Of course it has nothing to do with the fact that New York City was a crime-ridden hellhole during his time in office.

Via NY Times:

Delivering his most explicit and candid appraisal yet, David N. Dinkins says in a forthcoming memoir that he barely won the New York City mayoral election in 1989 and lost four years later by a small margin for one reason: because he is black.

“I think it was just racism, pure and simple,” Mr. Dinkins writes.

In the memoir, “A Mayor’s Life: Governing New York’s Gorgeous Mosaic,” which is to be published in September by PublicAffairs, Mr. Dinkins tiptoes out of his courtly public persona to berate Rudolph W. Giuliani, who defeated him in 1993, and to take a swipe at former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.

He even admits some missteps, including a failure to contain race riots in Crown Heights, for which he largely blamed his police commissioner, and the prolonged boycott by blacks of a Korean-owned grocery in Brooklyn. […]

Not surprisingly, Mr. Dinkins aims his most acrid salvos at Mr. Giuliani, describing him as “a cold, unkind person” who “apparently has some difficulty apologizing for anything” and practiced “the politics of boundless ambition without the guidance of a set of core beliefs or the humility and restraint of experience.”

He accuses Giuliani operatives of spying on his campaign and maintains that the comedian Jackie Mason, in describing Mr. Dinkins as a “fancy schvartze,” was “essentially calling me a nigger.” Mr. Mason, who supported Mr. Giuliani in his race against Mr. Dinkins, declined to comment. Mr. Dinkins said Mr. Giuliani’s underlying divisive message was: “The city is in terrible financial straits. Do you really want a black man presiding over it in this time of trouble?”