Senator Barack Obama wants us to have a conversation about race. Brian Williams is hosting “A Conversation About Race” on MSNBC tonight. Here’s my input.

In one of Obama’s books he writes about the time he spent living with his white grandparents. At one point his grandfather was unemployed and his grandmother was working at a bank. She normally rode the bus to work but one morning asked her husband to drive her to work because a man had accosted her at the bus stop the previous morning. He refused and later told Obama that the reason his grandmother is afraid of the man is because he is black. Obama seemed to favor his lazy, unemployed grandfather in this incident over his grandmother who just wanted to get to work safely. The possibility that his grandmother would have been just as frightened by a white man behaving in the same way seems to have escaped Obama.

If this country is as racist as Obama and his pastor think it is how did he get to where he is from such humble beginnings?

Obama’s wife was an Ivy League educated, successful attorney before they met. How did she achieve that if this country is so racist?

Brian Williams’ program tonight follows a documentary called “Meeting David Wilson.” It is about a black man, David Wilson, who looked up the descendants of his ancestors’ slave masters and found one named David Wilson. I don’t know the complete message of his documentary yet but I can still ask: If this country is so racist how can the black David Wilson get his film on a nationwide cable television program?

If this country is so racist how did General Colin Powell become the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State? If this country is so racist how did Condoleezza Rice rise from the Birmingham of the 1960s to become Secretary of State? If this country is so racist how did Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Larry Elder and Star Parker become very successful syndicated columnists? If this country is so racist how did hundreds of other blacks become superstars in entertainment, athletics, politics, communications, etc?

Perhaps a better question is: Are Obama and some other blacks showing a little racism themselves? Do they see themselves as so special that they can’t grasp the possibility that other blacks are capable of succeeding without special government assistance?

Now the AP is reporting that a white supremacist web site has essentially called for the lynching of the six black kids accused of beating up a white kid in Jena LA. Both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are calling for state and federal protection of the kids and their families.

I agree that they might need protection now that Jesse and Al have stirred up the hornet’s nest (although one family member said she didn’t feel threatened). No reasonably intelligent adult believes that Al and Jesse didn’t realize beforehand that their over-the-top actions would incite the opposing hate groups. It is exactly what they wanted. And, yes, I consider Jackson’s and Sharpton’s organizations hate groups.

What is unfortunate about this whole thing is the system appeared to be working. Yes, the original charges — of attempted murder — against the black kids seems a bit severe. But only one kid has been tried so far. He was convicted of aggravated second degree battery, not attempted murder. And his conviction has been overturned by a state appeals court. Four of the other kids charges were reduced when they were arraigned several months ago. The sixth kid was booked as a juvenile and his charges are sealed.

I can think of no good reason that Jackson and Sharpton needed to do more than provide good legal representation for the kids and moral and financial support for their families. Holding a press conference in Jena with the family members standing behind them might have been a reasonable thing to do. But bringing in thousands of demonstrators to overwhelm a tiny town was not the kind of help they needed.

Clearly, obtaining justice for the Jena-Six was not Jackson’s and Sharpton’s primary objective.

How much longer will we allow Al Sharpton to intimidate officials around the country? Sharpton doesn’t seem to be concerned about guilt or innocence; to him, charging any black with a crime is unfair. He wants to force an O.J. outcome to any trial involving black on white crime.

CBS News has a report on the march planned for today in Jena, Louisianna:

With as many as 50,000 demonstrators expected here by the busload from across the country, businesses, schools, even government office buildings in this small, central Louisiana town will remain closed all day, reported (CBS News Correspondent Byron) Pitts.

The Reverend Al Sharpton helped organize the march in support of six black teenagers jailed and charged in the beating of a white classmate last December. Five are charged with attempted second-degree murder. The sixth defendant’s case is under court seal because he’s a juvenile.

Sharpton told The Early Show that the case against the six black high school students is a “raw disparity of justice.”

“We didn’t bring race in it,” Sharpton told CBS News. “Those that hung the nooses brought race in it.”

The nooses that Sharpton refers to were hung in a tree at the high school by three white students months before the beating. The students were briefly suspended from school.

There seems to be no evidence that the black teenagers are being treated more severely than anyone else charged with the same crime. The best I can tell, Sharpton believes that their crimes should be excused because someone hung some nooses in a tree several months before the crimes were committed. He clearly intends more than just bringing attention to the black teenagers’ cases. Bringing 50,000 demonstrators to a town of 3,500 is meant to intimidate local and state officials. (Why the state officials are allowing this to happen is another good question.)

