Kalamazoo’s black vote takes center stage. Or does it?

On Nov. 3, Kalamazoo’s large African-American vote may well decide the fate of the current push to expand local anti-discrimination protections.

The protections are written into proposed Ordinance 1856. If passed, it would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing or public accommodations.

According to the Census Bureau, among the 72,000 people who call this southwest Michigan city home, 20.6 percent are black. And in an election that everyone seems to think will be very close, that big slice of the electorate could turn out to be the deciding factor.

Over the course of the last couple months, the president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo Branch of the NAACP has very publicly endorsed passage of the anti-discrimination ordinance, but prominent African-American ministers have also spoken out against it.

Perhaps Kalamazoo’s most prominent black pastor, Rev. J. Louis Felton of Kalamazoo’s Galilee Baptist Church and head of the Northside Ministerial Alliance, best dramatizes the community’s potential to be the decisive vote.

Already, Felton has reached out to both sides — he serves on the advisory committee of the group opposing the ordinance, and he spoke at the Sept. 28 Bronson Park rally organized by the group supporting it.

A story this week in the Kalamazoo Gazette vividly documents how Felton has been courted by both sides, and how he initially endorsed the ordinance.

Felton told the Michigan Messenger on Wednesday that he plans to make a statement on the ordinance next Tuesday morning at a meeting hosted by the ministerial alliance in the sanctuary of Felton’s own church. But for the time being, however, Felton emphasized his current neutrality.

“The vote is gonna be close,” said Mark Grebner, a prominent Michigan political consultant based in East Lansing. “But the Kalamazoo turnout in  a non-presidential non-gubernatorial election, is going to be smaller than anyone thinks.”

Grebner predicts a downright anemic turnout of about 13,000 voters. He further suggests that the black percentage of the vote will be considerably smaller than the 18 percent it comprised in last year’s presidential election. Kalamazoo most recent local elections probably offer the best roadmap for next month’s turnout, Grebner suggested.

Let’s take the last two city elections. In 2007, 13 percent of voters were black. In 2005, 12 percent were black.

Grebner, a liberal Ingham County Commissioner since the 1970s, goes on to offer more analysis to the proponents of the anti-discrimination ordinance.

“So you talk to the gays, who I talk to all the time, and I say to them: How about the other 88 percent? ‘No, no. Let’s talk about the black vote and the problem in the black churches,’” he said, parroting what he’s heard in the past.

“Let me explain, the black vote in Kalamazoo involves a lot of elderly black women who are church goers,” Grebner said. Turning again to the proponents of Ordinance 1856, he added, “They’re not your people. They’re just not your people.”

On the question of whether or not Kalamazoo’s African-American vote — however big or small — might still prove pivotal in the upcoming election, Grebner sounds more like a detached mathametician than a political handicapper.

“I don’t know if they’ll be piviotal,” he said, “they’ll just be part of the total.”