The race card
The number one code enforcement issue I've been dealing with since I started here is abandoned vehicles. About 80% of the abandoned vehicles I deal with are in a six block area called the "West Side" -- a poor, all black enclave surrounded by mostly middle and upper income exclusively white neighborhoods. (Literally, at the well-defined boundaries you'll see a shotgun shack on one side of the street, and a high end custom home on the other.) I've cited about a quarter of the properties in the West Side, and we've had to tow about 30 or 40 cars away.
In dealing with abandoned cars, it seems like there's no shortage of folks who play the race card, whether or not you take any action. If junk cars start piling up on the West Side, I'm racist because I don't care about the neighborhood, and I'm not doing anything about it. If I do a code enforcement sweep, my motivation is racism, because the majority of those who are cited are black. If I cite a white resident, I'm reverse racist, because of "all those cars those blacks have up on blocks over on the West Side -- why aren't you doing anything about it?" When someone plays the race card, the discussion is over as far as I'm concerned.
I got dealt the race card quite a bit at my first job -- "You're only picking on me because I'm ['Hispanic, and you don't want us to get ahead', 'Anglo, and we know Hispanics have all the power and clout around here']."
I've learned to keep track of all political signs that I pull from the ROW -- I've been called both a Democratic and Republican party lackey before, and folks quickly shut up when I give a them list showing signs pulled by candidate and party affiliation. That got me on the news one night -- some over-enthusiastic campaign workers were yanking signs from yards, and I showed the reporter the figures for signs pulled from the ROW by the city. "If there's a violation on private property, we send notice and let the property owner take care of the violation, but if it's on public property, we pull it and then send notice. Here's what we've pulled from the streets so far." The number of signs for Democtats and Republicans was about equal. The city actually ends up looking good.