President Obama It’s now safe to talk about Civil Rights

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
See http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

President Barack Obama lists “Civil Rights” as the first item under his “Agenda” on his White House website, whitehouse.gov. He pledges to end gender and race based pay disparities, push through the Fair Pay and Employment Non-Discrimination Acts, harshly penalize voter fraud, outlaw racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies, provide financial incentives to local and state police to ban racial profiling, and to dump the race tinged drug sentencing disparities. Obama also promises to push through Congress the long stalled Matthew Shepard Act. This markedly expands hate crime prosecutions. None of these things are really new.
Obama pledged to take swift action on hate crimes, voting rights, employment discrimination, and the repressive drug laws on his campaign website. Yet they never got off the campaign website and were virtually non existent as campaign talking points.
Candidate Obama’s reluctance to talk much about his civil rights agenda on the campaign trail was a calculated political move. Talk of civil rights has been taboo in all recent America presidential races. It seeps into presidential debates only when a Democratic or Republican presidential contender or president snatches the issue to assure middle class voters that he will not tilt toward or pander to minorities or to race bait their opponents.
In a 1988 debate, Bush Sr. slammed Democratic contender Michael Dukakis as being soft on crime for allegedly letting black convict Willie Horton roam free to commit rape and murder. Bill Clinton used Jesse Jackson as a foil to assure middle class voters that he would fight just as hard as conservative Republicans to protect their interests. In one of their debates in 2000, Bush and Democratic rival Al Gore clashed over affirmative action. Both were intent to distance themselves from the issue.

Obama knew that talk of civil rights invariably translates out to talk of race. This was a minefield that could blow up at any time and the explosion could mortally wound his candidacy. The endless TV sound loop of his former pastor Jeremiah Wright’s inflammatory racial tirades in the midst of his fierce primary battle with Hillary Clinton sent momentary shell shocks through the campaign. It forced Obama to scramble fast and do damage control. The Wright flap guaranteed that race would not be even a vague utterance during the remainder of the campaign.


While presidential candidate Obama had to observe the rules of political expediency to win the White House, President Obama doesn’t. Obama’s political capital account is bulging. His public approval is sky high. And he has the bully pulpit of the White House. He can not only talk about civil rights issues with no risk of backlash but act on the agenda that he laid out on his campaign website and now highlights on his White House website.

The need for action is greater than ever. In its annual State of Black America reports the past decade, the National Urban League repeatedly warned that blacks are less likely to own their own homes, die earlier, are far more likely to be jailed disproportionately and receive longer sentences, receive less or poorer quality health care and earn far less than whites. They attend failing public schools, and are more likely the victims of racially motivated hate crimes than any other group.

The report also found rampant discrimination and gaping economic disparities between Latinos and whites. In the past decade, the income, and education performance gaps between blacks and Latinos and whites have only marginally closed, or actually widened. Discrimination remains the major cause of the disparities.

Shunting civil rights to the back burner of presidential campaigns almost always meant that once in office presidents shunt them to the backburner of their legislative agenda. Yet, presidents have not been able to tap dance around racial problems. Reagan's administration was embroiled in affirmative action battles. Bush Sr.'s administration was tormented by urban riots following the beating of black motorist Rodney King.
Clinton's administration was saddled with conflicts over affirmative action, police violence and racial profiling. W. Bush's administration was confronted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, voting rights, reparations, and affirmative action battles, gang violence, and failing inner city public schools. By ignoring, or downplaying these issues until they burst into flashpoints of national debate and conflict, presidents have been ill prepared to craft meaningful legislation and programs to deal with them.
Obama is way ahead of the policy curve on this. He’s already spelled out what needs to be done on civil rights, but why it must be done. During the first 100 days, he will be watched more intently than any other president in recent history to see how effectively his administration deals with crisis problems from the Iraq War to the economy. The crisis problems of racial disparities and poverty, however, are no less compelling. President Obama it’s now safe to talk about civil rights.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

White House Civil Rights Agenda
http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

"The teenagers and college students who left their homes to march in the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery; the mothers who walked instead of taking the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry and cleaning somebody else's kitchen -- they didn't brave fire hoses and Billy clubs so that their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would still wonder at the beginning of the 21st century whether their vote would be counted; whether their civil rights would be protected by their government; whether justice would be equal and opportunity would be theirs.... We have more work to do."
-- Barack Obama, Speech at Howard University, September 28, 2007

President Barack Obama has spent much of his career fighting to strengthen civil rights as a civil rights attorney, community organizer, Illinois State Senator, U.S. Senator, and now as President. Whether promoting economic opportunity, working to improve our nation's education and health system, or protecting the right to vote, President Obama has been a powerful advocate for our civil rights.

Combat Employment Discrimination: President Obama and Vice President Biden will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination. They will also pass the Fair Pay Act, to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.
End Deceptive Voting Practices: President Obama will sign into law his legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate and full information so they can vote.
End Racial Profiling: President Obama and Vice President Biden will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support: President Obama and Vice President Biden will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully re-integrated into society. Obama and Biden will also create a prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates.
Eliminate Sentencing Disparities: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.
Expand Use of Drug Courts: President Obama and Vice President Biden will give first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.

How Obama Won

Reviewed by David Hurley

As a student of Success University, I spent a lot of my time last year thinking about "the principles of success"... Meanwhile, one of the biggest "success stories" of our time was being played out... There is today no greater exemplar of "success mentality" than the man who is about to be inaugurated as America's first black president.

But how, exactly, did Obama do it?

Political analyst, Earl Ofari Hutchinson, has the answer in his new book, launched today, and appropriately titled, How Obama Won.

How Obama Won unravels the key issues, the big events, the process behind the politicing, the pressures and controversies that affected Obama's presidential campaign.

Hutchinson reveals how Barack Obama responded to the challenges he faced on his historic journey to the White House through the ups and downs of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Purchase a copy here, in e-book or print versions.

Here are some of the questions that How Obama Won addresses:

What impact did race and gender have on the campaign? What was the thinking behind the campaign strategy? Who were the key players behind the campaign? How have the Democratic and Republicans parties changed?

What impact did blacks, whites, Hispanics, women, young people, blue collar workers have on the result? What was the role of corporate and special interests in the election?

And, finally, what does the result mean to America and the world?

In How Obama Won Hutchinson explains that "race" was not such a key factor in Obama's victory and the war in Iraq and terrorism were not the most prominent concerns of the voters.

What struck me as clever about Obama's "Change is coming to America" message was that merely by winning the election Obama had indeed "changed America" - even if his policies do not actually bring fundamental change to American society... Now we know that a black candidate can become president; in that sense everything has changed (and nothing has changed).

Earl Ofari Hutchinson assesses whether Obama's honeymoon will be short lived or not.

The massive problems he faces with the recession, the financial crisis, conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan are compounded by the high hopes he has whipped up among the American public for "change"...

In How Obama Won Hutchinson explains what Obama needs to do in order to avoid massive disappointment.

David Hurley is an author, entrpreneur and publisher of numerous articles on internet marketing success strategies.

How Obama Won is available in both book and e-book form. Find out more, and listen to Nikki Leigh chat with Earl Ofari Hutchinson about the book here:
http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com

Obama Does and Doesn’t Fulfill King’s Dream

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


The unchallenged article of faith is that the election of President Barack Obama fulfills Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream that the content of character should trump skin color. King uttered the words in his March on Washington speech in 1963. We’ll hear that said time and again in the march up to the King national holiday January 19 and Obama’s inauguration the next day.
Obama’s election did show that millions of whites could strap racial blinders around their eyes and punch the ticket for an African-American for the world’s most powerful political post. King would almost certainly glow with approval at that. But there are a couple of troubling caveats that mar America’s great racial leap forward. Obama won in large part because he did what no other Democratic presidential candidate did, and that includes Bill Clinton. He turned his presidential campaign into a virtual holy crusade by African-Americans voters to get him in the White House. The staggering 96 percent of the black vote he got made the crucial difference in the key Democratic primaries and later in nailing down the victory over Republican rival John McCain in the must win states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
At the same time, Obama’s allure to white college educated young, business and professionals was overstated. McCain got 53 percent of their vote. He trounced Obama among North and South rural, and blue collar whites. Obama won in only 44 counties in the Appalachian belt, a stretch of more than 400 counties from New York to Mississippi. Overall, he got less than a third of Southern white votes. The racial fault lines are still tightly drawn within a wide segment of the electorate.

A mid-September 2008 survey also found that a significant percentage of whites who said they’d vote for Obama also said that blacks were more crime prone and less industrious than whites. There were several ways to look at this seeming racial paradox. One is that these Obama backers were so fed up with Bush policies and a battered economy that Obama offered a change and a lifeline. Another was that he presented a race neutral soothing departure from the perceived race baiting antics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And yet another was that he simply was sufficiently racially ambiguous enough not to pose any real racial threat.
In other words, he was seen as a racial exception. That's the penchant for some whites to make artificial distinctions between supposedly good and bad blacks.
These explanations don’t point to a profound and benign sea change in racial attitudes let alone tell why negative racial notions could still be rife among many white Obama supporters. The reports that Obama has received more taunts and physical threats than any other president-elect is another troubling indication that an untold number of Americans still can’t stomach the thought of an African-American in the White House.

