19 -- Waiting on the state senate

 The sad part of Gov. Jim McGreevey's effort to censor poet Amiri Baraka is that it takes the whole state senate to fire him, a senate that has still not managed a way to fairly fund public schools or feed and cloth the growing population of needy. This same senate can bicker for months over what to do about the budget, but when several Jewish activist groups call for Baraka's head, these senators jump.

                If standing up for a principle defines courage in our time of shifting ethical standards, and then we are a state thick with coward -- particularly our public officials that cower to special interest groups. Are these senators so blind to their communities that they don't understand that Baraka doesn't only speak for himself and that if Baraka believes something, then so do other people in his community? By censoring Baraka, our senators do a disservice to both blacks and Jews, by feeding the perception that Jewish groups have the Governor's ear when blacks do not.  Such censorship will also feed the misperception among many blacks and whites that there is a Jewish conspiracy.

                But even as I write this, our state senators gather like a gaggle of geese, each honking out his or her objection to six lines in a Baraka poem, perhaps as jealous of his ability to speak his mind as they are fearful of the backlash if they don't punish him for his daring.

                Baraka's poem offending Jewish groups who have labeled it an attack n Jews everywhere. Baraka said he questioned Israel, and never attacked the Jewish people.

                Baraka misses an important point. Jews vote in a greater percentage than blacks do, giving them much greater clout in the state house. The Governor and the Senate are equally ignorant of the power behind Baraka's poem, and as they stick their legislative fingers to plug the dike -- to keep silent any criticism of Israel or Jews -- the Senate allows real anti-Semitism to ferment, brewing slowly into a more potent broth. Real anti-Semites will point to Baraka's censorship and say: "See, didn't I tell you the Jews are after blacks?"

                Yet the Senate seems bound and determined to cast its vote to silence the one man willing to speak his mind, the one man capable of warning them about the legitimate rage alive in places like Newark, Jersey City and Paterson.

                What kind of fools have we elected who are so blind?

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