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De Blasio\'s Announcement Is Upstaged by Son\'s Hair

The hairstyle of Dante de Blasio, right, attracted attention Sunday when his father, Bill de Blasio, center, announced his mayoral candidacy. (Mr. de Blasio's wife, Chirlane McCray, is at left.)Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times The hairstyle of Dante de Blasio, right, attracted attention Sunday when his father, Bill de Blasio, center, announced his mayoral candidacy. (Mr. de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, is at left.)

The city’s public advocate, Bill de Blasio, threw his hat in the ring for mayor on Sunday. Rather than go the usual route of announcing his candidacy at City Hall, Mr. de Blasio, who has cast himself as a champion of the forgotten, held news conference in front of his house in Park Slope, Brooklyn, accompanied by his wife, who introduced him as an “outer-borough working dad,” and their teenage son, who also gave a speech.

Mr. de Blasio has worked in government since the Dinkins administration and amassed some legitimate credentials. But some of the most animated discussion on the Internet about his announcement was not about his track record advocating for the homeless or government transparency as public advocate; or his work as a housing administrator; or his management of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s successful 2000 Senate campaign; or his two terms on the City Council; or even about Mr. de Blasio himself.

It consisted of people swooning over his son’s hair.

Mr. de Blasio is white. His wife, Chirlane McCray, is black. Their son, Dante, 15, wears his hair in what The Daily News called “a stupendous Afro.”

And across the Twitterverse, Dante’s hair was the subject of considerable fascination. Some commenters granted Mr. de Blasio a certain degree of cred-by-association.

Other wags predicted that Mr. de Blasio’s opponents would urge their kids to grow a natural by any means necessary.

Many posters simply expressed admiration for Dante’s hairdo.

But of course nothing is simple when it comes to race and politics.

Sometimes, perhaps, an Afro is just an Afro. Dante de Blasio’s Afro, though, seems destined for a run as some sort of potent symbol, one whose meaning lies in the eye of the beholder.