The hoisting of Obama to a rarified political or non racial pedestal is the exact opposite of what King had in mind. In that same March on Washington speech what’s forgotten or deliberately distorted is that King talked much about the legacy of segregation, bigotry and discrimination that trapped thousands of poor blacks and that offered no easy resolution. Nearly a half century after King’s I Have a Dream words the black poor are still just as tightly trapped in the grip of poverty and discrimination that King warned about.

On the eve of the King national holiday and Obama’s inauguration, the Boston based research and economic justice advocacy group, United for a Fair Economy, released its sixth annual King Day report. It found that the gaping disparities in income, wealth, employment, quality and availability of housing, decent schools, and health care between blacks, minorities and whites has grown even wider. Countless government reports and studies, and the National Urban League’s 2007 State of Black America report also found that discrimination and poverty are still major barriers for millions. And it’s not just the black poor that bear the brunt of discrimination. President Bush even wondered out loud recently why there were so few black reporters covering his press conferences.
Obama has publicly bristled at the notion that the civil rights movement is outdated, or worse that he somehow supplants the ongoing work of civil rights leaders. He has repeatedly praised past civil rights leaders for their heroic battle against racial injustice.
It was not simply showy campaign symbolism when Obama pegged his Democratic presidential nomination acceptance speech to the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington last August. This was a fitting tribute to the civil rights movement that challenged the nation to make King's dream of justice and equality a reality. Obama faced that challenge as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, during his stints in the Illinois legislature and in the Senate. He faces that same challenge in the White House. There’s still much to overcome.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Notorious: Was B.I.G really that influential to deserve a biopic?

Fanon Hutchinson

"The most important film of our time" goes the tagline for the new biopic "Notorious” which is the story of the life and death of slain rapper Notorious B.I.G. aka "Biggie Smalls." Really? This is a more important film than Malcolm X? And it’s more important than the films about Martin Luther King or films such as "Cry Freedom" or "The Great Debaters?" I don't even think it’s the most important Hip Hop movie. What about Krush Groove or Beat Street?

I’ve loved hip hop since I first heard "Rock Box" by Run-DMC in the early 80's. From the era of Run-DMC, Kurtis Blow, the Sugarhill Gang, the Whodini, Fat Boys, LL Cool J, the Beastie Boys in the mid-80's. In the late 1980s it was the EPMD, Boogie Down Productions, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy, NWA, the Tribe Called Quest, De la Soul, Queen Latifah, Compton's Most Wanted, and Dr. Dre. They are the legitimate pioneers of rap and hip hop.
Now granted, I can't stomach much of what passes as Hip-Hop nowadays as it seems like it’s geared more towards a segment of the population that wear "skinny jeans" and Mohawk hair styles. In other words most of the stuff nowadays is more for little kids and adolescents.
This brings me back to “Notorious.” His entire career can be confined to two albums. TWO ALBUMS! The first album was "Ready to Die." This album is labeled as a classic but I would have to disagree. Can you really compare it to Public Enemy's "It takes A Nation of Millions." or to Ice Cube’s "Death Certificate" or a Tribe Called Quest’s "Low End Theory?"

These albums defined a generation and helped to revolutionize the way Hip-Hop was viewed. These albums made you think as well as made you move. While all three of these albums are as different as Obama is to Ronald Reagan they are lyrically and musically on point. "Ready to Die" is mostly filled with the usual tales of hustling, sex, standard rap braggadocio and party songs. It is no different than anything that has come before it. The only thing that set this album apart is the beats, which deviated from the mid 90's grimy east coast sound which permeates throughout the albums of such New York artists as Wu-Tang Clan, Black Moon, and Onyx. But this is more attributed to P Diddy and his Hitmen production team and not Biggie himself.

Biggie's first album did showcase a sort of hard-luck case who was able to pull himself up out of a bad situation and become a winner. This could have been inspirational to a lot of people but the whole rags to riches story was nothing new or innovative and neither was the whole "I had to sell drugs to feed my daughter" song and dance which was supposed to make his actions seem honorable without any remorse on his part. At least, when NWA or Ice T. told a tale of drug hustling there was some kind of repercussions within the song. On Biggie’s second album "Life after Death" the content remained the same as the first album except now the tone was less bleak now that he had made it. There were less hard luck songs and more "lets party, drink champagne, and bone random chicks" songs. He even had the good sense to include a how-to song on the rules of selling drugs (the Ten Crack Commandments. This is just what black youth need). However there are a few notable songs contained on "Life after Death" such as "Notorious Thugs" which pairs Biggie with the rapid fire delivery of Cleveland rap quartet Bone Thugs & Harmony and even showcases Biggie impressively going toe to toe with the nimble tongued Bone group.

I don't think that Biggie is without talent. On the contrary I think he is a very talented wordsmith. But to label him as "the greatest rapper of all-time" as a lot of people has done is a slap in the face to all the great emcees that came before and after him who have had more of an impact in the development and evolution of Hip-Hop. What about Krs-One, Big Daddy Kane, Ice Cube, or the man who I think should be in everybody's top-five, a person who revolutionized Hip-Hop music, and in my opinion truly took rap to a new level, that’s Rakim. When are their movies coming out about their lives? That’s not a notorious question.

Fanon Hutchinson is the editor and publisher of a Los Angeles based hip hop and sports blog http://bighutchbaby.blogspot.com

Towering Obstacles in Prosecuting the Oscar Grant Killing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There’s a good chance that former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle will be charged in the videotaped New Years day killing of Oscar Grant, a young African-American. But charging Mehserle with the fatal shooting of Grant and getting a conviction is a far different matter.
On the surface the case seems to be about as close to a slam dunk for a successful prosecution as any case involving apparent police misconduct could be. There are at least two compelling videos that appear to show an unarmed and handcuffed Grant face down on the BART platform. Grant does not appear to be resisting the officers. Witnesses testified that Grant posed no threat to the officers. BART officials have offered the weak explanation that Mehserle might have mistakenly thought that he was reaching for his taser gun. But expectations, witness testimony, videos, and an implausible explanation by BART for the deadly shooting may not be enough to nail Mehserle.
The first obstacle to convicting cops charged with deadly force is the use of videos. Defense attorneys who represent cops charged in questionable fatal shootings have honed the discrediting of videotaped evidence to a fine art. In a number of highly charged cases in cities across the country where the videos of police abuse have been widely televised to shocked millions, skilled defense attorneys have still won acquittals. They tell jurors that the videos are grainy and fuzzy, the sound and quality are poor, the tapes have missing pieces, and they omit events that show what provoked the officer to use force. They pound home that videos can be interpreted in many different ways.

Their spin to jurors is that videos give a distorted, clouded and therefore invalid picture of why an officer used deadly force. Defense attorneys don’t stop there. They also question the honesty, motives, and background of the videographers. In the Grant killing the two videos that were widely shown were shot by two young persons with cell phone cameras. One of whom refused to give his name.
The next obstacle is the investigation. Police officials and prosecutors move at a deliberate glacial pace in compiling evidence, witness testimony, and officer statements. The time delay works to the officer’s advantage. It insures that their version of why officers used force is in total sync with the version given by other officers present. Mehserle’s quick resignation after the Grant shooting further blurs things. He evaded an internal investigation and giving possible damning statements.
The rare times that a prosecutor brings charges against an officer for overuse of deadly force the defense attorney are top line and have had much experience defending police officers accused of misconduct. Police unions pay them and they spare no expense in their defense. The cops almost never serve any pre-trial jail time, and are promptly released on ridiculously low bail.
Then there’s the jury. Police defense attorneys seek to get as many middle-class whites on the panel as possible. The presumption is that they are much more likely to believe the testimony of police and prosecution witnesses than black or young witnesses, defendants, or even the victims. That’s no small point. In the great majority of deadly force killings the victims, as was Grant, are young African-Americans or Latinos. The witnesses generally are young or minority. That’s the case in the Grant killing.

