Published in Race

University of Maryland students take up their school President's challenge and write a local history of slavery and its role in its founding.  This is a serious work (only 48 pp, rtwt), with wonderful graphics, full of information and sober insights:  The Declaration did have a great influence on freeing slaves.  Did you know, though, that free blacks could not own dogs, but that they did own slaves? 

The students conclude that their University had antebellum roots in both slavery and free labor policies.  After the Civil War state segregation policies thwarted national policy, which was color-blind:

After the [DC Council] vote, enraged African American ministers stormed the hallway outside the council chambers and vowed that they will work to oust the members who supported the bill.... They caused such an uproar that security officers and D.C. police were called in to clear the hallway....

"All hell is going to break lose," Barry said. "We may have a civil war. The black community is just adamant against this."

At least some of this rage is racial--blacks who feel that (white) gay activists exploit civil rights for the sake of their personal satisfaction.

And speaking of Catholics and politics: It just occurred to me that Joe Biden is the first Catholic Vice President. Surely his faith was a factor in favor as the VP selection. But will the temptation to appoint a (likely Catholic) Latina to replace Justice Souter meet the challenge of having six Catholics on the high court?

This is not to endorse ethnic/racial/religious/sex quotas. But the Court has become a highly politicized body, subject to many of the representational assumptions of elected bodies, universities, and corporations. How do we unscramble this egg? The bootless Republican strategy has been to appoint appeals court judges.

My only good political predictions have been of Supreme Court picks, so let my prudence expose itself as luck: Given Obama's opportunities and expresssion on behalf of "empathy," I might have predicted Governor Granholm of Michigan, because she is a pro-abortion Catholic. Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano (Methodist) may have survived the swine flu scare to secure the nomination. Solicitor Elena Kagan for down the road, though the "fierce urgency of now" may get her the nomination this time.

Granholm has a more interesting story, but I know nothing of Michigan politics. Any ethics problems (other than having appeared on "The Dating Game")? But in the end he may go with one of his Chicago friends . No need to rush this, as he did with some Cabinet nominations.

UPDATE: The astute Jan Crawford Greenburg coauthors this piece on pros and cons of the most frequently mentioned possibilities. Example of a con: the black female Chief Justice of Georgia is a "Longtime friend of Justice Clarence Thomas."

Mr. Obama faces genuine obstacles that are more salient than skin color. By any historical measure, he has remarkably little governing experience and almost none in foreign policy. And he represents not only a racial milestone in American life, but also a stark generational shift. It's hard to extricate these things from Obama's blackness. (If older white voters recoiled at Mr. Obama when he exchanged a fist-bump with his wife, were they reacting to his youth or to his race?) There are legitimate reasons that some older white voters might reserve judgment on Mr. Obama without being closet racists.

UPDATE: Yup, right on schedule. Also from today's NY Times: "Blacks Debate Civil Rights Risk in Obama's Rise. It seems keeping the grievance industry alive is more important than a historic breakthrough:

Last month, the debate bubbled up when The Root, a Web journal of black politics and culture, published a provocative essay titled "President Obama: Monumental Success or Secret Setback?" "If Obama becomes the president, every remaining, powerfully felt black grievance and every still deeply etched injustice will be cast out of the realm of polite discourse," wrote Lawrence Bobo, a black sociologist at Harvard University, who supports Mr. Obama and was outlining in the essay the concerns of some friends and colleagues. "White folks will just stop listening."

In a similar vein, I'd like to reintroduce the subject of William Voegeli's fine essay in the CRB, "Civil Rights and the Conservative Movement." He was right to caution in his post about it that reading it would take a while. It's not the kind of thing you can do on the fly or after four hours in the sun by the pool with active children. It demands attention and hard thinking. If (like me) you didn't live through the period it may be an eye opener. There are a dozen things that could be said about the piece (and I hope will be said) by folks who are smarter than me, but one inescapable conclusion is a more mature understanding of why so many black voters still believe they cannot trust Republicans or conservatives. And, perhaps, there is a bit of old-fashioned American tragedy involved in that story. Do check it out.

The times may change, but the fundamentals of good baseball are still key to making profits. This is especially true in the smaller markets, like Cleveland: ". . . the blueprint for how to operate a franchise in a small market is the Cleveland Indians, who have shown that a team can win on and off the field if they invest wisely in player development and have good chemistry on the diamond. In 2006, the Indians won only 78 games. Last season, not only did the Tribe eliminate the Yankees in the playoffs but they generated $29 million in operating income, third-most in the American League."

If you're not up to speed on this case, the page containing this WaPo article also has links to the memo some disinterested politically neutral bureaucrat leaked. Here's another WaPo article that provides crucial background (note the corrections at the top of the page). The money quote comes from Roger Clegg:

To Roger Clegg, the situation is also perfectly understandable. A former civil rights deputy in the Reagan administration who is now general counsel at the Center for Equal Opportunity, Clegg said the civil rights area tends to attract activist liberal lawyers who are philosophically opposed to a more conservative approach.

"If the career people are not reflecting the policy priorities of the political appointees, then there's a problem," Clegg said. "Elections have consequences in a democracy."

In an unrelated matter, another member of the Civil Rights Commission, Jennifer C. Braceras reminds us that President Bush could appoint someone to the Supreme Court who has not been a judge.

The fact that Al Sharpton is running for the Democratic presidential nomination shows that even he believes Jesse Jackson to be irrelevant. (Good to see the Democrats will have their own problems to deal with in a Sharpton run for president.)