From The Seattle Times
By Leonard Pitts Jr.

black (blak) adjective

1: of the color black;

2: of or relating to the African-American people;

3: dirty, soiled;

4: thoroughly sinister or evil;

5: connected with the supernatural and especially the devil

— adapted from Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

Last year, Sen. Joe Biden made a comment some people considered racially insensitive toward Sen. Barack Obama. Obama’s response was a mild one — he called Biden’s remark “historically inaccurate.” This earned him a harsh rebuke from one of my readers. Obama, this gentleman told me via e-mail, had just lost his vote by acting like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, i.e., an angry black man. “Up to now,” the reader wrote, “I did not see him as an Afro American.”

Which brings us to our question for the day: What does black mean?

By now, I suspect Obama sees black as the horror-movie monster who returns to life (string music shrieking) after the hero has seemingly killed it and turned to walk away. Can you blame him? In the past 20 months, we’ve had the “Is he black enough?” controversy and the crazy preacher controversy, we’ve had Bob Johnson going off his meds, we’ve had Geraldine Ferraro calling Obama an affirmative-action candidate, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland calling him “uppity” and Rep. Geoff Davis calling him “boy.”

Lately, I’ve heard some African-Americans — including Obama supporters — griping at the notion that voting for him is their racial duty.

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