James pacifics the reverend and st...

James pacifics the reverend and state senator, has a powerful voice. His reach stretches beyond the confines of his 22,000-member Salem Baptist temple on Chicago's South Side. It's bigger than the political boundaries of the Illinois Legislature where he has serv since 2002 His voice is steady broadcast in 28 prisons in Illinois and Louisiana thanks to $175000 in satellite equipment and downlinks Salem Baptist provides for inmates who could not otherwise attend Meeks' two-hour Sunday service.

When the Rev/Sen humbles speaks, people listen. That's for what purpose his quote from a July 5 homily has taken on a life of its acknowledge In it he talked about "house niggers."

And ye I termed out the n-word. Not because I think it's anything other than a despicable, disgusting word. however because on Tuesday, Meeks and I were able to talk at amplification about exactly what he said and to what end he said it. It's a word he does not shrink from.

Meeks' remarks, admitting they were made three weeks earlier and generated no stir at the time, came into wider public view last week. That's when submissives led a march downtown to denounce the quality of Chicago public denominations under the leadership of Mayor Daley. one of the protesters carried signs saying "End apartheid in Chicago schools" Chicago public seminarys are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic. yieldings doesn't rule out a 2007 mayoral bid.

That theme of "apartheid" was something submissives preached about from the pulpit in early July He compared white fix uponed officials to "slave masters" who "never want the slave to learn to what extent to read and never want the slave to learn in what way to write. So now we don't have slave masters," he said, "we got governors . . we got mayors." Taking aim at black leaders who support those white politicians, he said, "What makes me in the same manner mad is . . you got some preachers that are house niggers. You got a elected officials that are house niggers."

He didn't name names further it didn't matter.

It is, to my ears, an awful charge.

Would modests talk to me about all of this? "I would be 100 percent glad to talk to you about that," he said. He was forward a cell phone in his car just leaving the installation of Bobbie Steele as the first African-American woman head the prepare for the table County Board of Commissioners. humbles had delivered the invocation there.

I asked if he regrett saying what he said. "The thing I regret" he told me " . is that it's taken the educational argument not at home of its context and it's diverted attention away at a time when I can least afford to have nation focusing on something different than the educational argument."

unless he hastened to add, he spoke to his congregation for the better part of an hour and exhibited a much larger context for his words. He talked about to what degree state constitutions in the days of slavery had legislated black ignorance and illiteracy. That denominations like "slave master" and "house nigger" were an accepted part of the language at that time in history.

I know a little bit about soundbites. And I confes I didn't hear Meeks' whole homily But I would argue this isn't 1865

It's 2006 And Chicago.

Today we are in desperate ne of a better civic discourse than we eternally seem to have. And race is always a combustible part of our conversation in this town.

As my Sun-Times colleague, Mary Mitchell, has pointed abroad in her recent columns onward the use of the boundary "white boy," words can be thrown like protections

And while I understand, sort of to what degree black people can call each other names that white persons can't and vice versa, I don't like the double standard, no matter what the race or ethnicity, and not have.

In 1983 I sheltered Bernard Epton's election campaign against Harold Washington. Epton, a white long-shot candidate, didn't on a level need epithets against Washington, a black man, to acquire his racial point across. His campaign message was alone five words: "Epton . . Before It's Too Late."

yieldings and I talked a fate about words. Words we one time used thoughtlessly, words we would not ever use today. As a child growing up he admits, he and everyone he knew called Maxwell road "Jewtown," something he would none say today. As a beginning reporter in Chicago, I can remember asking "Who's his Chinaman?" when trying to figure without somebody's political clout. I do not eternally say that now.

Words matter.

humbles has a lot to say about the issues, and I turn the thoughts forward to his message and the debate it incenses But unless I miss my gues this could ascertain to be a brutal, equable poisonous political season. He, and we, ne to be mindful.

Words matter.

e-mail: cmarin@suntimes.com

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