White America

ACROSS the chasm created by two trials, black America and white America try to communicate.The trials are famous because of their victims, not their defendants.The first Rodney King trial ended in acquittal of the four police officers accused of using excessive force and triggered the worst rioting of this century. The second Rodney King trial -- in which the four officers were prosecuted for violating Rodney King's civil rights -- ended in a guilty verdict for two of them. But when they were sentenced to only 2 1/2 years in prison, black America fumed that a dual standard of justice prevailed in the land.

Columnist Marta H. Mossburg appears to agree with psychiatrist Charles Murray, author of a controversial 1994 study of race an intelligence, that if people don't "make it" in the United States it's because they are not good enough ("A failure of values, not economics," Feb. 15). She embraces Mr. Murray's latest attempt to prove the superiority of whites, or at least some whites. Mr. Murray's "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 to 2010" argues that since the 1960s America's white population has divided into two groups, one fairly small, highly educated, wealthy, married and geographically isolated from the rest of the country, the other poor, single, with little education and encompassing the vast majority of citizens.

I am not sure why some people are so shocked that Susan Smith blamed the kidnapping of her two children in Union, S.C., on a black man.I figure anyone evil enough to kill her own children is certainly evil enough to be a racist.But in the aftermath of this sad and bizarre tale has come the accusation that the reason white America was so quick to believe Smith's tale was because a black perpetrator was allegedly involved.In reality, however, I don't know many people who believed Smith's story.

Last month, about one hour after my arrival in Atlanta to visit a family member, I was confronted, once again, with the burden that all black men in this country face on a daily basis. I was standing in front of my relative's home in an upscale neighborhood, surveying the beauty that surrounded me, when a white woman in her early 30s approached me, with her dog, from across the street. She asked me, in a rather hostile voice, "Are you waiting for someone?" I responded by saying, "Good afternoon.

Last month, about one hour after my arrival in Atlanta to visit a family member, I was confronted, once again, with the burden that all black men in this country face on a daily basis. I was standing in front of my relative's home in an upscale neighborhood, surveying the beauty that surrounded me, when a white woman in her early 30s approached me, with her dog, from across the street. She asked me, in a rather hostile voice, "Are you waiting for someone?" I responded by saying, "Good afternoon.

Columnist Marta H. Mossburg appears to agree with psychiatrist Charles Murray, author of a controversial 1994 study of race an intelligence, that if people don't "make it" in the United States it's because they are not good enough ("A failure of values, not economics," Feb. 15). She embraces Mr. Murray's latest attempt to prove the superiority of whites, or at least some whites. Mr. Murray's "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960 to 2010" argues that since the 1960s America's white population has divided into two groups, one fairly small, highly educated, wealthy, married and geographically isolated from the rest of the country, the other poor, single, with little education and encompassing the vast majority of citizens.

Chapel Hill, N.C. -- THE RACIAL gulf that divides black and white America was never embodied more dramatically than by Marion Barry's victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary for mayor of Washington.I've known Marion Barry for 25 years. We served together on the 21-person board of directors of the Black United Front, founded in 1968 by the black nationalist Stokely Carmichael.Whatever his personal failings, Marion Barry has always been a clever Machiavellian who knew how to manipulate the levels of power.

Miami. -- Mike Tyson scowled from behind the iron bars, his face tight with menace. You got the sense that your safety was an illusion, your faith in the power of iron sorely misplaced. ''I'll be back,'' he said. You shuddered and had no doubt that he would.That T-shirt seemed to be selling at a brisk pace when I saw it on a street vendor's table in Harlem a couple of years ago. Most of the buyers, not surprisingly, were young, black and male.Now the T-shirt's prophecy is about to come true.

Three thousand miles from the city of Los Angeles, a charred photograph of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. stared up from a dreadful pile of burned books at Garrison Boulevard and Park Heights Avenue."

If you want to get Bob Kersee animated, just suggest to him that his venture into Winston Cup Racing should be designed for the pure benefit of minorities in a sport that is nearly snow white."

