“By a show of hands, how many folks here tonight are Freedmen?” Cornsilk asked into the microphone. Each raised an arm. Visibly dismayed, Cornsilk shook his head. It was a trick question.

“No,” Cornsilk said. “The Freedmen died a long time ago. You are not Freedmen. You are Cherokee, and it is time that you begin to recognize who you are.”

Cornsilk is Cherokee, and a self-taught civil rights advocate and genealogist. He traces his slave-owning ancestors back to their aboriginal lands of Georgia and Tennessee — to a period before the Trail of Tears. Cornsilk is not a Cherokee Freedmen descendant. For nearly two decades, however, Cornsilk fought for the citizenship rights of Freedmen descendants — blacks who descend from slaves once owned by Cherokee and other tribes.

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A variety of programs about Kennedy will air in the weeks leading up to the milestone anniversary of his Nov. 22, 1963, slaying in Dallas, including "JFK," a four-hour "American Experience" portrait of Kennedy, what he accomplished and what was left undone, PBS announced Thursday.

The science show "Nova" will look at how the forensics investigation into his death would have been handled today and "lay bare some of the problems with forensics at the time," said Beth Hoppe, PBS' new chief programming executive.

The history-oriented "Secrets of the Dead," with a narrative account of the president's shooting, and a look at Kennedy collectibles also will be part of the coverage, along with other specials being planned, PBS said.

Also set for public TV's lineup are specials on American heritage, including a family roots series, "Genealogy Roadshow," and two documentary programs with sweeping views of Hispanic and black history, "Latino Americans" and "The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross."

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In a jam-packed auditorium at the historically black college in Washington, D.C., Paul gave the hard sell, arguing that the Republican message of smaller government, school choice and individual freedom should appeal to minorities who have been victims of state-sponsored oppression, crumbling schools and general subjugation.

But most of his speech was a history lesson, as he spent the first 20 minutes insisting that Democrats, and not Republicans, are responsible for every ill that has befallen blacks in the United States, from the preservation of slavery to Jim Crow. "The story of emancipation, voting rights and citizenship, from Fredrick Douglass until the modern civil rights era, is in fact the history of the Republican Party,” Paul said. "The horrible Jim Crow in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s was all Democrats."

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Sen. Paul’s speech will focus on the importance of outreach to younger voters, as well as minority groups. He will also discuss the history of the African-American community’s roots in the Republican Party and current issues, such as school choice and civil liberties

It will be interesting to see what the audience at the school, which is still overwhelmingly African-American, makes of the speech from a senator who once said he didn't support the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on the grounds that it impinged on business owners' rights (he later walked back the remark).

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The report says "we have to engage" minority voters "and show our sincerity.” A first test of that strategy approached them almost instantly, with President Obama’s nomination today of Tom Perez to serve as labor secretary. And so far, they don't seem to be implementing it very deftly.

Perez, who is currently the head of the Department of Justice’ Civil Rights Division, has had his name dragged through the mud over factually inaccurate, race-baiting charges of impropriety. Some conservatives claim that Perez, a Latino working under the first black president and first black attorney general in history, dismissed a case against a handful of New Black Panther activists in some kind gesture of racial solidarity.

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My mea culpa goes out to anyone who had to behold the shameless spectacle that involved button-pushing comic Lisa Lampanelli using the word “nigga” in a tweet, then arguing against a torrent of condemnation from the Twitterverse that it was socially acceptable.

You see, I have argued in print for years that people are too precious about avoiding the word “nigger” when the subject is at hand. When the NAACP held a funeral for the word, I wrote a column praising its intentions but opposing its actions.

A word should never be banned out of context, I argued. Especially a word with such conflicted and confusing history for those of us who are darker than blue.

When Spike Lee and other well-known cultural commentators began to pile on Quentin Tarantino for his liberal use of the N-word in his blaxploitation western masterpiece "Django Unchained," I wrote a story for this very outlet insisting that Tarantino had tapped a proud history in creating modern Hollywood’s first black superhero.

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The survey, conducted by the Center for Gun Policy and Research and initially released without racial breakdowns in late January, showed strong support overall for many of the proposals being discussed in Congress to limit gun violence. But the researchers broke down the numbers by race this week and shared the results with Salon.

Overall, 22 percent of Americans were found to own guns, while another 11 percent live in homes with someone else who owns guns. Among whites, the number of gun owners is slightly higher, at 26 percent, with an additional 13 percent who live in gun-owning households.

But only 12 percent of African-Americans and 13 percent of Latinos own guns. Just 5 and 7 percent of each ethnic group, respectively, lives in a household with someone else who owns a gun.

