Rev. Wright hit hard yesterday on so-called learning styles, defending blacks as “different” but not therefore “deficient.”  He simplified for his NAACP audience, talking up left– and right-side brain operation, lumping blacks on the side (whichever one it is) that learns by listening and looking.

They loved it.  But he was sanctioning stereotypes, nay justifying them, even glorifying them.  Blacks can’t read?  Do math?  Science?  By their natures?  Whoa.  That’s what some (bad) people have been saying for years.

He seeks to one-up critics by accepting the characterization, glorifying it, using it as excuse — which is dangerous, as no less a spokesman for what’s right and true than Geraldo Rivera said on Fox right after his speech.  Rivera managed to toss out some catchwords that carry his message — lowering of standards, ebonics — but his all-black panel, including talk show host Montel Williams, weren’t buying.

Williams especially went off on a rant about changing school systems (and lowering gas prices).  None of the three picked up on Rivera’s attempt at demurring from Wright’s broadsides vs. schooling as we know it. 

Wright came off as something of an oaf, which I think captures him as well as calling him an anti-American radical.  In any event, the more he has the limelight, the more white voters have to wonder about the Dems’ half-black candidate.  It’s one thing to sit and listen to and be counselled by a radical, another to do that and be done that by a jerk.