WASHINGTON - Timing, like money, isn't everything, but in politics it sure beats whatever is in second place. With that in mind, it is significant that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who has turned down innumerable invitations, chose this particular time to do his first nationally televised sit-down interview since taking office. If ever there was a time when America needed to hear the unifying come-together voice that Mr. Obama unveiled during his memorable keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, it was now. Hurricane Katrina has left the biggest eruption over race and class that America has seen since, oh, the last century.

IN JULY 1975, shortly after the death of Lillie May Jackson, an Evening Sun editorial writer observed that she had been one of Baltimore's "earliest and fiercest fighters for her people's rights." That tribute met with some scorn from Hans Froelicher Jr., an educator and one of Baltimore's civic leaders. "What do you mean `her people's rights'?" he asked in a letter to the editor. "Are they not your rights and my rights? Was not Mrs. Jackson really fighting from the heart for your heart and mine and for our self-respect?"

MANY PEOPLE of the world follow events in the United States with interest, even fascination. During my trips to Asia, Europe and Africa, I have met foreign intellectuals who know more about the politics of this country than many American citizens. For example, while visiting Nigeria last year, I met writers and journalists who knew every detail of the impeachment trial of President Clinton. Last month, I visited universities and met with intellectuals, writers and students in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Israel.

If you want to get Bob Kersee animated, just suggest to him that his venture into Winston Cup Racing should be designed for the pure benefit of minorities in a sport that is nearly snow white."

LOS ANGELES -- This is the billion-dollar summer in Hollywood and the hundred-million-dollar war in the National Basketball Association. But nobody has noticed what these spectacular seasons mean for race relations in America.The ''war'' refers to the fact that four or five players in the NBA, including Alonzo Mourning, Shaquille O'Neal and Juwan Howard, recently signed multiyear contracts for $100 million, give or take a few dollars. Michael Jordan, superstar nonpareil, received $30 million for one year alone.

MIAMI -- With the benefit of hindsight and the restoration of relative calm, it feels like a bad dream, an ugly aberration that couldn't have happened -- meaning the firestorm of controversy surrounding the acquittal of O.J. Simpson -- the moment of meltdown when America threw a tantrum on the issue of race.Looking back, the most striking thing about that October surprise is not the debate over Simpson's guilt or innocence or even, per se, that blacks and whites tended to hold different views of the trial.

When he was growing up around West Baltimore's Robert and Division streets, anxious and angry and out of control, Kweisi Mfume always knew about an organization called the NAACP, whose national leadership he is about to assume.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the great godsend to black people searching for white America's conscience. It was Clarence Mitchell and Lillie Mae Jackson, whose faces humanized the civil rights struggle throughout Mfume's neighborhood.

MIAMI -- With the benefit of hindsight and the restoration of relative calm, it feels like a bad dream, an ugly aberration that couldn't have happened -- meaning the firestorm of controversy surrounding the acquittal of O.J. Simpson -- the moment of meltdown when America threw a tantrum on the issue of race.Looking back, the most striking thing about that October surprise is not the debate over Simpson's guilt or innocence or even, per se, that blacks and whites tended to hold different views of the trial.

WASHINGTON -- In the wake of the O.J. Simpson verdict, the Million Man March and endless consternation over escalating violence and incarceration rates among black youths, Darrell Dawsey's ''Living to Tell About It: Young Black Men in America Speak Their Piece'' comes right on time.While much has been written, spoken and agonized about the condition of young black men in the post-'60s era, we hear too little from the young males who are the subjects of all the talk.In one recent, particularly telling episode, Kweisi Mfume, president-elect of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, observed near the end of a day-long conference in Washington on youth troubles that the conferees had heard from just about everyone of note but the members of the generation that was being discussed.

When he was growing up around West Baltimore's Robert and Division streets, anxious and angry and out of control, Kweisi Mfume always knew about an organization called the NAACP, whose national leadership he is about to assume.The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was the great godsend to black people searching for white America's conscience. It was Clarence Mitchell and Lillie Mae Jackson, whose faces humanized the civil rights struggle throughout Mfume's neighborhood.