Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald has this column on the remarkably slow decline and fall of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Pitts compares the agonizing year it took to get rid of Kilpatrick with the sudden departure of Eliot Spitzer, whose political base vanished overnight. Why the difference? Pitts says that Kilpatrick's race gave him a broad base of "undeserved support" despite his obvious crookedness.

Truth is, we [African Americans] get played like checkers any time any high profile one of us is caught in scandal or sin. From Michael Jackson to O.J. Simpson to Tawana Brawley to Mike Tyson to Marion Barry to Kilpatrick, lying his natural backside off in court, we keep proving pathetically susceptible to manipulation by any brother or sister who says white folks have done him or her wrong -- especially if they invoke God a few times for good measure.

African Americans -- and, for that matter, all people of conscience -- have a moral responsibility to stand up for those who truly are victims of racial injustice. In defending those people, we should be unstinting and unwavering.

We should not, however, be unthinking. We should stop falling into the easy trap of believing every black man in trouble is a victim of racial malfeasance. Sometimes, a black man in trouble is a victim of his own malfeasance. If more black folks in Motown had understood this, the city might not have spent the last year embarrassing itself.

For centuries, African Americans have struggled to teach white people that black does not mean guilt. Frankly, it's high time we ourselves learned a corresponding truth.

It doesn't mean innocence, either.

The column is noteworthy not only for its truth but for its source. Pitts is a party-line, thinking-inside-the-box liberal. If he gets it, maybe there is hope that we will someday see the end of the seemingly endless stream of reflexive accusations of racism every time the good guys nail a bad guy who happens to be black. Or, if the stream does not end, maybe it will be recognized as bogus by such a large majority of people of all races that it won't matter.