Racism

*TC COLLEGE PARK -- Members of the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus heard more complaints of racism yesterday from dozens of state government workers who testified at a hearing at the University of Maryland here.The workers took part in the second caucus hearing on racism in state government.Such was the nature of the complaints from University of Maryland workers that the senator running the hearing said outside of the room that the caucus should consider creative ways of applying pressure to stop racist activity.

HoCoPoLitSo (Howard County Poetry & Literature Society) will sponsor a free panel discussion, "Racism in America: 1968-2008: What has changed? What remains to be done?" from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. April 27 at the Wilde Lake Interfaith Center, 10431 Twin Rivers Road, Columbia. Those who attend will be asked to participate in a discussion that includes a decade-by-decade account of racism in America, using a visual presentation, and to examine the state of racism in the nation, with a focus on Howard County.

WASHINGTON -- I know you're sick of him, but can you stand one more analysis of Jayson Blair? For those of you who have spent the last three weeks in a sensory deprivation tank: Mr. Blair is black, 27 years old, and was a reporter for The New York Times until it was discovered that he had lied and plagiarized his way through dozens of articles. Now he is the most reviled man in American journalism. Some critics have claimed that this is what you get from "diversity," that newspapers have been forced to lower their standards in order to hire unqualified blacks and other minorities.

Months have passed since President Clinton nominated University of Pennsylvania law professor Lani Guinier to the post of assistant attorney general for civil rights and then dumped her in the face of conservative opposition.The president's failure to back his own nominee generated a tremendous uproar, particularly from blacks and women, who charged that the president had betrayed his most loyal constituents.Yet, we have learned these past few months that life somehow goes on regardless of political brouhahas; the White House reportedly will announce a new nominee to the post within the next few days.

WHAT'S next? Daniel P. Henson challenges Susan Gaffney to meet him in an alley? She might be Henson's match, if she looks out for low blows. The last time somebody in government questioned the Baltimore housing commissioner's integrity, it was Martin O'Malley, and Henson and a few of his knuckle-dragging buddies threatened to take O'Malley outside.O'Malley's offense? At a hearing designed specifically for City Council members to ask Henson about a $25 million housing scandal, and thousands of vacant, rotting houses, and housing inspectors caught in conflicts of interest, and more than a dozen criminal convictions, Councilman O'Malley had the nerve to attempt to ask Henson actual questions.

By the time we got to Annapolis, the Ku Klux Klan had tucked the tails of their sheets between their legs and fled. The Klan showed up on Saturday, but we didn't arrive until Sunday, when they'd already gone somewhere else. Church, maybe. Although it's hard to imagine any house of God that would want these people in the congregation.By all accounts, about 35 members of what is still called the Invincible Order of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan showed up, though they must have felt pretty vincible when they found themselves crushingly outnumbered by hundreds of people telling them to take a hike.

"The Cold Six Thousand," by James Ellroy. Knopf. 688 pages. $26.95. Hate corrupts. Hate obscures facts. Hate rationalizes, proselytizes and dies hard. In James Ellroy's hands, hate makes grist for incendiary crime fiction that begins with Jack Kennedy's assassination and ends with Bobby's. The new novel, "The Cold Six Thousand," sums up the 1960s as a decade of contempt and cynicism, byproducts of lost innocence. Hate the Commies. Hate the blacks. Hate the Jews. Hate the establishment.

Renowned psychologist Kenneth Clark says he almost canceled his appearance before the annual meeting of Baltimore Neighborhoods Inc. last night, explaining that in the wake of the verdict in the Rodney King case, he found it impossible to deliver a message of optimism and support to a group dedicated to an issue like fair housing."

KHALID Abdul Muhammad of the Nation of Islam, speaking at Kean College in Union, N.J., on Nov. 29, talked of "Columbia Jew-niversity" and "Jew York City" and suggested that German Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves. He also took aim at whites generally, the pope, homosexuals and the blind and disabled.No blacks on the faculty and staff condemned the contents of the speech, according to news reports.One faculty member sidestepped issues raised by the talk and lashed out at racism on the campus, to which he believed Jewish faculty members had contributed.

WASHINGTON -- Thank you, but I don't need a lecture on personal responsibility. Many of you apparently felt otherwise after reading my recent column on the use of the justice system as a cudgel against black children. The column dealt with the mistreatment of more than 100 juveniles, most of them black, who were left in a flooded New Orleans detention center for up to five days without food and water after Hurricane Katrina. It was also about the death of Martin Lee Anderson, an unresisting 14-year-old black kid who was hit, choked and restrained by up to nine guards in a Panama City, Fla., "boot camp."