Prosecutors have a daunting job trying to overcome pro-police attitudes and the negative racial stereotypes. Two Penn State University studies on racial perceptions and stereotypes, one in 2003 and a follow-up study in 2008, found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crimes, and in some cases where crimes were not committed by blacks they misidentified the perpetrator as an African American. Defense attorneys always play hard on any prior misconduct, bad behavior, or any criminal conduct by the victim. The Grant case would likely be the same. Early press reports repeatedly talked about Grant’s alleged criminal record. This feeds into the stereotype of bad behaving blacks, and that the victim somehow is responsible for the officer using deadly force.
The biggest obstacle of all is the blurred standard of what is or isn't acceptable use of force. It often comes down to a judgment call by the officer. In the Rodney King beating case in 1992 and the Sean Bell killing in New York City in 2007 defense attorneys turned the tables and painted King as the aggressor and claimed that the level of force used against him was justified. In the Bell case, they claimed that Bell and his companions were trying to run them down and they feared for their lives.
Convicting the cop who killed Grant, or any cops who wantonly kill, is a colossal task for even the most diligent prosecutor. The Grant case will be no different.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Debunking the Myth that Latinos Elected Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The voluntary withdrawal by scandal plagued New Mexico governor Bill Richardson from the Commerce Secretary post drew instant and angry demands from some Latino leaders for Obama to pick another Latino to replace Richardson. In making the demand they fanned two myths. One is that Obama hasn’t appointed enough Latinos to his staff and cabinet posts. The other is that Latino votes are mainly why he bagged the White House. Obama transition officials quickly and correctly noted that Obama has appointed more Latinos to senior positions than Bush or Clinton. And that’s even before he’s taken office.
But it’s the myth that Latinos tipped the victory scale for him that’s even more self-serving. Latinos did vote in bigger numbers and in a higher percentage for Obama than Democratic presidential loser John Kerry in 2004. Their vote did help seal the win for Obama in Florida, New Mexico and Colorado. Bush won Colorado and Florida in 2000 and all three states in 2004. But the electoral math shows that even if Obama had lost both states he still would have beaten Republican rival John McCain.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and arguably North Carolina were the must win states. Bush won two of the three states in 2000 and 2004 and cinched the White House. This time Obama won all three. If he had lost Pennsylvania and/or Ohio the outcome might have been far different. Blacks make up twenty to thirty percent of the vote in these three states. They gave Obama the crucial edge there. The more than 15 million black voters made up more than twenty percent of the overall Democratic vote in 2008. They gave Obama 96 percent of their vote. This was an all-time percentage high for a Democratic presidential candidate. If black voters had not turned the Democratic primaries into a virtual holy crusade for Obama and if Obama had not openly in the South Carolina primary and subtly in primaries thereafter stoked the black vote, he would have been just another failed Democratic also ran presidential candidate. The fight for the White House would have been between McCain and Hillary Clinton.
In the 2008 election Latino voters increased their vote total by a modest one percent from nine to ten million votes from 2004. Even then Latino leaders and voters were glacially slow to warm up to Obama. In the Democratic primaries they overwhelmingly backed Hillary Clinton. In the general election many Latino voters still expressed deep ambivalence and doubt about Obama. McCain got nearly one third of the Latino vote. This is pretty much what other GOP presidential candidates typically get from Latino voters. Bush’s top heavy Latino vote total in 2004 was a political aberration.

The Latino leaders that pump the myth that they elected Obama do it in part to leverage more numbers and influence in the Obama administration, and in part to puff up the notion that Latinos are now the major ethnic power broker in national politics. Latinos certainly deserve their fair share of Obama appointments and cabinet posts; they need a big voice in his administration on issues from health care to immigration to Latin American relations. But that’s far different than turning the quest for Obama appointments into a numbers game, a quota game. Then inferring that if Obama doesn’t play ball call him a disappointment or that he’s ignoring Latino interests. Obama must not listen to that talk. It does him, his administration and Latinos a disservice.

Latinos certainly are well on the path to becoming major players in national politics, but blacks have been major political players for many years. The black vote has been the Democrats trump card in every election for the past half century, win or lose. They gave Kerry 85 percent of their vote. Latinos by contrast gave Kerry only 53 percent of their vote. Black voters have been so reliable, maybe too reliable, that Democrats have been repeatedly rapped for plantationism; that is for taking the black vote for granted and offering little tangible benefits in return for their unyielding support. Obama didn’t change that. He said little during the campaign about failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS plague, criminal justice racial disparities, and the lack of minority business initiatives and funding
Black voters and elected officials, though, wisely did not demand that he say and do more about these issues as the price for their game changing vote turnout. The Congressional Black Caucus, local and state black Democrats, and civil rights organizations passionately backed Obama in the general election. They pulled out all stops to get out the vote. If any group deserved bragging rights for the Obama win they do. They would be right to demand even more staff and cabinet appointments from Obama. They haven’t demanded that. The Latino leaders that are sweating Obama to appoint more Latinos solely because they are Latinos should do the same.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Remembering the Other Eartha Kitt

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


The smile on Eartha Kitt’s face was unforgettable. It belied the pain, ridicule and turmoil that she had endured after she was unceremoniously shoved at or near the top of then President Lyndon Johnson’s enemies list. But that seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind that late spring afternoon in 1978 when she greeted me at the old Aquarius Theater in Hollywood. Kitt was in Los Angeles starring in her tour production of the musical Timbuktu. I was assigned to do a brief interview and a review of the production.

Kitt’s smile and infectious energy melted the awe and nervousness that I felt at being up close too and actually talking with an entertainment legend. Then there was the “incident.” That was the furor that Kitt ignited when she denounced the Vietnam War and poverty to Johnson at that White House luncheon in January, 1968. A decade later the controversy still got the tongues wagging.

Her performance in Los Angeles was in part Kitt’s American scene entertainment rehabilitation after being virtually banned in the U.S. after her Johnson White House outburst. Her performance was also in part a brash effort to reclaim the luster that had made her virtually a household name and an icon in the entertainment world in the 1950s and early 1960s. By then Kitt had firmly established her legacy as an award winning internationally acclaimed singer, dancer, film, stage and TV actress. Kitt was tagged as sultry, sensual, and sexual alluring. But that was the surface stuff. Kitt’s brash, sassy, and high energy style and persona sent the clear message that she was her own woman. She refused to be relegated to the stereotypical stage and film roles, and turned her sensuality into a badge of fierce independence and pride, the trademark of defiance. Kitt’s pioneer independence and sense of self influenced the coming generation of young female entertainers and personalities from Oprah to Beyonce to Madonna. They owe her a debt of gratitude.

But even that side of Kitt obscured the Kitt who was passionately devoted to and supported peace and civil rights causes. The clash with Johnson, really the Johnson’s, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, at the celebrity women’s luncheon in January 1968 gave the first public hint of that.

Lady Bird Johnson had invited Kitt to the luncheon and in an innocent moment asked Kitt what she thought about the problems of inner city youth. Kitt didn’t mince words and lambasted the Johnson administration for not doing more about poverty, joblessness, and drugs in black communities. Kitt didn’t stop there, she tied her outburst directly into an attack on the Vietnam War, a war she said was without reason or explanation. Kitt’s verbal assault on the war and racial problems made headline news. A badly shaken first lady and an enraged LBJ denounced her. The next few years she was hounded and harassed by the FBI, the IRS and Secret Service agents. The CIA even compiled a gossipy, intrusive dossier on her that attempted to paint her as a sex starved malcontent. The public storm and the negative press proved too much.

Kitt’s career was effectively dead in the United States. But she stuck by her guns and did not apologize, retract or soften her criticism of Johnson’s war and racial policies. Kitt in fact hadn’t said anything at that luncheon that thousands of others hadn’t said about Johnson’s hopelessly failed, flawed and losing war and racial problems. The difference was who said it; namely a celebrated star, and where it was said at the White House. Kitt took the heat and paid the price for giving an honest opinion and her deep felt belief about the cause of peace and social justice. She was branded as a racial agitator.

Missed in the overreaching hysteria and the vindictive bashing was that underneath the glitter and carefully crafted sexpot image, Kitt had given time and money to the NAACP and other civil rights organizations. She supported and participated in the March on Washington. During her wilderness years when she was forced to work outside the U.S. she took heat for performing before all white audiences in South Africa. But like so much about Kitt that went unnoticed, she broke barriers by insisting that her cast was integrated. She also quietly raised money for black schools in the country.

During our brief talk before her stage performance in Los Angeles, Kitt spent as much time talking about her devotion to the civil rights movement and the injustice of apartheid in South Africa, than about the production she was in. She did not mince words when I gingerly asked her about the “incident.” She laughed but did not express any regret about what she said and did that day at the White House. She expressed no bitterness about the years of media and public ostracism.

This is the Eartha Kitt, the impassioned contributor to peace and civil rights, that I knew, remember, and pay homage to.

C'est si bon"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

The What is Obama Debate Again

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Here’s the what is President-elect Barack Obama, black, bi-racial or multi-racial quiz. If he did not have one of the world’s most recognizable names and faces he would fume at being subjected to poor (or no) service in restaurants, bypassed by taxis, racial-profiled by police on street corner stops, landlords who refuse to show him an apartment, followed in stores by security guards, denied a loan for his business or home purchase due to redlining, find himself living in a resegregated neighborhood, or routinely passed over for a corporate management position.
He would not be subjected to any of these routine petty harassments and annoyances, the subtle and at time outright forms of discrimination because he checked the bi-racial designation on his census form. That’s a meaningless, feel good, paper designation that has no validity in the hard world of American race politics.
The deepest part of America's racial fault has always been and still remains the black and white divide. This has spawned legions of vile but durable racial stereotypes, fears, and antagonisms. Black males have been the special target of the negative typecasting. They've routinely been depicted as crime prone, derelict, sexual menaces, and chronic underachievers. University researchers recently found that Obama’s win didn’t appreciably change these stereotypes.

