Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; a fire still burns in those very few who have clung to the values of old, but our days as a people of character, unshakeable spirit, and respectability are, for all intents and purposes, dead. Though I had long been pained at what I perceived to be the gradual decline of the black community, it donned on me in recent months that the dismal and prolonged downturn of my people had greatly accelerated. Tonight I again take survey of my brethren; spiritually, we are no more.

This revelation knocked the wind out of me. It had been largely to the purpose of helping blacks wake up and see the error of their ways that I committed myself to some 13 years ago. I thought then that, though blacks had already fallen so far, there was a great chance to overcome. But with this new realization I now sat motionless, wondering if the battle had been lost, if we had eternally surrendered. Or if there was hope.

After an internally tumultuous and spiritually troublesome wait, an answer came on this question. It went as follows:

I saw the death of Jesus Christ. I saw the death of the black soul. I saw the miraculous resurrection of Christ. And therein, I saw the glimmer of hope. The only hope of the black community is for a resurrection of miraculous proportions. Blacks of today must atone for the sins of our fathers to command the mercy and love that would precipitate such a resurrection.

A daunting task this is. Whereas Christ died with a holy nature, the black soul has died in the gallows of weakness and immorality. A representative snapshot of the black community today:

Seventy percent of black babies born out of wedlock has lent itself to an epidemic of fatherlessness. The black woman carries no respect for a man of such weakness and harbors perpetual hatred for this man who bedded, and then abandoned, her. The father’s absence made the mother the influential figure to the family. But her anger toward the man who left her is so great that she cannot be a positive influence. The black youth is victimized by his mother’s dominant hatred. With no father as a figure of guidance and respect, the child can’t help but yield to this force of darkness.

So the young black man comes to what he is today—incidentally a perfect representation of the overall downfall of the black community. No direction. No drive. No soul. Generally today, young black men carry with them no sense of responsibility to be productive, no aversion to undisciplined behavior, nor any indication that they can overcome the sin into which they’re born. Rather than work and strive to move up in the world, they opt to abuse drugs, chase women, and act like immature fools.

Usually when one is born into dire circumstances he is accompanied by a sense of desperation to succeed. He innately feels that he must work hard, harder than all those around him just to be able to survive. The young black man of today feels none of this. His focus is on his next joint. The emasculation of the young black man by the dominant black women has destroyed this drive. His innate sense now is to lust after a woman. In doing so, the black man is forever subject to "momma."

Meanwhile, young black girls do as their mothers do and adopt the same vicious, emasculatory techniques. Thus a cycle perpetuates. With few strong examples of God’s commandments among black men, unprecedented destruction nears.

ATLANTA — 

John Mason, 35, married Shelley Martin, 34, in a quiet ceremony Saturday at his parents' home in Duluth, his father, Claude Mason, told People magazine for a story posted Tuesday on its Web site.

"We were very, very happy for him," said Claude Mason, who serves as an associate municipal judge and officiated the ceremony.

John Mason was thrust into the spotlight in 2005 when then-fiance Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared just days before their wedding. She turned up a few days later in New Mexico and initially claimed she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. She later recanted, saying she ran away because of personal issues, and pleaded no contest to telling authorities a phony story.

She was sentenced to two years' probation and performed community service that included mowing the lawns at public buildings.

Wilbanks and John Mason ended their engagement and filed lawsuits against each other, which were later dropped.

"Why is she standing there?" many women wondered. "Should she be? Would I be?"

And for many, who've seen a long line of wronged political spouses do the same, from Hillary Rodham Clinton to Dina Matos McGreevey to Suzanne Craig, the immediate answer was a resounding, "Hell, no."

"I watched her and I thought, 'Again, the wife is standing there,'" said Jessica Thorpe, a 38-year-old mother of three in Larchmont, N.Y. "And I had a visceral reaction. I just don't get it. Why does it always have to be that way in politics? What will she get out of standing there?"

The blogosphere was buzzing, too, with the same questions. "Why do they show up?" asked blogger Amy Ephron on huffingtonpost.com. She proposed her own fantasy: "I just want one of them — Hillary, Silda — to stand on the steps of the White House, the governor's mansion, and stamp their foot and say, 'And another thing, I'm keeping the house.'"

Yet many women also understood that Silda Spitzer was obviously in pain, and in the unforgiving glare of the public spotlight. So while Donna Webster, a product development executive in Boston, wished the New York governor had been forced to face the music alone, she also empathized with his wife's choice, which she assumed was for the sake of her three daughters.

"I've been thinking about this constantly. I cringed when I saw her next to him," said Webster, 59. "I think he should have taken it like a man — without her."

But, she added, "She was in crisis mode. She was like a mother bear protecting her cubs. When crisis hits, you do what you think you need to for your family. Later, you can step back and think about protecting yourself."

Amid the din, one of the most poignant voices defending Silda Spitzer was Matos McGreevey, who stood next to her husband, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, in 2004 as he told the world he was gay, claimed he had an affair with a male aide and resigned.

"I'm reliving that moment and what it was like standing there next to Jim," Matos McGreevey told The Associated Press Monday night. "I wanted to embrace her and say, `Be strong, you'll survive this.'"

