Discriminations

Did Barack Obama’s election to the Senate from Illinois mean that his seat thus became black, and must be occupied by a black from now on? Laura Washington, whose argument suggests that she occupies a black journalist’s seat at the Chicago Sun Times, thinks so.

“Bye bye, black Senate seat!” she wrote last week.

The political blackbirds are singing a swan song for the hopes of keeping a U.S. Senate seat in African-American hands. The Rod Blagojevich implosion may have dealt that cause a fatal blow....

That possibility has provoked outrage among black community leaders and politicians. Not so fast, they are saying.

Last month, the Concerned Clergy of Illinois demanded that the governor appoint a “qualified” African American “who can fill this vacancy and who has the capacity to be re-elected when [Obama’s] term ends in 2010....”

.... [T]he concerned clergy, a cadre of several dozen prominent black ministers, are “appalled” by the fallout of the sensational federal investigation. They see it as a thinly veiled attempt by white pols to hijack the seat, says Stephanie Gadlin, the coalition’s spokeswoman.... There’s a massive conspiracy afoot, Gadlin says. “We see it for what it is. What we are really looking at is ‘The Luck of the Irish’ — two Madigans, Fitzgerald, Durbin, Cullerton, Claypool, Daley, and all the rest. They’re making a power play to regain the control of the politics, money and jobs in this state.”

Laura Washington and her friends “among black community leaders and politicians” oppose having Obama’s replacement selected by the people of Illinois in an election. Why? Because:

White voters don’t and won’t accept the idea that America and Illinois need — and deserve — a black senator. (When the Senate was all white, they never complained).

Black folks need The Big O to endorse the concept of keeping the seat. That’s not going to happen.

“Keeping the seat”? I wonder if most “Black folks” believe that Obama’s Senate seat belongs to them and not to all the people of Illinois. If so, they’ve been very poorly led by their “black community leaders and politicians” and very poorly informed by journalists like Laura Washington ... and the newspapers that employ them.