The roughly six million or 2 percent of Americans who checked the bi-racial census box may take comfort in trying to be racially precise, but most also tell of their own bitter experience in feeling the sting of racial bigotry in the streets and workplace. Obama can too and he has related his racial awakening in his best selling bare the soul autobiograhy Dreams from My Father.

Despite his occasional references to his white mother and grandmother, Obama has never seen himself as anything other than African-American. That worked for and against him during the campaign. In coutless polls and surveys, the overwhelming majority of whites said that they would vote for an African-American for president, and that compentence and qualification, not color was the only thing that mattered. Many meant it and showed it by enthusiatically cheering him on. More than a few didn’t. Despite the real and feigned color blindness, nearly sixty percent of whites still did not vote for Obama. Most based their opposition to him on Republican political loyalties, ties, regional and personal preferences. But a significant minority of white voters did not for him because he's black, and they did not hide their feelings to interviewers about that and in exit polls in the Democratic primaries and the general election. Tagging him as multi-racial or bi-racial did not soften their color resistance to him, let alone change their perception that he was black.

Yet, the sideshow debate still rages over whether Obama is the black president or the bi-racial president. The debate is even more nonsensical since science has long since debunked the notion of a pure racial type. In America, race has never been a scientific or genealogical designation, but a political and social designation. Anyone with the faintest trace of African ancestry was and still is considered black and treated accordingly.
Blacks were ecstatic over Obama's candidacy and his presidential win. They were unabashed in saying that they backed him with passion and fervor because he is black. Many would not have cheered him with the same passion if he touted himself as a mixed race candidate. The thrill and pride for them was that a black man could beat the racial odds and climb to the political top; substituting bi-racial for black would not have had the same meaning or significance to blacks. The talk about Obama being anything other than black infuriates many blacks. Their anger is legitimate. If Obama doesn’t run from his black identity then the bi-racial card appears as a naked effort to snatch Obama’s history making victory from them. It’s also an implicit denial that an African-American can have the right stuff, that is the smarts, talent and ability to excel in any arena.
The second that Obama announced that he would run for president in February 2007, much of the press and the public fixated on one question, "Is America ready for a black president?" The question was never, "Is America ready for a mixed-race president?" The answer was that Obama if elected would be America's first black president. It was almost never that he would be America’s first mixed-race president.
That didn’t change on Election Night. Obama’s victory was still hailed as a giant step forward for black and white relations in America, not mixed race relations. That may or may not be the case. The nagging racial sleights and indignities that many African-Americans suffer are tormenting reminders that race still does matter, and matter a lot to many Americans.
Calling Obama the first black president is the accurate, and honest, way to fix his place in American political history. It’s one that he wouldn’t or really can’t dispute.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Jesse Jackson Jr. Should Bow Out for Obama’s Seat

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. should bow out of contention for Obama’s Senate seat. True there is yet no evidence that he offered to grease Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s palm in return for the seat. But there’s a continuing probe into whether a Jackson family member or associates acted as Jackson’s paymasters to Blagojevich. The probe, the suspicions, and the time he has spent in his defense have hopelessly tainted him as a credible candidate for the seat. He should also withdraw because Blagojevich’s alleged funny money dealings has tossed too ugly a glare on Chicago’s wheel and deal, borderline legal racketeering politics. The whispers and rumors about Jackson Jr. will swirl no matter what the FBI and the U.S. attorney ultimately decide about the extent of his involvement in the scandal.
But this is really less important than the accusation against him. In politics, especially Chicago politics, protests of innocence to wrongdoing are not the same as innocence. Jackson Jr. is not just a Chicago politician. He’s an African-American politician who carries his famed father’s namesake. The elder Jackson who was also mentioned in the allegation of seat tampering is no stranger to controversy. That’s enough to further stir suspicions. It’s still race, however, that makes Jackson Jr.’s innocence or not most problematic. When black elected officials are accused of wrongdoing, the presumption of guilt hangs heavily in the air. That’s in part because the recent corruption scandals that have snared former Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson and Birmingham mayor Larry Langford have been plastered over the news. The cloud of suspicion is there in part too because in a few celebrated cases when they're indicted, jailed, accused of financial improprieties or ethics violations (as in the case of Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who initially screamed race when she took a swing at a Capitol Police officer) the fingered officials have made race the centerpiece of their defense. During the 1990s, former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted of sexual assault charges. Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted on a drug charge. California Congressman Walter Tucker, convicted of bribery charges, loudly shouted racism.

When they're popped, they wail that they should not be held to a higher standard of accountability than white officials who get caught with their hand in the corruption cookie jar. When white politicians are jailed and pay hefty fines for violating campaign finance and ethics laws, nobody says that they have to be a cross between Mother Teresa and St. Paul.
However, even if Jackson is a victim of a slightly kooky governor as he and others claim, that still doesn’t absolve him of holding to a standard that leaves not the slightest doubt that he is above reproach. He represents the majority black Second Congressional District. His constituents view him not as other politicians, but as a leader and advocate. They look to him to represent their interests and to confront institutional power. Any legal smear on him, no matter how questionable that soils his name makes it much harder for blacks to retain confidence in them. This diminishes their political power and influence, creating distrust and dissension among black voters.
Jackson publicly pleaded to get his good name back. He knows full well that a taint, any taint, can hamper his ability to do his job. He has an even bigger burden than other black politicians who carry the same cross. His father insured that. The long and storied years of civil rights crusading by Jackson Sr. markedly increased expectations that his son would not be solely a legislative fighter but also a champion for the rights of the underdog, who in this case, happen to be many of his constituents.
Jackson to his credit did not reflexively try to deflect, dodge, and muddy the charges and accusations against him by screaming "racism." He wisely went in the opposite direction and singled out prosecutors for being honest and open and giving him a clean bill—for now.
Yet, Jackson, other black officials, and indeed all public officials will be keenly watched by state and federal prosecutors for any hint of impropriety. If they engage in any forbidden activities with money, they will swiftly be called on the legal carpet. The burden of proof, then, is on them to prove that they can and will do any and everything to avoid even the slightest smudge of scandal.
In Jackson Jr.’s case, a lot of damage has already been done. There are loud calls for him to withdraw his name from consideration for the Senate seat. Jackson hasn’t yet shown any willingness to do that. Unfortunately, the mud tossed on him will not wash off. It hasn’t on other black elected officials who’ve been rudely plopped on the scandal hot seat. Jackson should withdraw his name and do it now.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009). http://www.learnhowobamawon.blogspot.com

Obama’s Win Didn’t End Racial Stereotyping

Earl Ofari Hutchinson


There is still much talk about how Barack Obama’s White House win demolished negative stereotypes about blacks. That’s wishful thinking. A new study by a team of researchers from several top universities shows that stereotypes about poverty and crime remain just as frozen in time. The study found that much of the public still perceives that those most likely to commit crimes are poor, jobless, and black. The surprise was that the negative racial stereotypes also applied to anyone, no matter their color, who was poor and jobless. If for instance a white commits a crime the odds are that the respondents will reclassify that person as black.
The jumbled mental contortions that many go through to dub a white person black solely on the basis of their income and whether they have been jailed didn’t end there. If a person who was perceived as white was jailed that person was still perceived to be black even after their release. The study did more than affirm that race and poverty and crime are firmly rammed together in the public mind. It also showed that once the stereotype is planted it’s virtually impossible to root out. That’s hardly new either.
In 2003 Penn State University researchers conducted a landmark study on the tie between crime and public perceptions of who is most likely to commit crime. The study found that many whites are likely to associate pictures of blacks with violent crime. This was no surprise given the relentless media depictions of young blacks as dysfunctional, dope peddling, gang bangers and drive by shooters. The bulging numbers of blacks in America’s jails and prisons seem to reinforce the perception that crime and violence in America invariably comes with a young black male face. And it doesn’t much matter how prominent, wealthy, or celebrated a black is. The overkill frenzy feeding on the criminal hijinks of New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress, O.J. Simpson, and the legions of black NFL, NBA stars, Hollywood peronalities, and entertainers who run afoul of the law or are bad behaving further reinforce the negative image of blacks.
There was, however, a mild surprise in the Penn State study. It found that even when blacks didn’t commit a specific crime whites still misidentified the perpetrator as an African-American. University researchers were plainly fascinated by this result. Five years later they wanted to see if that stereotype still held sway. By then Obama’s political ascent was in full trajectory upward. Polls showed that a crushing majority of whites not only said that they would vote for an African-American for president, but that color was not a consideration in how they viewed and voted for a candidate. This appeared to signal a benign sea change in public attitudes on race.
It didn’t. Researchers found that public attitudes on crime and race were unchanged. The majority of whites still overwhelmingly fingered blacks as the most likely to commit crimes, even when they didn’t commit them.
There are two troubling implications in these studies. One is that Obama’s victory was more a personal triumph for him. It did not radically remap racial perceptions, let alone an end to racial stereotyping. A significant percent of whites voted for him and were passionate about him because they were fed up with Bush’s policies, and believed that he would reverse those policies. The vote for him was race neutral. His victory was a tribute to his personal political organization and savvy as well as public fear and frustration about Bush. The second implication is even more troubling. If much of the public still view crime and poverty through narrow racial lens then that will continue to stir public clamor for lawmakers, police and prosecutors to clean the streets of violent criminals, who are almost always seen as African-Americans. This could mean even more gang sweeps, court injunctions, stiff adult prison terms, three strikes laws, and incarceration for teens, the holding of accused teens indefinitely in juvenile jail detention.
Ironically, Obama inadvertently fed the negative perceptions of blacks. In several much publicized talks on the black family, he blasted black men for being missing in action from the home and shirking their family responsibility. It was a well-meaning effort to call attention to the chronic problems of black males and families, but it also gave the impression that black males are dysfunctional. It was a short step from that to conclude that these same men are more likely to be involved in crime than whites.
Obama’s win was a two edged sword. It was as billed a profound historic win, but it also fanned the illusion that racial stereotypes are dead. Now we know better.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Jefferson Defeat Not About Race

