ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Alaska's black leaders say they are not surprised to see Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of the controversy over injecting the race issue into the presidential campaign.
Palin, Republican John McCain's running mate, has repeatedly insisted that Barack Obama's former preacher, the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a legitimate issue even though McCain himself has said it is out of bounds.
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"She has no sensitivity to minorities," said the Rev. Alonzo Patterson, a Baptist minister and president of the Alaska Black Leadership Conference. "She's really inciting a lot of African-Americans to get out and vote."
Since taking office in December 2006, Palin has had a sometimes tense relationship with black leaders, who say they have been ignored in their efforts to get more minorities hired in her administration.
In Alaska, blacks chafed when Palin opposed a proclamation endorsing a festival that marks the freeing of slaves. On the campaign trail, her events sometimes have attracted fringe groups hostile to minorities. At one rally attended by Palin, a supporter told a black cameraman to "sit down, boy."
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This week, in the final debate of the campaign, Obama himself noted the hateful tone of some of the McCain-Palin crowds, singling out Palin herself for not doing enough to ease the friction.
Many of Palin's black constituents say they are disgusted with the campaign's racial overtones.
"It's really been like you're going to a Ku Klux Klan rally," said Javis Odom, an Anchorage minister, referring to the white supremacist group. "Gov. Palin is really showing her true colors on the national stage."
In Alaska, the issue of race relations usually focuses on Alaska Natives, who make up 18 percent of the population. Blacks, in contrast, make up 4 percent.
Patterson and Odom say that when they have pressed Palin about diversity in hiring, she gets defensive and even testy.
"If you're going to embrace the entire country, you need to address the issues here," said Marilyn Stewart, president of the Alaska Black Chamber of Commerce and a volunteer on Palin's gubernatorial campaign who has served Republican and Democratic governors. "Most certainly there are qualified minorities who would love to be part her administration. People aren't asking for her selections to be based on color, but because of qualifications."
Among Palin's 417 appointments or reappointments to boards and commissions since taking office in December 2006, 240 have voluntarily identified their ethnicity. Eight are black, 49 Alaska Native, six Asian or Pacific Islander and one is Hispanic.
Topic: "It's really been like you're going to a Ku Klux Klan rally" (Read 1219 times)