Matt Aitken's first-place showing in the majority-black Augusta Commission District 1 race Tuesday apparently shocked some folks.

But only those folks who don't know the kind of good-hearted, open-minded person Matt Aitken is.

Only those who hold on to archaic -- and racist -- notions that blacks won't (and shouldn't) vote for whites and vice versa.

Only those who subscribe to the belief that only a black leader can represent "black interests."

Only those who want the rest of us to put the Rev. Martin Luther King's dream of true equality on hold -- and still want to judge people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character.

Unfortunately, there are a number of dinosaurs like that out there whose days, hopefully, have a finite number: the number of days until the Dec. 1 runoff.

We're so saddened to see our friend and colleague Barbara Gordon, publisher of the Metro Courier , advocate that someone should be supported solely and completely because he is black. How terribly sad to see that bygone bias openly espoused in 2009.

If that outdated mindset prevails in the runoff Dec. 1, we will all -- black, white and everywhere in-between -- be the poorer for it.

We hope, instead, that voters Dec. 1 will look at the content of the candidate's character.

Augustans are tired of the cynical racial politics of the past. They're tired of the arguing and fighting and walking out and abstaining to block progress and white-and-black bloc voting that has Augusta going nowhere fast. They're tired of "leaders" whose only hope of relevance and power is to keep the fight going between the races.

None of it is serving anyone's interests, black or white.

Augusta has a white mayor and America has a black president -- and Atlanta may soon elect its first white mayor in 40 years -- precisely because the dinosaurs are becoming extinct.

In the coming month, we will encourage voters to think long and hard about what kind of city they want: a distrustful, stick-to-your-own-kind, nobody-gets-ahead-so-I-don't-fall-behind relic of racism, or the kind of city Augusta can be -- prosperous, progressive and unified.

We consolidated the city and county governments over a decade ago.

Isn't it about time we consolidated the races?