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Except that in "Beautiful Creatures," the book that Davis' next movie is based upon, her character Amma is, again, a maid. She told the Hollywood Reporter that "[Director] Richard LaGravenese forbade us from reading the book. He said, "Do not touch the book." (Naturally, Davis then got the book). "I read half of it and then I put it down because Amma is a maid, and I just said, 'OK, there’s nothing I can learn from this.' "

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It feels to me like the show has gotten more comedic and broad as it has gone on.

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"It coheres, in some ways, very well, and, in some ways, not so well," says Bruce Levine, a historian from the University of Illinois who just published the well-received Civil War history "The Fall of the House of Dixie." "I give them a mixed review."

The film's focus on a narrow period of history — from after the 1864 election to Abraham Lincoln's assassination — necessarily overemphasizes Lincoln's role in ending an institution that was nearing its death, said Levine. "There are fundamental gaps in 'Lincoln.' Watching the film, you don't know that by the time of the events described, slavery is already badly undermined — slaves have been running away from their masters in border states and Confederate states even before fighting began."

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In an interview with Don Carrigan of WCSH-TV, Charlie Webster claimed that there was suspicious activity in rural Maine towns. "In some parts of rural Maine, there were dozens, dozens of black people who came in and voted on Election Day," he said. "Everybody has a right to vote, but nobody in (these) towns knows anyone who's black. How did that happen? I don't know. We're going to find out."

The Portland Press-Herald reports that when pressed, Webster would not give specifics on where the alleged fraud may have taken place.

From the Press-Herald:

Webster said he has identified five "pockets" of the state where he has concerns about voting irregularities. He would not identify those areas, but said he plans to mail "Thank You" cards to all of the newly registered voters. If a large number of cards are returned because the addresses are invalid, Webster said, he will know he is on to something.

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To most observers, this narrow majority of voters represents a broad cross-section of the country. To Politico’s Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, it’s a dangerously limited coalition. Why? Because it doesn’t include enough white people, and particularly, downscale white men:

If President Barack Obama wins, he will be the popular choice of Hispanics, African-Americans, single women and highly educated urban whites. That’s what the polling has consistently shown in the final days of the campaign. It looks more likely than not that he will lose independents, and it’s possible he will get a lower percentage of white voters than George W. Bush got of Hispanic voters in 2000.

A broad mandate this is not.

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The Empower Citizens Network is running one ad in the Columbus area that argues: "It is a big lie that Democrats are for black Americans, and Republicans are against black Americans. Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves, was a Republican. Republicans founded the NAACP. Republicans passed the Civil Rights Act, while Democrats opposed it."

Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM writes that the group, which describes itself as an "alternative conservative" super PAC, has run a number of other ads throughout the state, including one that "accuses Obama and Democrats of imploding the economy by forcing mortgage companies to lend to 'unqualified borrowers' while the Soviet national anthem plays." And the Toledo Blade reports that a newspaper ad put out by the group says that the "Obamas throw lavish parties at the White House for 'socialist friends' that include flying in $100-per-pound Kobe beef from Japan."

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I have to say: Harris’ thinking seems not much better than John Sununu suggesting Colin Powell endorsed Obama because they're both black; it’s a strange notion that political support should demand so little. And it's a problematic argument, that the decisions of black intellectuals and voters about whom we support and how, are always grounded in race. This implies that we consider race before we consider anything else. This implies that we think with the color of our skin and the cultures from which we rise and above all else, so desperate must we be for scraps from the political table.

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Despite reforms over the past decades, advocates say the number of Americans disenfranchised by state laws barring ex-prisoners from voting has grown—with a disproportionate impact on people of color.

“When you talk about the right to vote, you’re not just talking about enfranchising an individual,” says ex-offender Desmond Meade, president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition.

“Every day, in minority communities, you have people getting arrested … As that individual loses [his or her] right to vote, that community loses another voice, to the point that that community becomes insignificant.”

Meade’s coalition is fighting to overturn a Florida law passed last year that denies automatic restoration of voting rights to those who’ve served their time.

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The negative chatter kicked up last week when the blogger, Michelle Joni, attended a fried chicken festival and blogged that it was “obviously an occasion to wear the fro.”

“You are a walking cliché,” reads one of the comments on her site. “A white person that believes Black culture, heritage, and natural BEING is something to poke fun at, to have fun with, to experiment with, and to belittle. Because that is exactly what you’re doing, whether you mean to or not.

Here’s another: “From one white girl to another – please just stop. You are hurting people. You are wearing their identity and culture as a costume that you can put on and take off.”

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