To Chuck Turner; color of money is all that matters here

Boston Herald Column

By Joe Fitzgerald | Saturday, December 13, 2008

Raymond Berry, while he was coaching the Patriots [team stats], observed, “Heat not only builds character; it reveals character.”

Indeed, it’s often in the valley, not on the mountaintop, where we discover the stuff of which we’re made, which we’re now seeing illustrated as Chuck Turner continues shooting from the hip while being led through a valley of indictments.

It comes as no surprise he casts himself as a victim of The Man, implying the FBI and media wouldn’t be nipping at his heels if he were not a black man.

What is surprising is the number of supporters who follow him from press conference to press conference as if they were marching behind him from Selma to Montgomery.

Please. It’s ludicrous.

Five felony counts were not lodged against a black city councilor three days ago in U.S. District Court; they were lodged against a city councilor who’s black - a large distinction that seems to elude Turner’s misguided admirers.

It’s fine to be loyal, but it shouldn’t require having to check your brain at the door.

In casting the FBI as his oppressor, Turner invoked the specter of its founder, J. Edgar Hoover, noting, “Yes, he’s dead, but his spirit lives on,” whatever that’s supposed to mean in terms of allegedly pocketing a $1,000 bribe.

If anyone’s spirit lives on, at least as it relates to Turner’s explosive, divisive tirades, it’s the late Johnnie Cochran, whose racist pandering led to O.J. Simpson’s notorious acquittal in 1995.

In his closing statement to that Los Angeles jury of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic, Cochran alluded to Hitler and recalled how blacks were burned alive by American rednecks.

“Maybe this is why you were selected,” he suggested. “There’s something in your background, in your character, that helps you understand . . .”

That caused prosecutor Chris Darden, also black, to bristle with indignation: “What he’s really asking is, ‘Are you with The Man, or are you with the brothers?’ ”

Make no mistake, that’s what Chuck Turner is asking, too, and it’s not only offensive, it’s pathetic.

The Man? He elected Deval Patrick, didn’t he?

No, this is not about color, Chuck. It’s about you.

If you get sent away it won’t be because you’re black.

It’ll be because a corrupt pol who’s black got exactly what he deserved, just like the corrupt white ones do.

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