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Already a subtle schism has started to manifest itself in the landscape of black America. You have to look for it. Have to scan the rag tag gatherings all over the country being held to protest Trayvon Martin's murder. Grass roots demonstrations, if grass ever took root in the inner cities. Check out the folks milling about, carrying their hand made signs and yelling for action. Note their pained facial expressions and simmering body language. Desperation personified. See who's on the platforms, standing before podia and shouting into microphones, - the neighborhood activists doing their best imitations of Rev Al Sharpton. And speaking of preachers, the pulpit is right in the thick of it, the black robed pastors blotting their sweating faces with their white handkerchiefs exhorting their female congregations mourning their dead sons to trust in Jesus. Yes, Lord. The ghetto is so rich in tragi-comedy. Meanwhile, back in the middle class enclaves, cool-headed Blacks are stepping up, speaking out of both sides of their mouths, lamenting the tragedy of Trayvon' death, glibly comparing their childhoods to his while declaring the verdict to be a sign that the justice system works. The jury has spoken. The versions of the living must take precedence over the silence of those they found it necesssary to kill. Self defense, indeed. So, the perennial parting of ways is underway as the black middleclass distances itself from the common folk, choosing instead to dutifully sign the NAACP's petition before returning to their $50,000 a year paycheck to pay check existences. And the beat goes on. Unless the beat happens to be the throbbing heart of an innocent black kid shot dead by a profiler standing his ground. Or by a thug who can't shoot straight. Just another chapter in the book of Being Black in America. BTW, Troy. I've come up with the perfect person to portray George Zimmerman in a movie. Look-alike Chaz Bono, a wanna-be who yearns to make it as a man. Is that type casting or what?

Guess somebody gave Obama permission to speak off the cuff about the Trayvon Martin verdict. After consulting with Valerie Jarrett, and getting her permission Michelle probably put her foot in her husband's butt and suggested that he appear before the microphones and go into his "persecuted black male" mode. Even so, he was timid and tenative, to say the least, tiptoeing around the travesty of the stand-your- ground "law". Tavis Smiley must've been flushed with mixed emotions. Anyhow, I failed to see how, in the course of his remarks, while making reference to his daughters and their friends, Obama would claim that the present generation is "better than us", Certainly his sheltered children and their elite/white peers are not representative of the average black kid or typical white one. It's easy for children of privilege to express tolerance of others and harbor hope for the future. I don't know what this generation is better at, other than being dumber and more violent than the preceding one. Whatever. it doesn't take much for Obama to retain the approval of his black constituency. All he has to do is throw them a few crumbs and they're thrilled that he has taken baby steps. Listening to black conservative Republicans go public, pleading the case for their white massas is enough to nudge me back into the fold. In spite of my cynicism, I sympathize with Barak. "He could be my son".