Descent into the mire

The grotesque utilization of race in the Illinois pay-to-play scandal is the perfect counterpoint to Obama’s election triumph as the most competent candidate who happened to be black. Still-Governor Rod ‘Big Hair’ Blagojevich was crafty in naming another African-American to the Obama seat, but if we were really in a post-racial period, Roland Burris would be getting creamed for accepting the tainted post.

Instead, we get Congressman Bobby Rush’s pathetic call to avoid ‘hanging’ or ‘lynching’ Burris, which in this case means giving Burris a free pass to the Senate after the Hair’s shocking attempt to sell the seat to the highest bidder. A white appointee wouldn’t have the luxury.

The last time I heard about ‘lynching’ was when Bush the First appointed a totally incompetent African-American bureaucrat to the Supreme Court in a breathtaking display of racial tokenism that a large portion of the black political establishment accepted. As a result of the Clarence Thomas aberration, we have had two decades of increasingly reactionary decisions including the most notorious one that put Bush the Second in the White House. A pretty high price to pay for going along with a guy whose skin was the right color.

None of which means racism has suddenly disappeared or that an individual’s ethnic origins shouldn’t be taken into account. But I see no reason to lay off of Burris for being a willing participant in this sleaze. The guy should be a public pariah—all residents of Illinois, of all races, deserve better.