on L'affaire Ferraro (when she said Obama benefitted from being Black)

Washington Post columnist Colbert King wrote an editorial lambasting Geraldine Ferraro for her remarks about how Obama benefits from being black. See it at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/14/AR2008031403017.html Here's my response to the column and the reams of reader comments on it:

Unlike most commentors here, I don't have a dog in this fight. All three contenders believe Mexico's ruling elite should be allowed to determine America's demographics by outsourcing their overpopulation problem and their social services infrastructure to this country. That said, neither this columnist nor most commentors have acknowledged a simple fact in America today: a Black man with a college education who looks and talks like a network news anchor has it made, even if a homie with dreads whose pants are saggin' and draggin' doesn't. Sure, maybe a college grad Black will still have trouble catching a cab in D.C. at midnight--but every corporation will be dying to hand him a plum position. And though he may have trouble reaching the very top...well, so would most people, regardless of skin color or gender.

And that's what Ferraro meant.

Moreover, if you follow the fountains of invective burbling over this campaign, you'll see bloggers and media commentators treating Clinton way more viciously than Obama. I'm not talking about legitimate issues--conflicts of interest, voting records etc. I'm talking about stuff like Limbaugh saying nobody wants a wrinkled old woman in the White House, or nasty remarks about Chelsea Clinton's looks (those have simmered down now that she's grown up beautiful, but it was a different story when she was an awkward teen).

I've concluded that misogyny is still acceptable to a remarkable extent, while overt racism isn't. Yes, yes, yes, there's plenty of covert racism. But survey the blogosphere and the editorials and you'll see that I'm telling the truth.

It even goes so far as names. In the Old South, judges and cops always addressed Blacks by their first names--a condescending, false familiarity. No one dares do that now. Unless it's a woman. The pundits are constantly referring to Clinton as "Hillary," while Obama gets the dignity of being called "Obama." Just as Whites are called "Whites"--never "European Americans" while Blacks are usually referred to as "African Americans"--even when their racial heritage is 50% White, as is the case with Obama.

Decades ago Tom Wolfe wrote a fine piece of journalism titled "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers" in which he described the how well-spoken Blacks are privileged in liberal circles (again, not in the eyes of cabbies, to be sure), and how some Blacks make a living from race-baiting government agencies, politicians, and vulnerable corporations.

Obama hasn't done that, which is why he's a viable candidate and the Al Sharptons and Jess Jacksons of the world aren't.

I might add that lower-class Whites are heavily discriminated against because of the way they talk and look--often far more than educated, well-spoken Blacks are.

In other words, classism often trumps racism, and sexism also often trumps racism. Racism exists but it ain't the only -ism we should be worried about.

So many people who've suffered from discrimination seem to think that only the group they belong to has truly suffered. Feminists, paraplegics, Blacks, you name it. I'm in none of those groups, yet I suffered from intense discrimination up to and including physical abuse due to being raised in blue-collar communities and having a high IQ. Of course that high IQ has served me well since then. So how is my experience any different from what a smart Black might have experienced growing up in the prejudiced White communities I lived in, before going on to college and corporate success? Or a smart woman? Etc.

It's not. Blacks have legitimate grievances. But so do lots of other people. And Blacks do themselves no favor by playing the race card constantly. Save it for the real deal. Because even when you do succeed in browbeating Whites and Women and others into shutting up, they will say what they think when they vote and when they make decisions in private.

King's excoriation of Ferraro is such an example. The clamor of you and your co-religionists got Ferraro dumped, all right. But you did Obama's campaign no favor. He will only succeed by avoiding the kind of race-baiting that so many Black politicians do daily.

He might well say "God save me from my friends. I can handle my enemies myself."