The petitions were filed by Glenda Morgan against Council President Ken Cockrel Jr. and members Sheila Cockrel, Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta and JoAnn Watson. All five voted Tuesday to remove Kilpatrick from office. The petitions cited abuse of power and negligence but offered no details.

{snip}

The Wayne County Election Commission tentatively scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. May 30 to determine whether the petitions cite a course of conduct with enough specificity to proceed. A state election law expert said Morgan’s petitions are so vague they probably won’t pass commission muster.

"Based on the wording, there’s virtually no chance that something that vague would be approved," said Bingham Farms lawyer Gene Farber.

{snip}

Previous city policy stated that all messages sent via the city’s electronic communications system were city property, a policy that gained interest after revelations that Kilpatrick and his former chief of staff exchanged damaging text messages showing they lied under oath during a whistle-blower trial. {snip}

The new policy, obtained by the Free Press, took effect April 15 through a directive signed by Kilpatrick.

"This policy does not include telephones, text messaging devices and pagers, which are given to employees for their personal and business use," the policy says. "State and federal laws protect communications made over telephone lines and through the use of messaging devices."

Kilpatrick’s criminal defense attorneys, representing him in the eight felony charges that stemmed from the text message scandal, have argued the messages never should have been released by the provider, SkyTel, to the plaintiff’s attorney in the whistle-blower case because of state and federal laws.

{snip}

The essential tension resides in a simple and explosive event, now 20 years old: A black man raped a white woman. The history of that potent narrative is packed with truth and lies, racist injustice and racial suspicion, cliché and mythology.

This story lurches powerfully into race in the first of five chapters, as Connors speculates that she might have run away in the awkward moments before David Francis attacked her had it not been for the fear that she’d appear racist. A few paragraphs later, readers learn that the rapist taunted Connors, asking if she’d fantasized about sex with a black man. That’s a pretty raw entrée into race in what was already a bold step into another taboo.

Then things really get interesting. Connors tracks down Francis’ family and interweaves her story with theirs. As I followed her into the black and poor side of Cleveland, I found myself bracing. Would some misguided liberal guilt cause her to ennoble this man and his family, with their hard upbringing and harder lives, now that she’d seen up close the truth of the country’s racial and class divide? Would she stumble into stereotype or worse? Would this become part of a long list of bleeding-heart tales that end with, "and I found out these poor black people were just like me"?

No. No. And no.

{snip} I had a lingering question when I was done, which I sent to Stuart Warner, the editor who called my attention to the piece:

[Connors] spoke one simple truth that I think I’d wanted to hear more about: That it was her desire to not appear to be a bigot that might most be responsible for the decision to go into that theater [where Francis raped her]. That’s a much scarier racial truth, to me, than the more mundane, ‘I found myself afraid of all black men’ truth that she was hesitant to speak. Because if white women—or white people in general—were to act on the first notion, that you question your racial motivations at your great peril, then in a way we’ll encourage more acts of exclusion and outright prejudice.

{snip}

In the early morning hours, aging men and women from China will be practising tai chi on the asphalt volleyball court. By noon, children whose parents emigrated from the Caribbean will be playing on slides and swings. In the afternoon, families originally from Sri Lanka will be enjoying picnics.

Later, gangs of youths will be setting off firecrackers well into the night. Yes, I know it’s illegal, but try telling that to the kids.

This is Canada today.

It’s a land where people from all parts of the world live, work and play in harmony for the most part, and where they can celebrate their unique heritages while at the same time being proudly Canadian.

So why then, in this country that champions itself as a world leader in multiculturalism and diversity, do we continue to set aside a national holiday to honour a foreign monarch who died 107 years ago and who was once the head of the Anglican Church?

I am willing to bet that hardly anyone using my neighbourhood park on Monday will know—or care less—who we are supposed to be honouring with this three-day holiday weekend.

As in past years, I will watch the activities in the park and wonder why Canada, which claims to be independent, keeps marking the birth of a long dead British queen who never set foot on this soil, yet doesn’t have a single national holiday to honour a Canadian.

Indeed, Canada is virtually the last country to mark Victoria Day.

Even the British don’t commemorate it. Instead, they celebrate the Queen’s Birthday—on a Saturday in June, not a weekday. And there’s no national public holiday.

