I draw a slightly different moral. It's not that blacks are unassailable, but that the public is incapable of outrage over hate-speech directed at Jews or gays. In fact, people these days seem to think that there's no such thing as anti-semitism, and that any suggestion to the contrary is a canard to justify the treatment of the Palestinians.
Baraka wrote a big article once called "Confessions of a Former Anti-Semite" in which he admitted that he used to hate all Jews and desire their complete extermination (his early poems used to groove on the notion of hitting Jewish grandmothers in the teeth with brass knuckles, for example). He matured, however, and was now a "former anti-semite" because he was willing to permit those Jews who renounced every last aspect of their religion and their heritage to go on living.
As I've said before, I only wish he would finish writing that twenty volume suicide note of his and get on with the job.
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