An Alleged Blow for Us All/Rascism in the Congress

This is way too unbelievable(6-27-2006 5:539PST):

The good ol' boy cracker-crats of the Republican party are having themselves a regular hootenanny over allegations that congresswoman Cynthia McKinney landed a punch on a security guard at the Capitol.

Seems that last week, the congresswoman went around the Capitol metal detector, a congressional privilege, and was grabbed by a guard. The congresswoman responded to this assault by, report has it, applying a fist to the offender.

The Republican speaker Dennis Hastert, and the press, have gone wild. There was even a verbal assault on McKinney carried on Fox TV by ... Tom DeLay.

That crazy congresswoman is at it again. Or should I say, black congresswoman. Yes, I should say it, because, don't kid yourself, "black" is what it's all about.

I'm not writing to defend Cynthia McKinney. I know the congresswoman and, believe me, she can take care of herself without this white boy's help.

I'm writing to defend Duane Fitzgerald Andrews. Let me tell you about Duane: one brilliant young lawyer, top of his class and a computer wizard to boot who brought my computer back from the dead many a time.

Duane's a sharp dresser, wore suits into our office of committed slobs every day. We made fun of him for it. But once Duane showed up in jeans, it being a Saturday, and we were off to a meeting in a Washington DC office tower. We walked in together and me, bald white guy, was handed a pass. Then Duane was told: "You'll have to make your delivery at the basement entrance."

My young attorney just smiled and showed an ID. He brushed it off as just another "Black Moment."

One more Black Moment added to four Black Centuries.

When the security guard stopped Duane to send him to the basement, I should have showed him my ID: a knuckle hoagy. I didn't and I'm ashamed. Now, this uppity black congresswoman has done it for me.

McKinney herself, politely dismisses it all as a politicised kerfuffle over nothing, a case of obvious misunderstandings.

But I don't dismiss it at all.

When McKinney landed her response, she landed it for Duane - and for Rosa Parks who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger in a bus; for the black folk stopped by the cops when trying to flee New Orleans into the safety of the white Metairie; for Willie Steen, a black man in Florida stopped from voting because he looked like a "potential felon". And she landed one for me and for you, for all of us of all races afflicted with the racism that remains in the DNA of the body politic.

So here's to you, Cynthia, our champ, still undefeated.