To be clear, I fully agree we should keep the Monday as a holiday. Everybody loves long weekends, especially one linked with the unofficial start to spring gardening and opening up cottages.

But it is time to stop calling it Victoria Day, a sad vestige of British colonialism. Rather, we should rename it for a person or event with more meaning to modern Canada.

Countries change, as Canada has.

When I, the son of a British-born mother, was in elementary school in Ajax, we sang God Save the Queen each morning. We pledged our allegiance to the Queen, which, sadly, immigrants applying for Canadian citizenship must still do. We saluted the Union Jack.

Such bowing and scraping to Britain seems archaic now.

Part of the transformation for Canada has been to drop the notion we are tied to Britain. Obviously, this upsets the tiny band of monarchists, who say Victoria should be honoured as the "Mother of Confederation." (It also ignores the fact that the Queen is our head of state, which polls indicate just 5 per cent of us know, but that is an issue for another column.)

Canada started celebrating Victoria’s birthday in 1845, when it was still a British territory. She was born May 24, 1819. After her death, the holiday was changed to mark the current monarch’s birthday as well. In 1952, the official celebration was switched to the first Monday before May 25, thus ensuring a three-day weekend.

Several countries mark the Queen’s Birthday holiday, including Australia and New Zealand. Hong Kong stopped marking it in 1997 when the territory reverted to China’s control.

Quebec got smart long ago. It has had several names for the day, but now calls it Patriots’ Day, to commemorate the memory of those who struggled for democratic institutions during the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-1838.

So why can’t the rest of Canada be like Quebec and declare a new name for the day? And no, it shouldn’t be the silly "2-4 Day" that beer companies hope to foist on us in honour of their beer cases.

In the United States, they have Presidents Day. They also have Martin Luther King Day to celebrate the famous civil rights figure.

We could call it Prime Ministers Day. Or maybe Jacques Cartier Day, or Simon Fraser Day.

My friend Duncan says we could call it Peacekeepers Day, but even he admits the name doesn’t have much of a "ring" to it.

Clearly, the choices for a new name are endless, but the point is simple: we can’t be a grown-up country in the 21st century if we stick with Victoria Day.

The suit, filed in Manhattan’s federal court, seeks just over £1 billion in punitive damages from Lloyd’s, tobacco firm RJ Reynolds and banking group FleetBoston. The suit also seeks unspecified actual damages.

Filed on behalf of six adults and two children, the suit alleges the companies intentionally sought to destroy the plaintiffs’ "people, culture, religion and heritage".

Lawyers for the eight plaintiffs said the complaint—unlike past lawsuits seeking reparations for slavery—was the first to use DNA to link the plaintiffs to Africans who suffered atrocities during the slave trade.

The plaintiffs said their ancestors were transported from Africa as part of the slave trade from 1619 to 1865. They allege that Lloyd’s insured slave ships, while FleetBoston, then called Rhode Island’s Providence Bank, financed the ships in the slave trade. RJ Reynolds, the suit claims, profited from plantations.

RJ Reynolds spokeswoman Ellen Matthews said the firm had not yet seen the complaint but added: "Currently we are not aware of any legal precedent or even a legal theory that would allow these cases to proceed to trial."

A Lloyd’s spokeswoman said it had not seen the claim and was not in a position to comment, but she added that previous claims regarding slavery had been dismissed.

FleetBoston was not available for comment.

The plaintiffs’ attorney is Edward Fagan, who is well known for taking on controversial cases. In 1998 he forced Swiss banks into a £685 million settlement on behalf of victims of the Holocaust.

He said: "For the last eight years every victim group in the world but one has been given its day in court. The only group that remains is Africans or African-Americans."

There have been other lawsuits to condemn US slavery, but Mr Fagan said his case is different because his clients can trace their roots back to their African ancestry.

Plaintiffs in the past "couldn’t say what their connection was to these companies—that’s all changed, there’s DNA now," he said.

"Each one of these individuals can tell you specifically where they came from in Africa," Mr Fagan added.

The committees are to be set up to try to cut the risk of riots or disturbances in the aftermath of terrorist outrages or outbreaks of local racial trouble.

They will ask for and file reports on named troublemakers whose political activities are considered to be raising community tensions.

Reports on the behaviour and attitudes of local residents will be collected by community workers, neighbourhood wardens, local councillors and provided by voluntary organisations, according to a paper published by Communities Secretary Hazel Blears today.