Sharpton’s mission is to fan the flames of racial conflict around the country to extend his wealth and power. Has he ever stood up for a black charged with a crime against another black? I don’t have to ask if he has ever stood up for a white charged with a crime against a black.

Update: I learned a little more of the circumstances of the Jena situation. It seems there was enough blame to go around, but the authorities came down harder on the black kids. I still don’t think the state should have allowed Sharpton to bring in hordes of people to cause even more trouble. I think the local officials would have eventually sorted it all out fairly. Do you believe for one minute that, say, New York would allow some white supremacist to bring in thousands of people to protest the prosecution of white kids for assaulting a black kid?

Have you ever heard of the Congressional White Caucus? No? That’s because it doesn’t exist. But there is a Congressional Black Caucus and they don’t accept non-blacks as members. Not even one who represents a district that is 60% black. Read Jeff Jacoby’s column on the subject for more details.

If the CBC is interested in furthering equality for all blacks I would think that they would welcome as members those that represent a lot of blacks in particular and anyone sharing their goals in general. In fact, I would think that the CBC would be happy to speak for all the downtrodden regardless of race. I suspect that the CBC is more interested in enhancing its own power than in promoting equality for anyone. And that they might be interested in more than just equality for blacks.

Anyhow, why do the rules of Congress allow such a racist organization to exist? Does anyone believe for even a second that they would allow a CWC to exist? There is no Congressional Christian Caucus. But might there be a Congressional Muslim Caucus when more Muslims are elected to Congress?

The race hustlers must be feeling really sad this week.  Both head coaches of the teams headed to the Super Bowl this weekend are black.  In fact, most of the players involved in that huge event are black. They all make tons of money and they got there through their own talent and hard work.  How can a race hustler survive with that kind of crap going on?

An Associated Press article posted by CBS News says:

Decades after the civil rights movement, racial disparities in income, education and home ownership persist and, by some measurements, are growing in the United States.

CBS cites a report recently released by the US Census Bureau as the source of this information. The article doesn’t assert that racism is directly responsible for the disparities, but it implies that it is. Among the statistics quoted from the report:

The median income for white households was $50,622 last year. It was $30,939 for black households, $36,278 for Hispanic households and $60,367 for Asian households.

CBS does not suggest that the fact that Asian income is 20 percent higher than white income means that Asians are discriminating against whites.

I’m always suspicious of data partitioned along such arbitrary lines as race and ethnicity. Who is to say that, in terms of income, education and home ownership, one black person is more like another black person than he is like some white person? What would the results have been if the data were partitioned according to income, education and home ownership instead of race and ethnicity? I think it would show that the gap has widened between those who started at the lower end and those who started with higher means. The fact that the gap has widened between blacks and whites might be due more to the fact that blacks started with less than due to some kind of discrimination.

Is this evidence that Affirmative Action is not working? AA was supposed to help compensate for the fact that blacks on average were starting out with less than whites on average. Predictably, there is a call for more government (taxpayer) spending:

(Hilary) Shelton, of the NAACP, called for more government funding for preschool programs, improving public schools and making college more affordable. “Income should not be a significant determining factor whether someone should have an opportunity to go to college,” Shelton said.

Perhaps it shouldn’t but it always has been and most likely always will be. Utopia is still over the horizon.

Time magazine has an article by Joe Klein on “Why Barack Obama Could Be The Next President.” I’ve said before that I’m just not ready for a President Obama. It doesn’t matter, though, that I don’t like his name; I wouldn’t vote for him if his name was Kennedy.

Back to the subject. From Klein’s article:

(Colin) Powell and Obama have another thing in common: they are black people who — like Tiger Woods, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jordan — seem to have an iconic power over the American imagination because they transcend racial stereotypes. “It’s all about gratitude,” says essayist Shelby Steele, who frequently writes about the psychology of race. “White people are just thrilled when a prominent black person comes along and doesn’t rub their noses in racial guilt. White people just go crazy over people like that.”

Klein and Steele need to get a clue. It’s not about race; it’s all about behavior. It’s not about stereotypes; it’s all about facts. It’s not about gratitude; it’s all about expectations. The expectation of most people of all races is that the behavior of other people meets a certain standard, regardless of their race, background or current circumstances. And that standard is usually set at or above their own behavior. I, like many others, believe that the constantly complaining victim classes behave more like pampered, spoiled little children.

It is indeed refreshing to hear and read about rising young stars, liberal or conservative, who behave like mature objective adults. But I still don’t want Obama to be President.