Loose Lips Sink Shit

Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle shimmies race, class, and generation divide. It comes to mind this week as two liaisons of the elder white guard steward empathy for Black America. And nobody's buying it.

Democratic pet peeve, Ralph Nader, is up to old tricks. After making muck of Al Gore's fertile 2000 Presidential bid, Nader accused Barack Obama of pandering white.

"I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law and is going to be liberated by the law," he said. "Haven't heard a thing."

Nader added,

"He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically, he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."

There may be truth to Nader's claim, but his skin color betrays any noble intent. Instead, what appears is a desperate tactic to shock media coverage upon a non-existent campaign. Furthermore, Nader's black fist pump is not so much insulting to Obama, but to poverty in general. His statements generalize the plight as being a black struggle, not white. Fine. But to target Barack Obama, a symbol of hope for so many, with unsubstantiated impeachment, is plain arrogance. A white man should not be shepherding black prerogative.

Meanwhile, radio personality Don Imus is again courting controversy over disparaging comments he made of NFL star Adam "Pacman" Jones.

Jones (who is black) is downplaying his popular nickname to help distance his turbulent past. A past that includes six arrests since being drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2005.

Told of Jones' record and race, Imus replied,

"Well there you go...Now we know."

So goes Imus' historic stream of racial insensitivity. His continued lack of self-censorship, especially in lieu of last year's embarrassing Rutgers commentary, furthers his credential plummet. Behind mic, sits a racist radio cowboy whose wild west ignorance is becoming less deliberate and more sloppy.

In the face of such colossal pendulum shift, commentary from white pundits like Nader and Imus, however ill perceived, unearths a senile hatred this country has long nurtured. The roots of which need to stay buried.