It will then be considered by the monitoring committees run by town halls.

A sample "tension monitoring form" for use in checking on the likelihood of local racial or religious trouble asks for details of individuals considered to be making political trouble.

The monitoring committees will ask for information on those identified as troublemakers with includes "age, gender, ethnicity and faith" of those being reported on.

The call for monitoring of everyday life in the cause of "community cohesion contingency planning" was made by Mrs Blears in a paper aiming to help identify "tension hotspots" and improve cohesion—the Government’s buzzword for reducing racial and religious strife.

The word was adopted in 2006 after the once-dominating left-wing doctrine of multiculturalism was dropped by Labour because it made tensions worse rather than better.

But the establishment of monitoring committees in town halls is likely to generate new concerns about spying and surveillance by local councils.

Concerns have deepened in recent weeks after the Daily Mail revealed that Poole council in Dorset had spied on a family’s life for three weeks because it wrongly suspected the parents of abusing rules on school catchment areas.

There are also worries over the spread of new council quasi-police forces, like the bin police that recently gave a criminal record to a bus driver in Cumbria who left the lid of his family wheelie bin open by four inches.

Mrs Blears’ paper said that a recent survey by her department found that 81 per cent of the population feel that people from different backgrounds get on well in her area.

However, that means that nearly one in five people—more than 11 million—live in areas where the new tension monitoring committees will operate.

The Communities Secretary said: "The overwhelming majority of people in this country live successfully side by side but we cannot take this for granted.

"Challenges to cohesion do exist—this might be between different ethnic or faith groups or new migrants and longer-term residents—but things can be done to address problems at the earliest opportunity and stop things escalating."

She said town halls would get an extra £50 million to help them set up and run the new tension monitoring committees, each of which will be run by a senior local authority official.

The committees will include representatives from housing authorities, schools, the NHS, the fire brigade, community workers and neighbourhood wardens in area which have them. Voluntary, community and faith groups will also be asked to provide information.

They will record "qualitative community intelligence" alongside reports of race incidents, gang and turf conflicts, disputes between neighbours, complaints about noise, and examples of low local trust, including low trust in politicians.

Economic activity, including business investment, and housing demand will also be monitored. So will political extremism.

The "sample tension monitoring form" provided by civil servants as a model for councils to follow in recording information calls for the name of the monitor and his or her organisation to be filed.

It asks for an assessment of whether levels of community tension are high, medium or low.

Under the heading "political" monitors are asked to provide "details of situation/incident (ie where, when, who (age, gender, ethnicity, faith), and what (useful to specify whether ‘experienced, evidence, or potential)."

Councils are told that under data protection law they are allowed to record details of individuals as long as the material is "fairly" gathered and stored.

A south Asian woman has never held the largely ceremonial post in the 799 years since it was created in the city—nor in the 1,000 years or so that it has been in existence elsewhere in Britain.

It is a first not just for Sood, 12 years after following her late husband, Paul, into local politics, and just over 38 years after she arrived in the English East Midlands from the Punjab on a cold, dark snowy winter’s day.

It is also the latest sign of the transformation of Leicester, famous for its textile, footwear and hosiery industry, as it moves towards becoming Britain’s first ethnic majority city in the not too distant future.

‘To be the first is a great honour for me,’ the former primary schoolteacher told AFP of the 12-month post, which begins on Thursday.

‘It’s made me very proud of myself that I’m going to represent my city. . . . I wasn’t expecting it.’

The appointment to lead Leicester’s 288,000 or so citizens, 25 percent of whom are of Indian origin, puts Sood among Britain’s establishment, although she has held the ancient post of High Bailiff of Leicester for the past year.

On a wider scale, it also says much about the positive aspects of immigration that are often overlooked here by the debate over the extent to which new arrivals benefit Britain and affect its culture and identity.

At a glance, Sood seems the embodiment of the successfully integrated immigrant championed by modern-day politicians, many of whom she says have been fed at her kitchen table and passed through while campaigning locally.

It is not just the immaculate black sari set off by the shiny Blackberry personal organiser, the comfortable semi-detached house in a residential suburb or the fact that she has taken British citizenship and speaks fluent English.

There are photographs of her two grown-up sons, in gowns and mortar boards, proudly clutching degree scrolls from British universities: one is also a municipal councillor in Leicester; the other works for an investment bank.

