IF YOU'RE WHITE, YOU WON'T GET AN INVITE

A group of prominent black Baltimore ministers recently held a couple of political forums for mayoral candidates, and only invited candidates from one party. Leave aside the fact that if a bunch of white ministers did this, the ACLU would scream "separation of church and state!!!" and the ministers might find themselves under IRS tax-exempt scrutiny. Leave that aside, true though it may be. But, if you're going to have a forum for mayoral candidates, isn't it a good idea to invite the current mayor? It would be, except he's the wrong color:

The Rev. Russell Johnson, president of the Baptist Ministers' Conference and pastor of Browns Memorial Baptist Church, said his group's July 14 forum "was only for black candidates."

Mayor Martin O'Malley, who currently enjoys a 60+ approval rating, is white. As is rival A. Robert Kaufman. Both were left off the invitation lists. The Rev. Johnson's naked racism put the ministers on the defensive, sending them into spin mode. The excuse defense that the alleged men of the cloth ended up offering is laughable:

The Rev. Gregory Perkins, president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and pastor of Saint Paul Community Baptist Church, said all of the candidates were notified of his group's July 31 forum. "Those who had e-mail were invited," he said. "Why we did it that way was because we did not have time to put them in the mail."

So...the mayor of Baltimore doesn't have email? In about ten seconds of Googling I found O'Malley's email address on this page. So much for that story. It's not the crime, gentleman, which was bad enough--it's the coverup that'll get you. And the email excuse is a poor attempt at a coverup. It already has at least one black candidate on the defensive for attending the get-togethers.

Meanwhile O'Malley, ever mindful that the city is 63% black, can't raise much of a fuss about this. And with the primary (which in this heavily-Democrat city is in fact the election) on September 9th it may not matter much. And had he been invited, he had the incumbent's advantage of not having to show, and he probably wouldn't have. But it's obvious to me that the "ministers" are playing skin games here. O'Malley may have reduced crime and drug dependency during his tenure, and may have helped make Baltimore a marginally better place to live, but that doesn't matter. He's white. That does. In fact, to these "ministers" it seems that his skin color is all that matters. Fortunately, most residents don't seem to see things their way.