the notion that the US public will have to accept that a black president has persons in his/her life who have shadier backgrounds when it comes to political views or made statements that are more virulent than a white president would, is a racist remark. Should there be a black president, we will not have to suffer watermelon rolls as a substitute to the Easter Egg hunt (a religious ceremony has no place on government grounds).

First of all, the facts simply do not support the facts. Was there a president whose family had shadier associates than Pres. Kennedy? Pres. Bush has a supporter and a person whom he was considering appointing to the top post at the FBI who repeatedly referred to blacks as "porch monkeys." Bush himself has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, his wife killed someone in a crosswalk, and his daughters and nieces where serial abusers of drug and alcohol laws. John McCain needs no colorful background characters because he is one big ball of racism, sexism, homophobia, and violence. A black president would have to come up with some real doozies to trump Sam Giancana.

Joan does make a point, but I doubt she had any idea she was making it. Obama's political ambitions rested on his transition from his hard earned white bona fides that he was simply a white guy named Barry who happened to have a black father, to a genuine black guy who was trapped living with a white family that robbed him of his access to his cultural heritage.

He became Barack, joined Rev. Wright's church (commonly known as the gateway through which any aspiring black local politician must pass in order to have a chance of winning), and went to work on becoming black. He has done thing by adopting a black brogue with which I am certain he did not grow up speaking (I am black and I did not grow up speaking that way, though I had black college friends who did and we were just people who spoke english in our own way; neither considered the other and embarrassment who talked to white or too black) talking about Popeye's chicken, brushing his shoulder off as if he listen's to Jay-Z, and yes, by surrounding himself with persons like Bernie Mac, whom people consider a raw black comedian. I do listen to Jay-Z (and do not shame me about it because there is no shame in my game) and I hope the "99 Problems" rumor is not true, but Obama created the climate for it by "subtly" brushing his shoulder off as a symbol to black youth that he was "down" with them.

Things like this will come back to him because he has made a conscious choice to make the racist assumption that lowering the discourse of what blacks like (I love the notion that we all love the same things or like things that white people do not also do not like) in order to make blacks believe that he is actually one of them. I find it hurtful that he feels that he needs to resort to people whom he thinks are the best at "keeping it real." Bernie Mac is funny to some, but I prefer Dave Chapelle, myself.

But, why not bring Cornell West with him to a black church? West, though wrongly named as merely a black commentator, is actually a philosophical and religious scholar. West could have advised him and, in my opinion, given a more inspiring speech on black fatherhood that did not involve a diatribe calling black men "boys."

I believe Barack Obama is dishonest in that he does not genuinely acknowledge his roots as a man who is the product of a union between an American-born woman from Kansas and a man who was a Kenyan national. There is nothing wrong with being biracial, but it is certainly less sexy to white liberals who are having a collective orgasm over the thought of electing a black president.

How long he is going to be able to maintain this tenuous balance between "keeping it real" and reassuring white voters that he is still capable of wagging his finger in the faces of black people and telling them what is wrong with them.

The sad fact is that there are many women raising their children on their own, not all of them black. Fathers day should have been a time to celebrate fatherhood, especially those fathers whose race may hold them back in life. Not to excoriate "boys" who probably were not in church on Father's Day, "brushing their shoulders off" of their parental responsibilities.

Oh, I see, I am black, I defend the hurt feelings of people who grew up in fatherless households, so I too must not know my father. Sorry David Duke, I come from a two parent home. You need to get over your racism and your stereotypes of the black family.

I rarely call someone a racist. I will say a statement is racist or an act is racist, but usually not a person. Stop calling yourself David Sugarman, call yourself David Duke. You have earned the title, unlike the accomplishments I earned in life which must have been the product of a government handout to a stupid, lazy, black kid with no father.

Let's end this here because it is just going to get uglier because I am going to keep calling you by your proper name and calling you on your shit.