A framed woman of achievement and a national merit award from the governing Labour Party are hung on another wall.

On a corner table by the coal-effect gas fire is a photograph of Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba next to medieval-style Christian religious icons and rosary beads.

An Anglican canon is a close friend; she sits on the Leicester Council of Faiths and social, health and women’s groups; two African Caribbean men have the keys to her house to do odd jobs, she says.

Sood says she feels a duty over the next 12 months to uphold Leicester’s largely harmonious diversity at a time when critics of multi-culturalism warn of no-go areas for non-whites and communities living parallel lives elsewhere.

‘I’m going to be the lord mayor not for one faith but for the city of Leicester,’ she said.

One of her spiritual advisers will be Christian. The other will be Hindu.

The civic service to mark her appointment will also be held in the city’s Anglican cathedral rather than a Hindu temple.

‘Leicester’s a British city,’ she says. ‘I’m representing Leicester as first citizen. The religion of this country is Church of England.’

Sood, though, recognises that her story is not typical of the vast majority of immigrants that came to Britain and that she was fortunate.

She spoke the language, held a master’s degree in sociology and came from a well-off family: her father was a doctor in New Delhi, her mother a teacher.

An assertive nature helped when she went into teaching after being told to settle for factory work like many newly-arrived Indian women—or stay at home in often substandard accommodation.

But she said she still faced the same challenges of casual racism, ignorance and prejudice as the thousands of other Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Kenyan and Ugandan Asians who made their way to Leicester in the 1970s.

As the only Indian teacher among white faces she said she pushed to promote tolerance and understanding between often bewildered newly-arrived children of different faiths and cultures and their local classmates.

Britain is now a more tolerant place than the one she knew in 1970, she says, with people more respectful of diversity of culture and faith.

But work is still required as a new wave of immigrants, many of them from eastern Europe, arrive in increasing numbers—and ‘outreach’ is the aim of her term of office as lord mayor.

‘The communities that came here in the 60s and 70s now feel an integrated part of British society. Now there are new communities finding the same problems,’ she said.

‘History is being repeated. The same challenges are facing them. There’s always some sort of hostility from the host community. It’s a human instinct but if we don’t work at it and don’t kill it it will escalate.’

The rise in permanent migration largely reflects a significant boost in entry of skilled migrants. An extra 31,000 skilled migrants will be allowed into Australia, a rise of 30 per cent on last year’s intake.

The Minister for Immigration, Chris Evans, said the move represented a "record increase" in the permanent skilled migration program since the introduction of managed migration in 1947.

The scheme "has not been allowed to grow sufficiently in the past to respond to the skills shortages now faced by employers", Senator Evans said.

The increase is on top of an additional 6000 skilled migration places announced in February.

Research had shown the labour market participation rate for permanent skilled migrants was now more than 90 per cent.

The increase will cost an additional $1.4 billion over four years for such things as settlement, health and education services. But Senator Evans said this would be more than offset by increased revenues generated by the migrants, including taxes estimated at nearly $3 billion in the same period.

The Government has also committed $19.6 million to improving compliance schemes for temporary skilled migrants, including those coming under the uncapped 457 visa scheme.

The controversial scheme, which unions have criticised for threatening to put pressure on wages and conditions, will account for nearly 50,000 foreign worker arrivals in the first half of this year. That compares with 39,500 of the 457 visas granted over a year in 2003-04.

The temporary skilled migration program is expected to exceed 100,000 both this year and next financial year.

Senator Evans said a ministerial working party would develop a longer-term reform package to be considered as part of next year’s budget.

The working party would consult state and territory governments, industry and the unions as well as an industrial relations expert, Barbara Deegan.

The Government will also grant a modest increase in the number of refugees, allowing entry to 13,500.

This will include a one-off rise of 500 places for people affected by the conflict in Iraq.

"We are committed to helping people in vulnerable situations around the world, in particular Iraqi nationals and refugees in Africa who are unable to return to their homes," Senator Evans said.

Parliamentary Secretary for Trade John Murphy held 14 bilateral meetings with African leaders during a visit to Ghana late last month for a United Nations trade and development conference.

Mr Murphy on Monday told Mr Rudd and his caucus colleagues of how leaders—including Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma—were eager to congratulate the government for the apology.

