"Pack up all your Nintendo games, all the Segas and put them in the trunk of my car," he told the boy. "And don’t ask for them back. When I think you’re ready, I will give them back to you."

In addition to three weeks’ grounding and confinement to his room, the boy wrote an apology letter to the teacher along with a stamped envelope addressed to his father, in which she was to return the letter with her signature.

That was the last of the teacher phone calls.

Caviness said his law-and-order attitude, which nipped his son’s troubles in the bud, can work for the whole city. Last week he handed in more than 250 signatures supporting his candidacy.

A taxi driver, Republican and 35-year District resident, Caviness, 52, is running for mayor on a conservative platform that he said will sound especially familiar to the city’s older black residents — middle-class homeowners raised to respect authority, keep clean, work hard and vote.

First, residents must stop blaming others and hiding behind race, he said.

"There comes a time when you have to set race aside," he said. "Remember all the big talk about how the SAT was biased against blacks? Instead of complaining, we should recognize that the SAT is part of the college fabric and learn to deal with it. Who says black children can’t learn it? Crown Books will sell anyone a dictionary."

While racial prejudice against black people clearly exists in some places, to react by separating from mainstream society is self-defeating, he said. That’s why he rejects the term "African-American."

"I don’t have an African culture — I was born here," he said. "I probably couldn’t survive for two days in Africa and I wouldn’t want to. I’m proud to be an American citizen.

"There is nothing wrong with having Black History Month, but kids need to learn the basics. A child is going to have more of a sense of pride from knowing that he can compete against anyone and get a top job. African history isn’t going to help kids if they can’t read and write."

Advocating participation rather than separation won’t make him popular in all quarters, but he is ready to play hardball, he said.

"I guarantee you no one out there is going to like me," he said. "I am a political outsider and a social outsider. I drive a cab for a living. But I know the fire I am going into. I know I will be ridiculed. I have no qualms about starting confrontations."

He already has taken some heat for his outspoken opinions. Some members of his family stopped speaking to him when he told them Mayor Marion Barry was a mistake from Day One. But in conversations with passengers in his cab, he finds many in this overwhelmingly Democratic city agree with his ideas, sometimes to their own surprise.

"I tell people I don’t want to be dependent on anyone else but myself. If someone is giving me something then they can take it away. Then I’ll have nothing.

"I don’t want any crumbs. I want a piece of the pie. That means I’ve got to join the club," he said. "Blacks have to learn to play the game."

He likes to engage his passengers in political conversations. That’s why he keeps a big Republican placard on the visor of his cab. In just a few minutes of conversation, he’ll challenge a passenger’s stereotypes. White passengers are shocked at how well he knows their affluent neighborhoods. Some blacks are offended that he sends his son to a "white" private school.

"Why shouldn’t I support that school — because not every black child can go there? Well, not every white child can go there either."

The unwritten rule that blacks stick together and don’t criticize each other has created more problems than it solved, he said. He recalled attending a community meeting in the early days of home rule, where the topic of debate was whether residents should hold elected officials accountable or simply support them no matter what.

"You don’t help blacks by using them as pawns or by covering up for them," Caviness said. "We have betrayed ourselves by protecting incompetent people."

Meanwhile, white people have been crippled by guilt and simply distanced themselves physically and mentally from the problems affecting black neighborhoods, he said.

"They don’t have to live in these neighborhoods, they don’t have to send their kids to the public schools. They are afraid of being called racist. So they mostly kept hands off."

At the same time, elected officials used race loyalty to keep themselves in power, he said.

"Marion Barry has always been good at using the race card to deflect any criticism. If you say anything against him it’s construed as racist," he said. "Most of his support comes from the poor and uneducated and he manipulates them into a hysteria by playing the race card. Of course he can pull out those cliches. He’s already got his piece of the pie."

He said residents got used to blaming others rather than demanding change.

"A lot of people want to blame the control board and the Republican Congress. That’s not where the problem is. The problem is this city has been horribly run for 20 years and almost every aspect of life here has gone down. We tried home rule and it didn’t work."

While Caviness professes no great love for the financial control board imposed by Congress, he understands why it is there.

"Congress could not allow the nation’s capital to be mired in embarrassment," he said. "If the city had managed itself better, all of this could have been avoided."

He envisions a city no longer run on race loyalty and personal favors, but on impersonal rules that hold elected officials accountable for their performance.

Caviness said as mayor he would cut taxes to levels below surrounding jurisdictions and close and consolidate about 50 schools currently under capacity. He supports the death penalty, opposes unions and affirmative action and frowns on out-of-wedlock births.

"I hear a lot of women say they are single parents like it is something to brag about," he said.

He advocates a return to the old-fashioned morality under which he was raised as a boy in Orlando, Fla.

"We have to get back to teaching children the difference between right and wrong," he said. "We have to teach our kids to take part."

Copyright 1998, The Common Denominator