A reader writes:
I think you owe black Democratic voters an "I was wrong" entry for your condescending indictments of us as an uninspired, scared, Jesse Jackson-loving cohort of imbeciles. This for not backing Obama en masse from the moment he announced his nomination. Turns out many of us, behaving as any responsible voter should, were cautiously considering the options, offering nominal support to a person we know and respect (HRC), and waiting for Barack to earn our votes. He is doing that now. Still, I cannot get past your thinly disguised, incendiary implications of fear in our hearts: fear that Barack would wipe out our "cherished" vision of black leadership remaining in the brittle hands of Al Sharpton, Jackson, and other self-interested, Civil Rights-era holdovers; fear that Obama was not really one of "us," that he did not deserve our support because he had not experienced fully the black experience and, by definition, had not earned his way with speeches and protests and civil disobedience on the behalf of lying young black girls. You were wrong!
Turns out we are a little more enlightened than you or some of your other black readers (who verified your belittling views with isolated stories of black resistance to the Obama campaign) thought.
My posts along these lines were all designed to ask questions and figure things out, not to condescend to anyone. I'm sorry if it came off that way. I still think that in some instances, such as, say Andrew Young, there is a generational resistance to the post-racial politics Obama represents. But I'm sure black voters need no advice from me on whom to vote for.