The bark is off the tree.

America’s first black President, Bubba Bill, is now seen as a race baiter for correctly noting that Sen. Obama’s recollections of his Iraq war opposition were a “fairy tail.”

The nation’s first and only female candidate for Vice President, Geraldine Ferraro, is being blasted as a racist for correctly suggesting that if Sen. Obama were white he wouldn’t be taken seriously as a candidate.

Sen. Obama’s minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Jr., is in hot water for correctly stating that “Sen. Clinton has never been called a nigger.” ( I have heard her called much worse.)

It is going to only get worse..

The nation’s current racial dialogue was the subject of an essay I was writing for another Blog when I received an email from Sam Merten that Rufus Shaw had killed himself and his wife.

I was carried back to the time I first met Rufus Shaw, the only time I had a lengthy and serious talk with him. It was all about race and it was a revelation.

We met one evening in the early 1980s (I don’t recall the exact year) at Cardinal Puffs, a now extinct SMU beer garden. I was with a group of friends. Rufus knew someone in our crowd and joined us. As time wore on Rufus and I found ourselves alone and drifted into a discussion I preferred not to have.

The young black man I recall was, to say the least, full of himself. .He was swagger, bravado and flamboyance. He was intimidating and intended to be. But he was also articulate, incredibly smart, incredibly well-read, and insightful. In short the man had charisma.

Rufus started off talking about a book he had recently written. I asked if he had a copy. He vanished to his car and returned shortly with an autographed copy of How to Be a Rich Nigger. I read the cover and my face fell off. Shaw snorted “You’re turning white.” “Uh, I am white.” “I am talking about what white people turn when confronted with real black,” he retorted.

I spent the next couple of hours listening as Rufus Shaw explained his version of black and white.

“You have no idea what it is like to be black,” he told me. “Not the poorest white trash born can understand let along some guy like you.” I protested. “Don’t give me that s**t. You can’t even imagine.” “OK, I challenged, “explain it to me.”

“When your black it doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how educated, you keep thinking you always got more to prove. If you’re black and you fall there’s going to be no one to catch you.”

Shaw told me there were four types of black people. There were the “Oreos” (his word) who were culturally white and had lost all touch with their blackness. He didn’t begrudge these people their success, but was sure it wasn’t a price he would pay. This group he said “loved everything about white people.”

The second group he called African-Americans. These were like Italian-Americans. They were proud to be black but moved with confidence and authority in a white world while remaining black. He was convinced white folks were terrified of the African-American. They shouldn’t be he said; African-Americans merely resented white people but had what it takes to beat them at their own game.

The third type he called “black folks.” These were the segregated that lived in a rich black culture but who were outsiders from the larger America. I’ll never forget his words: “All black folks hate white folks. But they know they have to live with them so they act respectful. They shouldn’t; they should let it hang out.”

The fourth were what whites would call the underclass of gang bangers and druggies.

I asked Rufus if he hated white people. “I haven’t decided yet,” he answered looking me very square in the eyes.

What Rufus Shaw believed in was politics. He said the political world was the only world that offered redemption for blacks. “Until we have political power the white world will pay us no mind. They’ll pay us to behave or deliver or whatever, but we’ll have no respect, no equality, until we hold real power, until they have to ask us permission.”

Rufus Shaw and I only occasionally ran into each other over the years. We usually engaged in brief polite conversation. After Tom Pauken recruited him to write for Dallas Blog Rufus and I chatted at Tom’s house once. It was inane prattle. It was the only time I met his wife. He had just turned 50. The bravado and swagger were gone but the keen mind remained.

I wanted to ask him how or if his views had changed over a quarter century but somehow it didn’t seem fair. As he wrote for Dallas Blog I was continuously asked by readers if other blacks actually believed as Shaw did. I would always say I didn’t really know. But I do know Rufus convinced me black and white America are like parallel universes. If nothing else, the campaign of Barack Obama is going to give white Americans their first real view of another world just down the street.

(NOTE:  Obviously, I am quoting Rufus Shaw from a 25-year old memory and the words are doubtless inexact. But the representation of his thoughts are very accurate. Rufus Shaw made a hell of an impression.)

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