Home Delivery

Rev. Wright brings race from pulpit to politics

Ellis Henican

March 23, 2008

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

For a while there, presidential politics felt like a postracial affair.

Sure, the leading Democrat was a biracial African-American - Caucasian Kansas mom, Kenyan dad and a childhood spent partly overseas. But Barack Obama's new-generation campaign didn't rise out of the civil rights movement. And his personal style made even skittish white people feel comfortable with him. Truly, the only racial question on the campaign trail seemed to be this: "Is Barack black enough?"

Then, whap!

The senator's incendiary pastor, Jeremiah Wright Jr., popped into view as the Next Big Thing on YouTube. And the rawness of race in America was back where it had been for so long - open for cynical pandering, easily misinterpreted, prone to sudden eruption across the political map.

Ellis Henican Bio | E-mail | Recent columns

Thanks, Rev. Thanks, Rush.

It's too soon to say how this new ugliness will affect the rest of the presidential campaign. But the postracial optimism of a month ago has clearly evaporated. Were these hard feelings inevitable? Was Obama's "beige stage" destined to end?

Certainly, the reverend's fiery words haven't done his famous congregant any political good. And the public reaction carried racial baggage too - an inverse relationship between outrage expressed and hours spent in the pews of a black church.

But what does all this mean for David Paterson, New York's sudden governor of color?

He arrived at his new perch without a dash of racial rancor. And what's caught him up so far isn't race, but sex - that other hair-trigger taboo.

Both are still explosive in New York and America. And Paterson may be judged by a thousand standards beyond the color of his skin.

But the latest lesson of Barack Obama is a cautionary one on this point. We may not be looking for race anymore. But race still has a way of looking for us.

CHEAP SLEEP: It's the five-star Washington Mayflower versus the bare-bones West Side Days Inn! Does hotel selection tell us anything about the budgetary styles of our two trysting governors, ritzy Spitzer and penny-pinching Paterson? State employees are praying, "Please, no!"

ONE STEP FORWARD: Nice touch, the new Wi-Fi service in the LIRR waiting room at Penn Station. So how many from-the-scene e-mails are railing about stinky station restrooms?

ELLIS' BOOK CLUB: In "The Pope's Children," the irreverent David McWilliams takes us inside the ambitious and prosperous generation that has become "Ireland's new elite." These 25- to 35-year-olds get their name from John Paul II's 1979 visit to the Ol' Sod, a trip McWilliams believes gave Ireland its cockiness back - and made the Celtic Tiger roar.

ASKED AND UNANSWERED: Flush with "People" loot from selling their twins' pix, can't Jennifer Lopez donate a wing or something to North Shore University Hospital? Doesn't the new mami want to be remembered fondly on the wards? ... Should we count the Franklin Gallimore case as another real estate tragedy? The impulsive 21-year-old says he killed his parents when they tried to toss him and his girlfriend from his mom's Elmont home ... A great, cheap baby-sitter for Apple and Moses? Or just another hovering mom? That's the question as actress Blythe Danner builds a house right beside daughter Gwyneth Paltrow's Bluff Road place in Amagansett ... Gandhi said that facing consequences is an integral part of civil disobedience. But do they still teach Gandhi at Division Avenue High, where 145 students will now get detention for Tuesday's mass walkout over potential teacher layoffs? ... Is anyone surprised that Brian Tuohey has been active in the Huntington Conservative Party? He's accused of stealing a very modest sum - just $500 - from a safe at the town recycling center ... Are things a little tense on Union Drive in Uniondale now that cops have charged Blanca Perez, 35, with stealing jewelry, cash and Nintendo games from a close neighbor's home? ... Would any other industries care to follow the building trades and institute apprenticeship programs? In this unsteady economy, lots of young workers could use an entry-level opportunity ... If Spitzer squeeze Ashley Dupré is 22 now, how old was she when she made those raunchy "Girls Gone Wild" videos five years ago? Was GGW founder Joe Francis maybe just a little sloppy with the ID checks? ... Now that he's positioned for real payback, will David Paterson (Hempstead childhood, Hofstra Law) suddenly forget his Long Island roots? ... Was that little Lindsay coming out of Grandpa Richard Lohan's room at North Shore? He's in intensive care and said to be terminally ill with colon and lung cancer ... Steroid administrator Brian McNamee's Far Rockaway bus-crash blackout: Is this a case of the shoemaker's shabby shoes? ... Wait! If newspapers are such dinosaurs, how come all these moguls are suddenly circling Newsday? Rupert, Mort, Jim - who's up for a real adventure? Gosh, we hardly knew you, Sam!

PASSPORT SNOOP

1 Taking Patriot Act for a test drive.

2 You mean Chi-Chi’s isn’t a foreign country?

3 Just checking whose photo is worst.

4 Happy birthday, J. Edgar Hoover.

5Oh, I thought Hillary’s tax returns were in here.