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The much deserved defeat of scandal plagued Louisiana Congressman William Jefferson by Vietnamese-American immigration attorney Anh “Joseph” Cao was not about race. Whites did flock to the polls in bigger numbers than usual and the black voter turnout was much less than in the primary. But despite the ramp up in white votes, blacks still make up the majority of voters in Jefferson’s district. While many blacks voted for him out of old loyalty, a significant number didn’t. The lower voter black turnout in essence was a vote against him.
His defeat then was about ethics, interest and just plain common sense. Jefferson was not just an embarrassment. He was hopelessly damaged political goods and by plopping him back into office for a tenth term his black constituents would have been the losers.
If ever there was a case that screamed for scrubbing race from politics it was the Jefferson case. He has been on the legal hot seat for many months. He was indicted, and faces trial on bribery and corruption charges. He was stripped of his seniority on a key House committee. He left a bitter taste in the mouths of many New Orleans residents during the Katrina debacle, when he allegedly commandeered a National Guard truck to check on his personal property and save personal belongings at the same moment nearby residents needed rescue from possible drowning.
Jefferson mercifully has not screamed race at any point during his legal ordeal, and other than pro forma references to Obama on his campaign website, he did not seek and likely would not have gotten Obama’s direct help in the campaign anyway. Jefferson, however, did subtly play the race card by hinting that he was a political victim. It was a pitch for voter sympathy and of course, voter support. It also implied that he and indeed other African-American politicians should not be held to the same standard of accountability as white officials who get caught with their hand in the till. When they are jailed and pay hefty fines for violating campaign finance and ethics laws, they argue, nobody says that they have to be a cross between Mother Teresa and Saint Paul.
But Jefferson and other black elected officials should be held to a higher standard. Their mostly black constituents view them not as politicians, but as leaders and advocates. They look to them to represent their interests and to confront institutional power. Any legal smear on them makes it much harder for blacks to retain confidence in them. This diminishes their political power and influence, creating distrust and dissension among black voters. This makes it that much more difficult for blacks to generate any enthusiasm to get out to vote, or get involved in community improvement actions. That was clearly the case in Jefferson’s defeat.
It's not just scandal that hurts black officials -- the race card hurts them too. In far too many cases blacks accused of wrongdoing instinctually deflect, dodge, and muddy the charges and accusations against them by claiming racial persecution. They promptly wrap themselves in the martyr's cloak of persecuted civil rights fighters.
This is not a small point. In the past when black politicians have been accused and tried on corruption charges, they have used the race card to deflect attention from their crimes.
During the 1990s, former Illinois Congressman Mel Reynolds screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted of sexual assault charges. Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry screamed racism when he was indicted, tried and convicted on a drug charge. California Congressman Walter Tucker, convicted of bribery charges, loudly shouted racism. In a statement black Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford issued after his recent arrest on federal corruption charges, he strongly implied that he was a victim of political persecution
Langford and the others play the odds and remind blacks that President Reagan's Justice Department initiated dozens of corruption probes against black elected officials during the 1980s. Given the Reagan administration's perceived indifference to civil rights and social programs, it was easy for many blacks to believe that some of these cases crossed the thin line between legitimate concern with bagging lawbreakers and racially-motivated political harassment of black leadership.
Black officials, such as Jefferson, will continue to be keenly watched by state and federal prosecutors for any hint of impropriety. If they engage in any forbidden activities with money, they will swiftly be called on the legal carpet. The burden of proof, then, is on them to prove that they can and will do any and everything to avoid even the slightest taint of scandal. That may be unfair, but that's the price that they must pay to be regarded as credible and honorable black leaders and advocates.
When the charges against him were first made public, a defiant Jefferson vowed that he would never resign from his seat. He banked that black voters would do what they did for nine previous terms; and that’s ignore the tarnish on his star and reelect him. Thankfully, he was wrong.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009)

Behind the Screwy Obama Birth Certificate Controversy

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

At first glance it defied credulity that the staid, respected Chicago Tribune would do something as screwball as giving any credence to the issue of whether President-elect Barack Obama is really a U.S. citizen or not. But the Tribune will run not one but two big splashy ads paid for by a quasi libertarian outfit named www.wethepeoplefoundation.org based in Queensbury, New York. The group demands that Obama produce his original birth certificate with all the official markings and proper affixed signatures on it. The one that the Hawaii Department of Health officials made public last June was an electronic copy of the certificate.
Unfortunately, Hawaii officials left just enough room for the Obama birth certificate hounders to wiggle through when they correctly noted that privacy laws forbade them from releasing original documents without the authorization of the individual for which the documents are requested; in this case that individual being Obama.
Obama at the time and since then has also correctly declined to give any more ammunition to the birth certificate hounders. His campaign simply issued a statement that the document released by Hawaii officials is authentic. But that just emboldened the Obama hounders even more. Nearly a million have taken a gander at a You Tube clip on the controversy, dozens of websites fuel the rumor mill about his certificate, and a pile of articles have rehashed the issue of whether the birth certificate that Hawaii produced is legit. Nearly two dozen lawsuits or petitions have been filed in various state courts contesting Obama’s U.S. citizenship (one of them was filed by political gadfly Alan Keyes).
The Tribune ads won’t help matters. But it probably wouldn’t have made much difference if the paper had refused the ad. The online mill would still crank away about the certificate. Wagging tongues fan a controversy and that’s always good for website looks and business. As for We the People, it has used the controversy as a fund raising chip (gimmick).
But that’s less important for some than finding any issue no matter how farfetched to further stoke the paranoid suspicions of more than a few about Obama. Those suspicions were deeply implanted the moment that he declared his presidential candidacy in 2007. They rumbled above and underneath the surface throughout the campaign, and never stopped when he won.
He was not black enough. He was too black. He was not patriotic enough. He was too liberal, too effete, too untested. He was a Muslim, terrorist fellow traveler, and a closet black radical. The shock of an Obama in the White House is simply too much for many to bear. Obama defies the stereotypical textbook look and definition of what an American president is supposed to look like, and be like; namely a wooden image middle-aged, or older, white male.
Obama said as much during a campaign stop in late July when he quipped that he did not look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills. Obama got torched for saying the obvious and that is that his candidacy was different. Obama later admitted that it was a racial reference. The off the cuff remark simply reinforced the point that he and his candidacy marked a turning point in U.S. presidential politics and by extension race relations.
The Obama birth certificate hounders have kept the issue alive with some mainstream papers by crudely cloaking their motives. They depict themselves as public spirited citizens and legal experts with no personal, political, let alone racial, ax to grind. Their sole goal is to insure electoral truth and accuracy, to make sure that all the legal requirements for holding a presidential office are met, and to head off a constitutional crisis. They claim they want to put the matter to rest for good before his January 20 inauguration.
Their fantasy is that the U.S. Supreme Court will help them out and demand that Obama produce his supposed “real” birth certificate and if not declare the election null and void. The Supreme Court hasn’t made any demand on Obama to pony up his birth certificate, and likely won’t. Even if a justice or two had a stray thought about taking a peek at the issue, the memory of the fury over the court’s meddle in the 2000 election that ultimately tipped the White House to Bush is still too fresh in their and the public’s mind to butt in on such a wacky issue.
The bad thing about the controversy over Obama’s birth certificate is not that some print publications have dignified the issue by running paid hit ads on it, but that the ads were even conjured up in the first place. And even worse that so many millions are still willing to believe that it’s an issue at all.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

More Than a Sentence for O.J. Simpson

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The instant O.J. Simpson was found guilty of robbery, kidnapping and weapons charges in a Las Vegas court, a lusty on line debate ensued between legal experts and bloggers over whether the judge would or should throw the book at Simpson at his sentencing on December 5. The debate was tinged with more personal feeling, rage, and loathing about and toward Simpson than about the court’s legal options. Judges, of course, can slap sentence enhancements on a convicted felon based on their prior record, and in some cases their bad behavior. But Simpson has not been convicted of any crimes prior to his Las Vegas conviction. His behavior may have been boorish and repellant but that’s hardly legal grounds for doubling down on his sentence. Nevada legal experts say that the judge could hit Simpson with a maximum sentence of twenty-five to thirty years. If so, he would be eligible for parole in 8 years.
The sentence will satisfy the court of law. It won’t totally satisfy many in the court of public opinion. The reason is simple. Simpson’s acquittal on double murder charges thirteen years ago still sticks in the craw of much of America. The bloggers and legal pundits who furiously debated Simpson’s pending sentence needle was stuck hard on that point. They reflect the feeling of millions more. If Simpson served every day of a lengthy sentence with even the faint possibility of walking free that will not be good enough for many.


