what he said

Anytime I peruse the great Leonard Pitts' writings, I know two things for certain: 1) he will cover a topic I've recently written about and 2) I will be embarrassed by how much better he can express what I'm thinking than I can. This is what I was tryin' to say:

Last week, I received an e-mail from a man named Keith in Atlanta. He wrote: "...I wonder if Barry Bonds were a white baseball player trying to break the home-run record if the media would entertain these unfounded allegations? . . . Once again racist America has reared its ugly head..."

It goes on, but you get the point. I wish Keith didn't feel that way, but I'm not surprised he does. I've spent 11 years writing about race -- among other things -- in this space. In that time, two frustrating truths have become clear to me. The first is that many white Americans labor under the self-justifying fantasy that racism just up and disappeared 40 years ago. The second is that many black Americans labor under the equally vexing belief that racism explains everything, that it is the all-purpose excuse any time one of ''us'' gets in trouble, gets criticized or just gets rude service in the checkout line.