Let action replace endless race talk

Today's Laura Washington column.

Remember what happened with Michael Richards (he played Kramer on Seinfeld) on November 17th. If you don't know check out this video (and look at how that video was edited and packaged as an episode of Seinfeld). In any case this springboard's Washington into calling for Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton into supporting Sen. Barack Obama for President. Take a look...

Talk is cheap. Whenever there's a race blowup (and they happen all the time), the race ranters talk, and talk, and call for more talk. They call for covenants and dialogues. Have you noticed that no one ever does anything? It's easy to jump all over a washed-up, dyspeptic comic. Especially if it provides his critics with oodles of limelight.

Let's talk about what happens on the ground. Take a look at the perennial tensions between the police and people of color. Take the recent fatal shooting of Sean Bell, a 23-year-old black man outside a strip club in Queens, N.Y. The cops shot 50 bullets at Bell and his friends on Bell's wedding day. They were allegedly unarmed. Take Amadou Diallo in New York. Rodney King in Los Angeles. LaTanya Haggerty in Chicago. Not to mention the men allegedly tortured over the years by Chicago Police.

How about bringing together two groups -- the cops and young men of color -- that never talk to each other. Groups that are defined in the public sphere by their mutual distrust? That could be a conversation worth having.

OK. Take a breath. Hear me out. Racism exists. We can talk about it until we're blue-black in the face. A memo to Sharpton and Jackson: Racism does continue, and it needs to be confronted relentlessly. Both of you have run for president. Let's assume you fervently believe that electing an African-American commander in chief would be a huge step toward stomping out racism in this country.

You have taken a whack at the job. So how about getting behind the budding candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama? He has a real shot at becoming America's first black president. You know he's going to run in 2008. Why dilly-dally and mumble about first waiting to see who gets into the field?

It's now or never. Getting behind Obama now will show that we are ready to move forward and that black folks are ready to take a seat at the table of American politics. We're done with the crumbs.

Can we put aside the egos, forget the TV cameras and get behind some real African-American empowerment? Something that could shut up the Richards and Gibsons, once and for all? To paraphrase Jackson: Let's End Hate in '08. Elect Obama.

Smooth way of indicating support for the candidacy of Sen. Obama. Then again when you think about this problem of the issue of race, on the surface she has a point.