From the day that he beat the double murder rap and walked out of a Los Angeles court, he has gone wherever he pleased and done what he pleased. He's been trailed by a pack of doting former fans, and celebrity gawkers. There was no hint that police in any of these cities ever routinely subjected him to a special get Simpson profile. Yet, Simpson's ill gained notoriety and perverse celebrity virtually guaranteed that the legal hammer would drop especially hard on him at the first whiff of criminal wrongdoing. There was no chance that given the savage public mood toward him and with the one person truth squad of Fred Goldman continually wagging the guilt finger at him that Simpson would get the benefit of the doubt on any future charges against him. He, of all people, should’ve known that.
A poll taken after Simpson’s Las Vegas bust found that a majority of the public still seethed that he was a murderer who skipped away scot-free, and that his trial and acquittal was a blatant travesty of justice. Even many of Simpson’s one time black supporters who passionately screamed that he was the victim of a biased criminal justice system in the L.A. murder trial cut and run after the Las Vegas verdict. There was not even a bare peep from them that the conviction had any racial taint to it. Simpson and his attorney’s complaint that prosecutors massaged and twisted jury selection to insure a non-black jury drew barely a yawn in press and legal circles.
Simpson didn't invent or originate the oftimes ugly divide in public opinion about celebrity guilt. It has always lurked just beneath the surface. But his case propelled it to the front of public debate and anger. The horde of Simpson media commentators, legal experts and politicians who branded the legal system corrupt and compromised also fueled public belief that justice is for sale. Simpson's acquittal seemed to confirm that the rich, famous and powerful have the deep pockets to hire a small army of high priced, high profile attorneys, expert witnesses, experts, and investigators who routinely mangle the legal system to stall, delay, and drag out their cases, and eventually allow their well-heeled clients to weasel out of punishment.
Even when prosecutors manage to win convictions of or guilty pleas from celebrities, their money, fame, power, and legal twisting often guarantee that they will get a hand slap jail sentence, if that. The hung jury after months of legal finagling and manuevering in the Los Angeles murder trial of one time record kingmaker Phil Spector drew the same public tongue wagging about how a washed up celebrity with a few bucks can play the system.
Whether Las Vegas prosecutors did indeed as Simpson claimed grossly overcharge him, it didn’t stop the chatter that a killer was finally getting at least some of his due. Few others rushed to his defense and blamed the steep charges on a vindictive and unforgiving criminal justice system. In any case, Simpson did his best to try to convince a hostile and doubting public and jury that he was a victim. It worked once, but not a second time. With Simpson it was always more than just a mundane criminal case, and so is his sentence.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).

Holder Could Be GOP Target

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Before nominating Eric Holder to be his attorney general, President Elect Barack Obama quietly asked key Senate Republicans if there would be any potential confirmation problems with Holder’s nomination. Holder is his first cabinet pick and Obama wants to make sure that the pick will be hailed as a good one. The last thing he needs is a bitter, partisan, and contentious scuffle over Holder.
Holder’s legal credentials, administrative experience, and accomplishments are impeccable. As Clinton’s Deputy Attorney General, he got high marks for initiating community outreach programs to address domestic violence, hate crimes and child abuse, devising standards for criminal prosecution of corporations, and handling civil health care matters. He’s also touted for encouraging greater diversity and more pro bono work by attorneys. Holder drew loud cheers from civil libertarians when he told the American Constitutional Society in a speech earlier this year that he would restore the “rule of law” to the Justice Department; meaning that he’d reverse the worst civil liberties abuses by Bush’s Justice Department in the terrorism war.
Yet Holder’s sterling credentials are one thing, but politics is another. A political appointment to a top spot is generally a pro forma affair; it may be anything but that with Holder.
The immediate cause for some worry is Holder’s role in Clinton’s pardon of outlaw financier Mark Rich in 2001. Holder reportedly green lighted the pardon, but soon regretted it. He says he never would have said anything favorable about Rich if he had known the full details of the case. Prosecutors, the GOP and even Democrats pounded Clinton for the pardon. But Holder’s input on Rich was only one factor in Clinton’s decision to pardon Rich, and it was ultimately Clinton’s call.
That probably alone won’t assure a smooth sail for Holder through the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Holder nomination gives a badly mauled GOP a chance to show that it still has some fight in it and that it will not simply be a rubber stamp for Obama. Some conservatives indeed have said that picking a fight over some of Obama’s top picks might be a good way to show the troops that the party can regain some of its political footing.
The Rich issue is not the only skeleton that the GOP could attempt to rattle in Holder’s closet to get that footing. One is the claim that Holder routinely cleared Clinton’s brother Roger of any wrongdoing when he lobbied brother Bill to grant pardons for a drug trafficker and other high level crime figures. This charge will also go nowhere. Clinton did not grant the pardons. And Holder did not solely make the call absolving Roger Clinton of wrongdoing in the pardon cases. Top FBI officials and then independent Counsel Robert Ray also said that Clinton did not do anything illegal.
Another possible hit point is Holder’s lobbying on behalf of telecom giant Global Crossing after the company went belly up in 2002. Global Crossing incurred millions in debt. Back in June, the Republican National Committee first brought this up and claimed it would push to make it a campaign issue. The RNC didn’t say just what the issue was. It didn’t matter. The charge also went nowhere.
Then there is the Elian Gonzalez case. In 1999 Cuban leaders in Florida were furious at Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno for enforcing a court order requiring that the six year-old Gonzalez be removed from his relatives' home in Miami's Little Havana and returned to Cuba. As Deputy Attorney General, Holder took some heat for enforcing the court order.
The same year Holder drew more fire for his role in approving the clemency request for 16 members of the radical Puerto Rican independence group FALN convicted of a string of terrorist bombings and murders. The FBI, Bureau of Prisons and U.S. state attorneys opposed clemency for the 16. Holder refused to comment on what part he played in the clemency action.
Silence on the part of government officials is always taken as a sign by politically driven inquistors that an official has something to hide or is trying to dodge culpability for their actions when things go wrong. The FALN clemency issue could prove to be even more an irritant for Holder than the Rich case. In June, the RNC tried to stir up the pot on the FALN issue when it issued a press release urging the FALN clemency be made a campaign issue. There were no bites and the issue quickly died.
Then Holder was not an elected official, held no government office, and was only one of several top advisors to Obama. The talk of him being Obama’s pick as attorney general was just that, talk. However, he now is Obama’s pick and a GOP thirsting for anyone to target to make trouble for Obama may just see Holder as that target.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009)

Obama’s Racial Balancing Act

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

President elect Barack Obama’s close and long time confidant Valerie Jarrett was emphatic when she told a group of black journalists that Obama would not waver one bit in his commitment to diversity in his administration. The journalists were nervous at the paucity of African-American names that have been repeatedly tossed around as likely Obama staff and cabinet picks. The list is top heavy with moderate to conservative Wall Street bank and corporate officials, ex-Clinton White House staffers, officials and advisors, and Democratic governors and senators. Though Obama has made no actual decisions whether any of them will make the final team cut, it was still cause for worry. The names prominently mentioned are hardly anyone’s definition of diversity. The political logic is that with the colossal problems of the war and the economy, an inexperienced and untested president who’s already under an intense microscope, virtually dictate that Obama can’t hit the ground running without the old, experienced corporate and Democratric insider hands on his team.

This will do nothing to ease the worry that blacks could be left out. And that’s a legitimate worry. The hard political reality is that black voters gave Obama more votes than any other Democratic candidate in presidential history. He could not have won solely with their record turnout and vote. But without those record votes he would almost certainly have lost. As in politics, there’s always a price or at least an expectation from an interest group that gives a candidate near universal backing. In this case, the implicit expectation is that an Obama White House will fight hard for civil rights, health, education, and job creation programs, and criminal justice reform. In fact, Obama hadn’t even warmed the president elect seat when Al Sharpton urged him to have his Attorney General revisit the Sean Bell case. The next day a coalition of national Latino legal and civil rights groups demanded that Obama appoint more Latinos to key posts in the cabinet, staff, and in the judiciary. More groups will almost certainly follow suit with their interest demands.

