, Dean Grose was just another community good guy, a local businessman whose volunteer work helped vault him into the mayor's office in the small Orange County suburb of Los Alamitos.
Last week, after sending out an e-mail depicting watermelons growing on the White House front lawn to a group of friends, including an African American businesswoman in town, Grose apologized, saying it was meant as a joke. And then he stepped down as mayor.
On Monday, as the storm of anger gained force and Grose was vilified and mocked as a racist on Internet forums, he threw in the towel and resigned from the City Council. He said he would not attend the evening's council meeting, which was expected to be packed with protesters.
The swiftness of Grose's fall was less surprising to some than the fact that the mayor was following in the fresh footprints of so many others who'd destroyed their reputations by mixing humor and race. Such stumbles, observers say, have taken on greater weight and carry heavier consequences since Barack Obama launched his presidential bid.
In October, a San Bernardino County Republican women's club published an illustration of Obama surrounded by ribs, fried chicken and watermelon. After facing intense pressure from state GOP leaders who called the drawing racist, the club's president resigned.
The New York Post was criticized for running a political cartoon last month that depicted a chimpanzee shot by a police officer while another says, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
In Los Alamitos, an upscale, mostly white community known for its good schools and tidy neighborhoods, Grose apologized to city officials, saying in a written statement that the e-mail was a "mistake" and in "poor taste." He told the Associated Press he was unaware of the racial stereotype that black people like watermelon, a claim some said was unbelievable.
Cartoons and messages perceived to be racially insensitive are nothing new but have gained more scrutiny since Obama's election, said Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at USC.
"It's not as though this small-time mayor is the first person to send a racially offensive e-mail. It's the fact the issue of race is now in our face, so you can't get away with those things like in the past when people might be able to sweep them under the rug," Boyd said. "Not only are you dissing African Americans, you're dissing the president."
