Who says black folks ain't equal?

I spent 20-something years in the deepest Deep South watching racist white people cut off their noses to spite their faces -- all because they couldn't abide the black man.

Or black woman.

Or black children going to school with theirs.

When I graduated from Baton Rouge Magnet High in 1979, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system was something like 65 percent white. It had 67,000 students. Baton Rouge was a majority white city.

When the federal court ordered a new desegregation plan involving busing, the white exodus began. Now, within the city limits, the population is majority black.

The school system has 45,000 students in 2007. It's 80-plus percent black. And it's a mess.

WHAT ONCE was a boomtown wasn't anymore . . . until Hurricane Katrina and the federal government did the inland state capital a dubious favor by destroying New Orleans.

It's not just the Baton Rouge school system. Noooooooooooo. Across the board, the Gret Stet can be found at the bottom of all the good rankings and at the top of all the bad ones.

And Louisianians, black and white, seem to think it's anybody's fault but theirs.

Notice that I said "Louisianians, black and white." White folks, like those bigots and rednecks I knew all too well in my upbringing, have no monopoly on racism. Neither do they have a monopoly on cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

One lesson we're learning every day is African-Americans are every bit the equal of the white man in their basic capacity for self-destructive racist leanings.

TAKE, FOR EXAMPLE, the benighted city of New Orleans, ruined and chaotic in the wake of Katrina. The murder capital of the country. Saddled with a district attorney who dropped charges against a quintuple-murder suspect, all because he couldn't find the witness.

That DA Eddie Jordan's staff couldn't find the witness speaks volumes, being that the notoriously corrupt and incompetent New Orleans Police Department found her in three hours . . . after the charges were dropped, of course.

But it is a testament to the capacity of many African-Americans to hate whitey more than they love their own lives -- or their children's -- in this Baghdad on the Bayou that Jordan came before a New Orleans City Council hearing with a contingent of backers ready to mau-mau "the racists."

If you have a strong stomach, try to read this excerpt from the Times-Picayune story on the hearing:

For a second time in a week, Councilwoman Shelley Midura asked Jordan to resign. During a tense, 2 1/2 hour hearing devoted to the district attorney's office, Midura said she voted for Jordan, but now feels his management style is costing the city lives.

"Your mismanagement has come at the expense of the families of five murdered, young, impoverished African-American teenagers," Midura said, referring to the 2006 Central City massacre case that Jordan's team dropped last week, blaming a missing eyewitness that police claimed they found within hours. "You are only one player in a massively broken system, but your mistakes have stood out in that broken system."

Jordan, the former U.S. Attorney in New Orleans elected district attorney in 2002, replied, "You are scapegoating me. You're making me solely responsible."

(snip)

Midura's reference to the line of black murder victims in New Orleans was followed by her comparing Jordan to the disgraced former district attorney in North Carolina, Mike Nifong, who ruined his career by pursuing a shaky rape case against Duke lacrosse players.

That changed the tone of the meeting and derailed further calls for Jordan's resignation.

Earlier Wednesday, political consultant Allan Katz told reporters that Richmond and Morrell planned to ask Jordan to resign at an afternoon press conference outside City Hall. Instead, the two representatives said they will "evaluate" Jordan's office and work with him.

"J. P. absolutely told me they were going to call for his resignation," Katz said. "Obviously they lost their nerve."

But Richmond said late Wednesday that he and Morrell had always wanted to give Jordan some time to improve how he runs his office before taking such a drastic step as asking for a resignation from an elected official.

"We wanted to let him know we were leaning toward it," said Richmond, in a phone interview after the council's hearing.

Richmond and Morrell said that unless they see improvements over the next few months they will also consider making a move in the state House to impeach Jordan. The state constitution provides a mechanism to file articles of impeachment against any local or state official, Richmond said, which has to be approved by the House and then sent to the Senate for a trial.

During the hearing, though, it was clear that Midura's harsh words for Jordan bolstered support for the DA from audience members, largely along racial lines.

Morrell said, "I do take issue with the comparison of Jordan to the DA in the North Carolina case. That's apples and oranges. We're talking about crime in which African-Americans are disproportionately dying in the streets."

Jordan had his supporters in the crowd inside the City Council's chambers, including a number of community activists who said there are more critical failures in the criminal justice system than any single official could be held responsible for.

"We are outraged at the scapegoating of Eddie Jordan," said Ursula Price, of Safe Streets/Strong Communities, a Central City-based group. "The one man fighting corruption in the police department is now being criticized? Why is he the first one to be on the chopping block? The resignation of one public official will not resolve the dysfunction of the criminal justice system."

Malcolm Suber, a longtime activist who is generally opposed to the entire criminal justice system, also rose to defend Jordan.

"This is a railroading of Mr. Jordan under the pretense that people care about the lives of poor black people," said Suber. "We know better. This is an attack on the black leadership. You should really look at yourselves before attacking this man."

Keith Hudson, 47, who lives in Central City, said, "I see a witch hunt. You're all used to that Connick persecution thing. Without evidence, without witnesses, sending people to prison."

Speaking to Jordan directly, Hudson added, "They're fans of Harry Connick. They ain't forgot you're black."

SORRY. This white boy ain't buying what the mau-mauers are trying to sell.

Competence -- or, in this case, incompetence -- is a colorblind measuring stick. Another factor arguing against Jordan as a) a poor, tolerant, discriminated-against black man, and b) anything other than the vilest of political hacks would be this:

In early 2005, a federal jury found Jordan guilty of racial discrimination after he -- three days after taking office in 2003 -- fired 56 DA's office staffers. Fifty-three were white.

Jordan then proceeded to hire 69 new staffers. Sixty-four were black.

Here's a tidbit from a 2005 Associated Press story on the trial, which resulted in a $3.4 million dollar award to the plaintiffs:

Among the non-lawyers, the number of blacks nearly tripled, while the number of whites in the office declined by about two-thirds. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a preliminary determination, found evidence of racial bias.

Veterans with years of experience in law enforcement were replaced by younger blacks, some of whom had never done police work.

One white man fired by Jordan testified that he was one of the few fingerprint and ballistics experts in the district attorney's office. The résumé of the man who replaced him showed he had little experience other than being a lifeguard and doing some office work at a law firm.

Arthur Perrot, a fired white investigator, had a perfect 24-of-24 score when interviewed by Jordan's transition team, but was fired, while a black investigator who scored 16 out of 24 was retained.

GEE, I THINK THAT EXPLAINS A LOT about why the DA's office has a hellacious backlog of cases, and about why it can't keep track of its witnesses. And why a historically-pathetic felony conviction rate in New Orleans has neared single-digit territory under Jordan.

Here's an article in City Journal that will explain a lot more about New Orleans' deep dysfunctionality as a municipality.

But, noooooo. Folks are out to get Eddie because he's black. In a city where most of the political establishment is black. Riiiiiiiight. . . .

To me -- a son of the Deep South who grew up listening my old man (and too many other white men and women) blaming everything from crime to inflation to political unrest on either "the niggers" or "them nigger lovers" -- the rhetoric in support of a racist incompetent sounds awfully familiar.

In a photo-negative kind of way.