But even if Obama were not faced with towering crisises that have nothing to do with race, ethnicity and special interest demands, he still would hew tightly to a moderate centrist path in his staff and cabinet picks. The tipoff of that was his campaign. There was, and could not have been, the slightest racial or confrontational edge to it. That was absolutely crucial to win over doubting centrist, and conservative independents. In the early stages of the campaign they leaned tenuously to McCain. But Obama’s pitch that he’d put priority emphasis on tax and economic aid to the middle-class proved decisive in tipping the vote scale in his favor.

This was no accident. Though Obama publicly distanced himself from Bill Clinton's conservative Democratic Leadership Council. He still hewed closely to the template that Clinton and the DLC laid out for Democrats to win elections.

That is talk of strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, tax reform, a tame plan for affordable health care and the sub-prime lending crisis, and the economic resuscitation of mid-America. This non-racial, centrist pitch does not threaten or alienate the white middle-class. Meanwhile, Obama was virtually silent on issues such as racial profiling, affirmative action, housing and job discrimination, the racial disparities in prison sentencing, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, failing inner city schools, ending the racially-marred drug sentencing policy, and his Supreme Court appointments.

There were two other reasons for this formula approach apart from the heavy risk that making these centerpiece issues in the general election could have been the political kiss of death for him. One, is that his two Democratic presidential predecessors Al Gore and John Kerry also avoided talk of these issues during most of their campaigns. They, like Obama, are moderate, centrist Democrats. They were deeply fearful that a too heavy emphasis on civil rights and social programs would have left them wide open to assault from Bush and the GOP independent committees as too liberal Democrats, who were tax and spend, and soft on welfare and crime. That’s the standard tag, or better yet smear, plastered on Democrats. It’s their curse. Though both Gore and Kerry lost to Bush. They didn’t lose by much. In fact Gore won the popular vote. The lesson was that even in a loss, steering a center course was the prudent way for Democrats to keep the race close enough to have a shot at winning.

Obama even more than Kerry and Gore could not depart from the Clinton formula. Race made sure of that. From day one of his campaign he was and would be the most watched and scrutinized, and at times assailed, presidential candidate in modern times.

Jarrett’s emphastic assurance that diversity will be the watchword in an Obama House was honest and heartfelt. But politics being politics, diversity will be more a balancing act than the watchword on Obama’s watch.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is How Obama Won (Middle Passage Press January 2009)

Not Black President Obama, Just President Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The instant that Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink nearly two years ago the twin mantra was that he could be the first black to be president and if that happened America had finally kicked its race syndrome. The twin mantra has been repeated ad infinitum, and it’s dead wrong about Obama and the presidency. The early hint that race was overblown and over obsessed came from Obama. He didn’t talk about it. For good reason, he was not running as a black presidential aspirant. He was running as a presidential aspirant. He had to make that crucial distinction for personal and political purposes.

The ritual preface of the word “black” in front of any and every achievement or breakthrough that an African-American makes is insulting, condescending and minimizes their achievement. It maintains and reinforces the very racial separation that much of America claims it is trying to get past. Dumping the historic burden of race on blacks measures an individual’s success or failure by a group standard. That’s a burden whites don’t have. They succeed or fail solely as individuals.

Obama’s personal history--his bi-racial parents, his upbringing, his education, and his relative youth-- defies racial pigeonholing. He was influenced by but not shaped by the rigid race grounded civil rights struggles of the 1960s as older whites and blacks were.

The institution of the presidency, and what it takes to get it, demands that racial typecasting be scrapped anyway. Obama would have had no hope of bagging the presidency if there had been the slightest hint that he embraced the race tinged politics of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism.

He could not have raised record amounts of campaign cash. He would not have been fawned over by legions of Hollywood celebrities, corporate and union leaders. He would not have netted the endorsements of Colin Powell and packs of former Reagan and Bush Sr. administration stalwarts, and prepped by W. Bush political guru Karl Rove on how to beat Hillary Clinton. The media would never have given him the top heavy favorable coverage, endorsements, nor relentlessly hammered Republican rival John McCain. If the media had so chosen, it could have torpedoed Obama’s campaign by playing up his connection with his race focused former pastor Jeremiah Wright. It bought his protest of racial bewilderment at the Wright race revelations, and dropped the matter.

Obama had to cling closely to the centrist blueprint Bill Clinton laid out for Democrats to win elections, and to govern after he won.

It meant during the campaign and will mean at least in the early days of his presidency emphasis on strong defense, the war against terrorism, a vague plan for winding down the Iraq War, mild tax reform for the middle-class, a cautious plan for affordable health care and for dealing with the sub-prime lending crisis, and a gentile reproach of Wall Street.

The old axiom that you can tell a president-elect by his staff and cabinet picks will very much apply to Obama. A cast of governors, senators and ex senators, former Clinton and Democratic party operatives, and even a few token Republican mavericks have been floated for Obama’s staff and cabinet picks such as Al Gore, Tom Dachle, Tim Kaine, John Kerry, Larry Summers, Robert Rubin, Paul Volcker, Chuck Hagel, Robert F, Kennedy, Tom Vilsack, and yes Arnold Schwarzenegger. The list reads like a who’s who of the Beltway and Heartland America establishment.

Obama’s cautious, center-governing non-racial, likely staff and cabinet cast and policies is plainly designed to blunt the standard Republican rap that Democrats, especially one branded a liberal Democrat, inherently pander to special interests, i.e. minorities, are pro expansive government, and anti-business. They will be watching hawk like for any sign of that from Obama.

As president Obama will be pulled and tugged at by corporate and defense industry lobbyists, the oil and nuclear power industry, government regulators, environmental watchdog groups, conservative family values groups, moderate and conservative GOP senators and house members, foreign diplomats and leaders. They all have their priorities and agendas and all will vie to get White House support for their pet legislation, or to kill or cripple legislation that threatens their interests.

An Obama White House will of course be a historic and symbolic first. However, it will be a White House that keeps a firm, cautious and conciliatory eye on mid-America public opinion, and corporate and defense industry interests in making policy decisions and determining priorities. All other occupants of the White House have done that. Obama would and could not have attained the White House if he didn’t do the same. This has nothing to do with race, or the nonsense of being tagged a black president, first or not. It has everything to do with the requirement of White House governance.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Why Race Won’t Hurt Obama on November 4th

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Republican presidential contender John McCain got one thing right about Democratic rival Barack Obama. He told Larry King that he didn’t think race would be much of an issue in the final vote. As McCain put it only “a tiny, tiny, minority” will vote against Obama because he’s black. McCain was not just campaign bloviating to puff up his oft touted credential as a play it straight on race guy. The notion that because millions of whites passionately back Obama race is permanently off America’s table is more hope and prayer than reality.

Still despite endless and obsessive speculation that race could derail Obama in his slog to the White House it won’t and it probably never would have. Start with McCain and Obama; McCain made the personal and pragmatic choice not to make race an issue either directly or indirectly through code words, snide hints, and racial guilt by association attacks. When the Jeremiah Wright flap cropped up, he could have hammered Obama as a stealth race baiter. He turned thumbs down on that. Later when VP mate Sarah Palin and some others in his campaign were etching to unload on Obama-Wright again, he still said no.

That decision was not totally due to honor and noble intent. A too frontal racial attack would have brought instant screams of foul from Democrats, and millions of voters who demanded that the campaign be a clean, issues focused campaign. McCain read the political leaves correctly and saw the political peril in flipping the race card. The occasions that he slipped and rapped Obama as a socialist and a terrorist fellow traveler brought universal condemnation that he was going negative or worse running a dirty campaign.
Obama helped things even more. The firm message in his signature slogan of hope and change, campaign literature, TV ads, rallies, in pitches to contributors, his core of advisors, and major endorsers was that the Obama presidential campaign and an Obama presidency would be broad, non-racial and issues driven. Anything else would have instantly stirred horrifying visions to many of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. His candidacy would have been DOA.

But McCain and Obama’s best efforts to make race a non issue in the campaign would have fallen short without the sea change shift in public attitudes. The decade since the Rodney King beating, the O.J. Simpson trial, and the urban riots, has been a period of relative racial peace in America. During that time polls consistently showed that more whites than ever are genuinely convinced that America is a color-blind society, equal opportunity is a reality, and blacks and whites if not exactly attaining complete social and economic equality, are closer than ever to that goal. Though the figures on income, education and health care still show a colossal gap between poor blacks and whites, the perception nonetheless is that racism is an ugly and nasty byproduct of a long by-gone past.

