Wigga Pleez!

Father Michael Pfleger was suspended yesterday from his St. Sabina parish on the South Side of Chicago (in the baddest part of town…)

For those not in the know, Pfleger ignited a grand controversy last week with his mocking of Hillary Clinton from the pulpit of the United Trinity Church – Barack Obama’s EX-church.



Pfleger tearfully apologized in a statement a few days ago in which he denied that he was a racist.

The South Side priest whose comments about Hillary Clinton reignited the controversy over Barack Obama's former church stood before his parishioners Sunday and apologized.

Speaking at St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Michael Pfleger said he isn't racist or sexist and called the past few days "the most painful" of his life.

To which we can only retort “Wait a minute… Isn’t that guy white?”

Because he’s apologizing for being racist towards Hillary Clinton who, despite being married to “the first black President” is herself, white. But this guy is white. But he’s “acting black” so can you be a black racist while being white? The Kid’s head is spinning.

From this, we can learn two things:

One, Kid Various should give up going to the gym and become a pastor because apparently preaching is a better workout than 40 minutes on the treadmill

Two, the secret message of this circus, which has lain dormant in the media, is that when we talk about “race” in this country, we are no longer actually talking about race (defined by ethnicity,) we are talking about “culture.”

The United States is past race as a societal issue. Yes there may be some people out there for whom skin color is a determinant. But the overwhelming majority of the friction in the race problem is not caused by “racism” per se – but rather a clash of cultures. (In this it is like the modern West’s clash with pre-modern Arab traditional culture.)

And this is exemplified by the ability of people to move back and forth over the cultural divide.

Michael Pflegger has essentially become black. If you just heard his ministrations on the radio (which Kid Various first did) you would never in a million years guess that he was white. Similarly, black people who assimilate into the larger American middle class culture are prone to accusations of being “white.” But the cultural argument is still so overshadowed by the concept of race that we can have this ridiculous spectacle of having a white guy stand up in front of the entire country and deny that he is a black racist.

It just keeps getting weirder and weirder.