"They all knew about Kevin Rudd and the new government, they all knew about the apology that he gave in the national parliament, and as I said to him today, that sent a very good message to Africa," Mr Murphy told AAP.

"It really resonated, because it said ‘here’s a government that’s concerned with human rights, here’s a government concerned about the equality of all mankind, here’s a government concerned about reconciliation, here’s a government concerned with humanity’."

Mr Murphy said African leaders obviously held Mr Rudd in high regard.

"It’s pretty refreshing when they hear there’s a country that’s concerned about human rights, and that’s the sort of message the apology sent across the African continent," he said.

[Editor’s Note: An account of the Australian "apology" to the aborigines can be read here.]

While the law would also ban crucifixes, Jewish skull caps and turbans, it highlights ongoing debate over Islamic traditions in Denmark, an issue that gained world attention in 2006 when Danish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad triggered violent protests in Muslim countries.

Although there are no known cases of a judge in Denmark wearing a traditional Muslim head scarf known as a hijab, Justice Minister Lene Espersen said the law was needed because judges "must appear neutral and impartial" in court.

{snip}

The justice minister said the government bill, to be presented later this year, would be directed at judges, and would not affect prosecutors, defense lawyers or other court officials.

Police arrested 383 people including 268 foreigners, with 53 immediately taken to the border for expulsion, in a week-long operation stretching from northern Italy to the Naples area.

Silvio Berlusconi swept back to power for a third term as prime minister last week promising to get tough on illegal immigrants, blamed by many for crime. He is readying new laws to screen immigrants and jail or expel those breaking the law.

Those arrested came from Eastern Europe, Albania, Greece, North Africa and China and face charges ranging from illegal entry into Italy to prostitution, drug trafficking and robbery.

In Libya, police have arrested 240 would-be illegal migrants from several African countries over the past four days as they prepared to sail to Italy, the Interior Ministry said.

Libya is a springboard for hundreds of thousands of Africans trying to reach Europe via Italy on board unseaworthy boats.

{snip}

MIGRANT MISERY

Illegal Roma camps in Naples had to be evacuated by police this week after local people, angry at an alleged baby-snatching incident involving a 17-year-old Roma girl, set fire to their shacks repeatedly during the night. Nobody was injured.

{snip}

Italy's new interior minister, Roberto Maroni from the anti-immigrant Northern League party, is rushing out emergency laws to bring back passport checks on Italy's EU borders, despite its membership of the Schengen passport-free zone.

"This operation against illegal immigrants is good because , it's what people want. They ask us for security and we have to give it to them," [Umberto Bossi, League leader] told reporters in parliament.

{snip}

{snip}

[Tai Shen Kuo, a naturalized U.S. citizen with prominent family connections in Taiwan,] pleaded guilty to a single count of espionage in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. In court papers, Kuo admitted that he received $50,000 from the Chinese government for his efforts.

Kuo provided the defense analyst, Gregg W. Bergersen, several thousand dollars in gambling money on trips the pair took to Las Vegas, as well as promises of employment at a company Kuo hoped to establish. Bergersen, of Alexandria, Va., pleaded guilty to his role in March and faces up to 10 years in prison.

The information Kuo obtained from Bergersen included updates on Taiwan’s new Po Sheng or "Broad Victory" air defense system, which is a key part of Taiwan’s defenses against a possible attack by China. He also received projections of U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan over the next five years.

{snip}

A third person charged in the case, Chinese national Yu Xin Kang, who allegedly acted as a go-between for Kuo and Chinese agents, is in jail awaiting trial.

Kuo’s guilty plea "is the latest demonstration of the serious threat posed by international espionage networks," said Patrick Rowan, acting assistant attorney general for national security.

In 2006, former Pentagon intelligence analyst Ronald N. Montaperto was sentenced in Alexandria to three months in jail for unlawful retention of classified documents after admitting he had contacts with two Chinese intelligence officers from as early as 1983 and as recently as 2001.

In February, former Boeing Co. engineer Dongfan "Greg" Chung was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with stealing military and aerospace trade secrets regarding the space shuttle and other programs on China’s behalf. He has pleaded not guilty.

{snip}

A recent Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report shows hate crimes rose 28 percent overall between 2006 and 2007, but those against Hispanics more than doubled and those against the disabled grew from 1 to 30.