The passage by huge margins of anti-affirmative action measures in California, Michigan, and Washington, was not simply a case of whites engaging in racial denial or a cover for hidden bias. Many white voters backed the initiatives because they honestly believed that color should never be in the equation in hiring and education, and that race is divisive.
It’s is easy to see why they believe that. "Whites only" signs and redneck Southern cops unleashing police dogs, turning fire hoses on and beating hapless black demonstrators have long been forgotten. Americans turn on their TVs and see legions of black newscasters and talk show hosts, topped by TV's richest and most popular celebrity, Oprah Winfrey.

They see mega-rich black entertainers and athletes pampered and fawned over by a doting media and an adoring public. They see TV commercials that picture blacks living in trendy integrated suburban homes, sending their kids to integrated schools and driving expensive cars. They see blacks such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his successor Condoleezza Rice in high-profile policy-making positions in the Bush administration. They see dozens of blacks in Congress, many more in state legislatures and city halls. They see blacks heading corporations and universities. And those blacks who incessantly scream racism about their plight are roundly reviled for feeding racial paranoia.
There is even some talk that the so-called Bradley Effect, the penchant for whites to lie to pollsters about their true racial feelings and vote against a black candidate, may actually turn into a reverse Bradley Effect this election. That’s that many whites will vote for Obama because he’s black. That notion is just as dubious as the Bradley Effect. But to even raise the possibility tells much about changing times and attitudes.

If Obama wins and that seems likely, race will be, as McCain says, only a tiny, tiny factor. That’s a tribute to him, Obama and the millions of America voters that were determined to make sure that race did not hurt Obama on November 4th

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Five Things President Obama Can do to Keep the Fox Guys Off His Back

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

The then freshly elected President Clinton had barely dropped his arm after taking the oath of office in January 1993 before they started in on him. The “they” was Rush Limbaugh (Remember his “Day one of America held hostage” daily rant), packs of radio shock jocks, legions of Christian broadcasters, and, of course, the Fox Network. Clinton was allegedly too pro abortion, too pro big government, too pro tax and spend, too unpatriotic, too personally sleazy, and too married to Hillary. But his greatest crime was he was a Democrat. The Fox holy crusade against him didn’t end until he closed the door for the last time on his way out of the White House.
Now it’s Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama’s turn. The cast of the anti-Clinton holy crusade warriors remains unchanged. They are gnashing their teeth in horror while rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a President Obama. They’ll soon likely get their wish and when they do they’ll dust off the Clinton bash script with all the same “too” hits that were leveled against him. Some may even be tempted to sneakily toss the race card into the script.

Obama won’t be able to keep the wolves totally at bay. He’s a centrist Democrat like Clinton. For the hardcore conservatives that alone is enough to send red flags shooting to the top of the pole and keep them there. The added plus is that an anti-Obama feeding frenzy is a potential ratings bonanza for Fox.
There are five things then that Obama can do to damp down the yelps against him.
1. The economic mess. He’s not Houdini and he can’t magically make it go away. It will be tough if not impossible to deliver on the ritual debate and campaign stump promise he made to virtually cut taxes for everyone while keeping tax increases to the bare minimum. That defies fiscal logic.

He can though arm twist banks to renegotiate, impose a moratorium on, delay payments, or repackage loans for thousands of foreclosed challenged homeowners. There’s even some talk about government intervention to use some of the bailout money to create a homeowner foreclosure relief fund to provide government guaranteed loans to directly aid those in most immediate danger of losing their homes. He can prod Congress to use some bailout money to help these severely distressed homeowners. He can act on the proposal to create a government sponsored small business credit fund to make readily available loans and lines of credit to credit worthy small and medium sized businesses that have been refused loans by banks.
Infrastructure Stimulus. Obama can take the Senate up on its offer to call a lame duck special session after the elections to pass an economic stimulus bill which includes more than 10 to 16 billion dollars for the federal-aid highway program, transit, and airport capital improvement projects. It’s not exactly the second coming of the old Roosevelt Great Depression job creation WPA but it will stimulate business, contractors, and suppliers, create thousands of jobs, and potentially ramp up tax revenues for cash strapped cities and counties.
Rein in Wall Street. He can push and prod the Fed to better monitor and enforce provisions that clamp a lid on dubious trading, lending practices, and investments by some banks and brokerage houses. That includes imposing severe penalties for those who break the rules.
The Iraq war. He can’t end the war in the six months as he promised when he was a middle of the pack Democratic presidential contender and then backpedaled from that promise when he became the lone Democratic presidential contender with a real shot at the presidency. But he can beef up Iraqi’s security forces and then conduct a phased withdrawal of American troops. This is a good faith step toward winding down the war without compromising Iraqi security and American troop safety.

Neutralize Fox News. In an off the cuff quip in mid October, Obama said he’d be much better off if Fox News didn’t dog him mercilessly. Obama’s pique at Fox was understandable since he’s been their number one punching bag for months.
But Obama can and should turn the tables on Fox. Carping and complaining about their legendary anti-Democratic Party bias, or trying to pretend they don’t exist isn’t going to change Fox, let alone make it go away. Instead, keep Fox in the loop. Obama should talk to the Fox guys like he routinely talks to the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN. That won’t make them sheath their daggers. It might though make them pull them out a tad slower.
These five things are time and cost effective doables. They will do much to help smooth out some of the bumps in President Obama’s road ahead, Fox notwithstanding.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Why Some Racists like Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson




Not long after Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama tossed his hat in the presidential rink back in February 2007, an odd, even bizarre thing happened. A hodgepodge of avowedly racist groups burned up internet sites not with rage, but glee. They were giddy at the thought that Obama might win.

Their rationale was that an African-American in the White House would prove their point that blacks were out to dominate whites and that whites would be so disgusted that they would unite in righteous and very racist anger. That in turn would trigger their long swooned over racist fantasy of a race war. This was dismissed for what it was, namely the ranting of the racist lunatic fringe. But that doesn’t mean that many whites who harbor hidden or even conscious racial animus won’t also back Obama albeit for their own reasons. A mid-September survey found about one quarter of whites hold negative views of blacks that are top heavy with the old shop worn stereotypes. The respondents said that blacks use race as a crutch, are not as industrious as whites, oppose interracial marriage, and are terrified of black crime (Obama mildly chided his white grandmother in his so-called race speech back in March for saying she feared black men). Yet nearly a quarter of them claim they’ll vote for Obama.

The standard explanation for this seeming racial schizoid view is that whites are so hammered by financial hardship that the economy trumps race and that Obama can do more to help them out of their financial hole than Republican rival John McCain. Others like him because his race neutral campaign is a soothing departure from the perceived race baiting antics of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Still others like him because his racially exotic background supposedly doesn’t fit that of the typical African American.

There is truth in these reasons cited to explain Obama’s appeal to some racial bigots. But there’s another reason that hasn’t been cited. That’s the long, checkered, and tortured history of racial exceptionalism. That’s the penchant for some whites to make artificial distinctions between supposedly good and bad blacks. That’s apparent in the unthinking offensive, insulting, and just plain dumb crack made to some articulate, well-educated blacks in business and the professions that they are “different than other blacks or not like other blacks.”

Racial exceptionalism also stems from the ingrained, but terribly misplaced, belief that blacks are perennially disgruntled, hostile, and rebellious, and are always on the lookout for any real or perceived racial slight, and etch to pick a fight over it.

An African-American who doesn’t fit that type is touted, praised, even anointed by some as the reasoned voice of black America. A century ago the mantle of the reasoned, exceptional African-American was bestowed on famed educator, Booker T. Washington. He was showered with foundation and corporate largesse. In the 1920s and 30s, NAACP leaders always found a ready welcome at the White House. They were praised in the press and bankrolled by some industrialists. In the 1960s Urban League President Whitney Young, NAACP executive secretary Roy Wilkins, and Martin Luther King Jr. before he fell out of favor with the Lyndon Johnson White House after his too vocal opposition to the Vietnam War and turn to economic radicalism, were lionized for their reason and racial moderation.

In the 1980s, Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. actively cultivated and promoted a bevy of younger GOP friendly academics, black business leaders, and black conservatives. Reagan and Bush Sr. plainly saw them as a leadership alternative to the black Democrats and the old guard civil rights leaders. The black conservatives were appointed to government posts, bagged foundation grants, were feted by conservative think tanks, and their columns were routinely published in major newspapers. They were continually cited by writers and reporters as a breath of fresh air among African-Americans mostly for their willingness to break ranks with and to blister Jackson, Sharpton, and the civil rights establishment.

Obama hardly fits the mold of a black conservative, but neither is he the ultra-liberal Democrat that some conservative opponents routinely paint him as. Even before his rocket launch to the threshold of the presidency, he was considered a moderate, centrist Democrat, a consummate party insider, and a rising Beltway establishment politician. Without that stamp of mainstream approval, his White House bid would have never got to political first base.

Obama bristles publicly at the notion that he’s in competition with or a critic of civil rights leaders, or that he is immune from racial jabs. He has repeatedly praised past civil rights leaders for their heroic battle against racial injustice. That’s good, but that doesn’t erase the nagging penchant to elevate some blacks above the racial fray, and declare them the exception. That includes some white bigots who say they’ll back Obama.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).