By William Raspberry

Friday, September 18, 1998; Page A29

"Well," the cabby said. "Looks like 'The Plan' is alive, well and working. It's just a matter of time till they're back on top."

"Now, I'm just as big a Redskins fan as the next guy," I told him, "but I don't see how you can say Coach Norv Turner's plan of benching old guys and starting new ones is working -- particularly not after that shellacking they took Monday night from San Francisco."

"I'm not talking about the 'Skins,' " the cabby said.

"Well, the Wizards don't seem to have any plan at all -- "

"You know very well what plan I'm talking about," he said. "I'm talking about the plan for white people to recapture control of the District of Columbia. I've just seen Tuesday's election returns, and do you realize the way things are going now, we could soon wind up with seven white members on the 13-member city council? You think that's an accident?"

I told him I thought it was a wonderful illustration of the willingness of Washington's black majority to look beyond skin color. "I think this could be a wonderful example for the nation," I said. "We've been asking for years that white people judge us by our abilities and not our race. The primary results in Washington could show them that we mean it. We have black winners and white winners. We even nominated one (ha ha!) Orange guy."

"Vincent Orange over in Ward 5 is a brother, and you know it," the cabby said, not appreciating my attempt at humor. "But I'll let that slide. What bothers me is they've got you talking that colorblind stuff that the conservatives are talking. 'Can't we look past skin,' and all that lah-di-dah. Don't you realize colorblindness is just a scheme for getting rid of affirmative action?"

"And color-consciousness?"

"Well, what's wrong with a little color-consciousness?" the cabby demanded. "In fact I wish black folk in D.C. had a little bit more of it. Maybe we'd have sense enough to vote for our own people and not have to sit back and let white people take the city back."

"But if we condone color-conscious choices, aren't we conceding most elections -- and most everything else -- to white people? I mean, they're the majority in most electoral jurisdictions, on most college-admissions panels, in most personnel offices. Do we want to encourage them to make choices based on color loyalty?"

"Where've you been? They already do, my man," the cabby said. "That's why they control everything. And that's why they're taking back my hometown."

"But if we deliberately make everything a question of black and white, don't we go on losing?" I asked.

"That's where affirmative action comes in," the cabbie explained. "It's the only way to keep white people from taking all the goodies."

"I see," I said. "So what do you make of the fact that this black-majority electorate is about to deliver a city council with seven white members out of 13? Doesn't that prove you are underestimating the fundamental sense of fairness that motivates black Washingtonians -- perhaps most Americans? How else could you explain so many black people preferring so many whites?"

"Black people didn't prefer them," the cabby said.

"But they won -- "

"White people preferred them," he said. "Black people didn't vote. And you know why? It was a boring election is why, what with the financial control board running everything in the first place. And just look at Tony Williams, who won the Democratic nomination for mayor. I mean, the brother wears a bow tie. Look at the lackluster campaigning -- no issues, no excitement.

"And you know why there was no excitement? There was no Marion Barry is why. White folks and their lackeys have taken Marion out of the picture just to make sure things stay dull. That's why black people stayed at home."

"Let me see if I understand you," I said. "Congress and the White House have taken away a big chunk of local control and given it to an appointed control board that is firing Washingtonians left and right. The school system is going to hell. The city is spray-painting potholes with luminous paint instead of repairing them. And on top of all of that, white folk are poised to wrest political control from the black majority, and you say it was so dull an election that black people stayed home?"

"It's all part of the plan, my brother," the cabby explained.