Those who study social conflict say stress over the economy is a contributing force, along with an increase in the Hispanic population and related anger about immigration.

{snip}

Most of last year’s incidents were thefts, forgeries and burglaries victimizing mentally disabled persons. Donna DeStefano, assistant director of the Tennessee Disability Coalition, said the problem is likely economic, with criminals using one of society’s most vulnerable groups for money.

House, car are targets

Nationally, hate crimes against disabled victims rose incrementally, while hate crimes against Hispanics grew 20 percent, from 2002 and 2006, the most recent five-year period with data available.

{snip}

Both incidents were declared hate crimes, criminal acts motivated by a victim’s race, ethnicity or national origin, religion, gender, sexuality or disability. In Tennessee and 32 other states, when prosecutors can prove that a form of bias played a motivating role in a crime, perpetrators face additional punishment for their crime.

{snip}

For many people, the term "immigrant" or "illegal alien" has become synonymous with a Hispanic person, said Catalina Nieto, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Nieto suspects that much of the hate crimes against Hispanic victims goes unreported because of immigrants’ concern about the consequences of contact with police.

{snip}

Historically, hate crime has grown most intense in the United States during periods of economic distress and when the social order is in the process of being upset, said Steven Tepper, a Vanderbilt University sociologist who specializes in social conflict.

{snip}

{snip}

His friend was Sen. Barack Obama. All I knew about this light-skinned, cute boyish face-looking, kind of tall, lanky man was his great speech at the Democratic national convention and his position against the war in Iraq.

When we met, I identified myself as a Republican and began to discuss with him the work I did around the world on behalf of our government. I also told him I served President Bush as an appointee and had known him since 1998.

Obama nodded, taking it all in. He asked a few questions about my international experience. He asked me to be in touch with his office. When we finished talking, I walked away like a fan who met her favorite rock star after a concert. Giggly, I said to myself: "Yes, he is in the wrong party, but wouldn’t that be great if he ran for president someday?"

{snip}

It is often very emotional for me. When he is attacked racially, I think of the times my father, grandfather and other close black men have been attacked, and I take it personally. When he first struggled through his explanation about his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., I felt the emotion. I knew this would not be good enough for white America. He always has to balance his blackness, and this is hard. Obama, like many of us, still has to go above and beyond to prove himself.

Most blacks won’t admit this to the average white person, but Obama’s fight, we feel, is our fight. Proving his worthiness on a daily basis has become our fight to prove our worthiness.

{snip}

Nearly all blacks knew that when Wright went "gangsta" on Obama, the senator had to retaliate, showing us, white and brown America, that he was not soft.

Ironically, while many of us were quite satisfied in what Obama had to do denouncing his former pastor, we still felt the embarrassment that the attack by Wright and the Obama response was a symbolic form of black-on-black crime—something I’m sure Wright has spoken out vehemently against during his liberation ministry.

Obama’s run for the White House is redefining the image of the black man globally. He is changing past stereotypes that have haunted them. When I mentor young black males, I now tell them to "Baracratize." They can do this without losing their identity. Obama’s run might signify the end of the old-guard leadership of the Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who have championed the cause of blacks while making lots of money for doing so.

{snip}

Clinton sounded less like George Washington and more like George Wallace. Imagine a presidential primary where, after more than 16 months, almost two dozen debates, hundreds of speeches, millions of dollars, and countless chicken dinners, the rationale for electing someone boils down to this: Vote for me. I’m white. I can win because other whites will vote for me.

Why, this could be the new affirmative action. Whatever happened to merit?

Clinton’s message in West Virginia was smoother. "I’m winning Catholic voters and Hispanic voters," she told supporters, "and blue-collar workers and seniors, the kind of people that Sen. McCain will be fighting for in the general election."

{snip}

Some want to know why it isn’t racist when 70 percent of African-Americans vote for Obama but it is when 70 percent of whites vote against him.

The answer has to do with history. Over the decades, black Americans have had plenty of opportunities to vote for white people for president. And they have done so. But this is the first time that white Americans have a chance to vote for an African-American with a shot at the presidency. And what are they doing?

Many are responding quite well. Obama won the votes of many, to borrow a phrase, "hardworking white Americans," in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. But, elsewhere, as Obama said in a recent interview, people may need to get their head around the concept of an African-American even seeking the presidency, let alone winning it.

{snip}