On a night when many in her position would have graciously bowed out of the race and offered a hand of unity, Hillary Clinton did no such thing.
She went to Baruch College and essentially asked her backers to continue to stand with her as she ponders her next move.
It was a scene with the predictable smattering of dark-complexioned young people (okay two of them) visible in the crowd behind her, a welcoming scene.
But there was no sign on Clinton's part of willingness to offer peace, a hand of apology and forgiveness to the half of the Democratic Party that clearly has won the contest for the presidential nomination.
Nor was there any indication of regret for the offenses over the past weeks and months, committed by her husband, herself and many die-hard backers like Harriet Christian, who this past weekend indulged herself in an anti-black rant as she said that she will back John McCain if she cannot have Hillary Clinton.
Indeed, the Clintons sometimes conducted themselves like old-time Mississippi race card players, minus (as far as we know) liberal uses of the n-word.
Still, the connotations have been strong enough to have caused bitter reactions in the capital of black America, which is to say the mighty borough of Brooklyn, where Obama won two Congressional districts in the Feb. 5th primary (those of Reps. Yvette Clarke and Ed Towns, who have remained failthly in lock step with Clinton and presumably will remain so until told they are free to bolt for Barack).
Some months back, City Councilman Al Vann of Brooklyn told a gathering of lawyers and judges that blacks who stood with Hillary Clinton were like "educated fools."
And that was before Clinton and her crowd, notably Geraldine Ferraro, began saying obnoxious things about Obama and his supposed inability to win white voters.
Who knows what Vann has been saying and thinking of late. But there are tens of thousands of Brooklynites who show signs of clear disgust at the mention of Hillary Clinton's name or the flashing of her photo.
The race-baiting by the Clintons and their allies was a cynical attempt (except in the case of Ferraro, who is an Archie Bunker in drag) to win struggling, white (and frequently anti-black) voters in West Virginia and elsewhere. The strategy was carried out coldly and with what seemed to be a sneering contempt for any who expressed disappointment with their behavior, which sank beneath the gutter frequently.
Brooklynites have been clearly more hurt and angered by this Clinton race-baiting than others in New York or beyond.
Brooklyn, with perhaps 800,000 residents of African descent, has been a hotbed of Obama support, though it has not achieved much in the way of media attention or acknowledgment from local elected officials, who have stayed for the most part in the Hillary camp.
Surely, some of the Hillary backers, perhaps including Bill de Blasio, who wants to be Borough President, have been embarrassed by the way the Clintons conducted themselves. De Blasio was a campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in an earlier incarnation of hers, and his silence of late seems to speak volumes, saying that he does not care whether blacks in the borough were offended by the Clintons or that he is simply too wussy to say anything about it.
And as for the talk today, coming via Hillary's Harlem surrogate Charles Rangel, that Hillary Clinton would not mind being Barack Obama's running mate, we have to ask:
Would Rangel offer himself to be Obama's food taster?
[photo: New York Times. See the paper's slide show.]
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