When I was in college, there was a minority freshman orientation program that ended the morning that the entire campus arrived.  Because of the timing of the program, the minority kids who attended got to their dorm rooms first (by hours, at best) and would choose a side of the room, make the bed, put their stuff in drawers, etc.  As time went on, it became quite apparent that many White freshmen students had a HUGE problem with this.

Now think this through: there are two sides of a room.  It is damn near metaphisicaly impossible for both roommates to arrive in the room at the same time, so SOMEONE is going to make it there first.

Do we actually think that the White kids, had they arrived before their minority roommate, would NOT chose a side without waiting and without consulting their roommate?  Are we to think they would sit around waiting for their roommate to arrive, then draw straws?  Of course not.  They would have chosen the side they wanted, of course, then just said "Oh. well. It's really not a big deal" if the roommate complained.

But when the minority did the same thing, that is where the problems began.  It was the entitlement . . . the "understanding" that the minority was NOT supposed to "win" the side of the room they wanted . . . it was the "arrogance" of those minority kids chosing their side of the room without "clearing it" with their White roommate first.  That the minority student had an "advantage" because of their race -- even though half of the White students, by definition, arrived at their rooms second.  We even had a White student suggest that they flip a coin (after the minority kid was already unpacked and moved in) to see who got which side of the room.

Does this remind you of anything?  Whenever I hear Hillary backers talk about Obama's "arrogance", I think of the White kids to whom I had to explain the "someone would get there first" reality.  When I hear Hillary backers say "Hillary in '08, Obama in '16", I think of the White kids incensed that the minority kids had the timerity to do what they would have done . . . which is pick the side of the room they wanted, without consulation with the rommate. 

Think about this:  when has a White candidate ever been told "it's too early for you, you should wait eight years, then it wil be your turn"?  When has a White candidate leading a race been offered the No. 2 position to a candidate they are beating?  As Chris Rock once said about Colin Powell being floated as a vice president candidate, "You wouldn't expect Al Gore to be vice president for Al Sharpton, would you?  So why would you offer the vice president's position to someone he could beat?"

And when I hear the Hillary peope complaining about the "undemocratic" caucuses, I'm reminded that, among the complaining White kids in college, I know some of them didn't mind the side of the room they were "left with" -- they either would have chosen it anyway, or they did not really care.  But it was "the principle of it."  It was that the minorities . . . they just didn't know their place.  THEY were non supposed to be calling the shots. . . not at an Ivy League school!

Like Andrew Sullivan, when I hear some of the Hillary backers' complaints about Obama's "advantages" all I can think of is the one word that really explains what they are really trying to say: "uppity."  That, my friends has been the real eye opener for some Black liberals about White liberals -- that the Black vote is valued and important . . . unless they don't have it in their back pocket.  It brings to mind what journalist Chuck Stone once said about liberals: "A liberal is someone who doesn't want the slaves whipped."