Images of Black Men.

Black hockey players are rare. I'm sure you've heard the remark "I went to a fighting match and a hockey game broke out" as a backhanded reference to the fact that a lot of fighting goes on once the men don their skates. Canada is hockey, and if Sarah Palin wanted to really get a leg up in politics, she'd expand her foreign policy experience, cross the border from Alaska and become a Canadian citizen. She is a self-proclaimed hockey mom, and Canada is anything but mum about hockey. But, I digress.

I know nothing about hockey other than it's played on ice, is part of the winter Olympics, and is not really a major attraction for black athletes. But there are black ice hockey players. One, infamous, current player is Georges Laraque. A native of Montreal, Georges is an "enforcer" who now plays for the Montreal Canadiens: his skating skills are moderate but he can fight, and was unanimously awarded the 'Best Fighter' by a hockey magazine in 2003.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

General/Secretary Colin Powell made his much anticipated endorsement of Barack Obama this morning, on NBC's "Meet the Press". Powell (an American, though born of Jamaican parents) is a Republican and former Bush-W Secretary of State at the time of the invasion of Iraq. He became the highest-profile Republican to add his support to the Democratic ticket. Important positive reasons for this support were that Obama is "a transformational figure", "a new generation coming onto the world stage"; "reaching out in a more diverse, inclusive way across our society"; has "demonstrated the kind of calm, patient, intellectual, steady approach to problem-solving that I think we need in this country". But Powell also touched on negative reasons: he was "concerned about the negative direction McCain's campaign has taken recently"; that the U.S. has "managed to convey to the world that we are more unilateral than we really are''; that the Republican Party had moved more to the right than he liked; that the McCain campaign was seemingly "narrower and narrower" and "exclusive" (citing the feeble and over-the-top attempts to suggest that Obama is associating with terrorists). He was also concerned about the judgement shown in choosing Governor Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate: "I don’t believe she’s ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president.”

Tom Brokaw showed what is really a problem with America's attitude to race--amazing distrust of black people--by asking that Powell deal with the suggestion that his endorsement was because Obama was black. Powell rebutted by saying that he would have endorsed months ago had that been the case. It's extraordinary to get major political figures crossing party lines. But would anyone have suggested that a major woman politician endorsing Senator Hillary Clinton was because the two of them were women?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Obama has "mo". More information suggests that the coming election is his to lose. His fund raising remains amazing (another record, US$ 150 million, last month); he pulls amazing crowds--an estimated record 100,000 people in St. Louis yesterday; he got a slew of endorsements from major newspapers over the weekend.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Black political commentators arise. Nothing deep, but I love the interventions of CNN's Roland Martin. He's pro-Obama, and very feisty, very probably supports the senator because he is a black man.