Starfish asks: Why is "partial-birth" abortion a "despicable term of choice"? The procedure involves delivering a fetus until only its head remains in the birth canal, then cutting into the fetus's head to kill it, before crushing the skull and removing the fetus entirely.

Starfish, the appropriate and accurate medical terms are Intact dilation and extraction, intact dilation and evacuation, dilation and extraction, or intrauterine cranial decompression. These procedures are not only for fetuses that are viable outside the womb and are beyond the medical knowledge of OB/GYNs (the people the media frequently call "doctors who perform abortions" as if that is a medical sub-specialty).

The term partial birth abortion was made up by the "right." It is the equivalent of saying that you killed your family member by removing him/her for life support or that you had him/her murdered and then chopped to pieces by donating the organs.

Jesse Jackson said it to someone in private, not in front of a camera. He was expressing anger, albeit in a less than polite way, about Obama and the way he has been using black people.If Jackson had said he wanted to rip out Clinton's uterus it would have been sexist, just like most of the coverage of her, but I do not know how it would have been racist. I found Jackson's remarks funny because it was diametrically opposed to the fawning media coverage about how Obama has been good for blacks. As a black woman, it has been infuriating for me to hear how this man, who has used black people to climb the political ladder, is good for me. Jackson's remarks may have been disturbing in that they were violent, but so were Keith Olbermann's remarks that a super delegate should take Hillary Clinton into a room until only one of them comes out.

Nothing goes over better with the white Republican or Reagan Democrats that he is trying to court than telling black people how immoral and shiftless they are. There are reasons why Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, and JC Watts are so popular among otherwise racist Republicans. But hey, it is politics, right? It just so happens that your sainted Obama, who promised a new brand of politics went back to the old playbook. I am not going to be unfair and just blame white voters. Tsk-tsking like Obama's goes down quite well in black churches where moralizing, homophobia, and a general denunciation of black youth are common fare. He gets up there talking in his "black brogue," a way of speaking one can assume he never took up whilst living in his white household and starts up the engines of telling us what's wrong with us. I guess he has known what he has disliked about all things he thought were black seeing as he went by the name Barry for so many years until it became hip or politically expedient to go back to his Arabic name.

If Obama were so concerned about the state of blackness in America, why was he so conveniently silent about the situation of the Jena 6? Or why did he not call for the commission of a division of the Justice Department to handle police brutality cases because cities are obviously inept (a funding and man power issue, mainly) in the wake of the Sean Bell verdict. I think it would have taken incredible courage of him to say that not every homicide is a crime, but that the harassment of black men by the police does deserve attention at the federal level because it does constitute civil rights violations. Oh, wait, he likes FISA so screw civil rights.

You and so many people say that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or in your case, me say that when we feel that Obama talks down to black people, we are making ourselves "self-appointed" spokesmen of black people. It is called an opinion. I am not anointing myself the spokeswoman of black people because unlike the white media, I do not see my people as a monolithic herd that has one shared mentality. Some people can speak for some factions should that faction view him or her the face of their politics and some factions can choose another.

If anyone feels he is the spokesman on race it is Obama. He took it upon himself to give what everyone, you included, is the defining speech on race. He is entitled to his opinion, but despite what you might think, not all we simpleminded black folk think alike. I happen to think that going to a church and telling people what they need to do and what they should do and why they are in the condition they are in, is quite condescending. He upstaged Bill Cosby on that one. Answer me this: how come you call Jesse Jackson the self-appointed leader of all things black, but your beloved bi-racial Barry can speak for us? Please tell me why it is okay for him to give a speech on race without incurring the same accusations from you and others?

I think I know why: because he gave a speech that made white people feel better about the racist past, present, and future of this country. If Cornell West gave a speech on the same topic it would be a lot less comforting to white people. Obama essentially told everyone that race disputes are things of the past and that he is not so wed to the "conflicts of the '60s." Well, I was born in 1979 and my life is unfortunately still wedded to the behavior of the 1760s.

Please do not presume to declare a spokesman for me or a candidate who is good for me or that I believe myself a spokeswoman for black people. I am a black woman with an opinion. I am not sorry if that offends you.