In another interview on CNN, she referred to others who'd also stood by their spouses at moments of deep humiliation — Clinton, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and Suzanne Craig, the wife of Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, who was accused of soliciting sex in an airport bathroom.

"We all do it for personal reasons," said Matos McGreevey, now going through a contentious divorce with the former governor. "I did it because he was my husband. I had always supported him. I loved him. I had a daughter ... I wanted her to know I was there for her father."

One therapist who deals with couples in crisis says most wronged women do want to at least try to work things out. "Your lives are intertwined, emotionally, financially and physically," said Gail Saltz, who practices in New York City. "You share children. Just because someone has hurt and betrayed you deeply doesn't mean you stop loving them. It's very complicated for any woman who finds her husband has betrayed her."

And the fact that the alleged betrayal was with a prostitute is a double-edged sword, says Saltz. On the one hand, "this isn't a woman that he fell in love with. On the other, many women would find the prostitution part particularly humiliating."

Joanna Coles, editor in chief of the women's magazine Marie Claire, feels that at least for the moment, Silda Spitzer had no choice but to stand publicly by her husband, for whom she gave up an active career as a corporate lawyer.

"People are very quick to judge her, but that's the deal that you make when one of you decides to give up your career so that the other can go all out for his," said Coles. "I think it would have been odd if she wasn't there. It's the pact that they made. She chose to be the wife of a governor, and she's done it very conscientiously, and very well."

Ashley Shapiro, a 24-year-old event planner in Miami, says her friends are split on the issue of whether Silda Spitzer and other wronged political spouses have been right to stand by their men. As for her, she thinks it's the only human thing to do.

"You don't turn your back on a loved one," Shapiro said. "You support them. You don't want your kids to see you abandoning their father in his time of need."

"You express your support publicly. Then you handle the rest privately. And all that," Shapiro says, "is none of our business."

__

AP Writer Angela Delli Anti in Trenton, N.J. contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Texas—Feminist icon Gloria Steinem took to the stump on Hillary Clinton’s behalf here last night and quickly proved that she has lost none of her taste for provocation.

From the stage, the 73-year-old seemed to denigrate the importance of John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. In an interview with the Observer afterward, she suggested that Barack Obama benefits—and Clinton suffers—because Americans view racism more seriously than sexism.

Steinem also told the crowd that one reason to back Clinton was because “she actually enjoys conflict.”

And she claimed that if Clinton’s experience as First Lady were taken seriously in relation to her White House bid, people might “finally admit that, say, being a secretary is the best way to learn your boss’s job and take it over.”

Steinem raised McCain’s Vietnam imprisonment as she sought to highlight an alleged gender-based media bias against Clinton.

“Suppose John McCain had been Joan McCain and Joan McCain had got captured, shot down and been a POW for eight years. [The media would ask], ‘What did you do wrong to get captured? What terrible things did you do while you were there as a captive for eight years?’” Steinem said, to laughter from the audience.

McCain was, in fact, a prisoner of war for around five-and-a-half years, during which time he was tortured repeatedly. Referring to his time in captivity, Steinem said with bewilderment, “I mean, hello? This is supposed to be a qualification to be president? I don’t think so.”

Steinem’s broader argument was that the media and the political world are too admiring of militarism in all its guises.

“I am so grateful that she [Clinton] hasn’t been trained to kill anybody. And she probably didn’t even play war games as a kid. It’s a great relief from Bush in his jump suit and from Kerry saluting.”

To the Observer, Steinem insisted that “from George Washington to Jack Kennedy and PT-109 we have behaved as if killing people is a qualification for ruling people.”

Other Clinton proxies, notably Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson and a New Hampshire campaign chair, Billy Shaheen, have generated controversies with their criticisms of Obama. By contrast, Steinem told me the Illinois senator was “an intelligent, well-intentioned person.” She added: “I would like very much to see him be president for eight years after Hillary has been president for eight years.”

But she also opined that “a majority of Americans want redemption for racism, for our terrible destructive racist past and so see a vote for Obama as redemptive.” Then, using a term for the mass killing of women, she added, “I don’t think as many want redemption for the gynocide.”

“They acknowledge racism—not enough, but somewhat,” Steinem continued. “They would probably be less likely to acknowledge that the most likely way a pregnant woman is to die is murder from her male partner. There are six million female lives lost in the world every year simply because they are female.”

Steinem has been a Clinton supporter for several years—even though, as she reminded me, she protested against Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms outside the White House. Her support for the former First Lady has become more high-profile of late. She penned a January op-ed for the New York Times backing Clinton and asserting that “gender is probably the most restricting force in American life.” She was also one of the women’s rights activists who signed a February 15 letter published on the Huffington Post that insisted, “It’s time for feminists to say that Senator Obama has no monopoly on inspiration.”

Yesterday’s event, billed by the Clinton campaign as “One Million for Hillary with Gloria Steinem,” was one of several appearances scheduled for the veteran feminist across Texas as Tuesday’s primary looms. It was held in a downtown music venue and was attended by around 200 people, the vast majority of whom were women. Before Steinem spoke, two Clinton campaign ads focusing on female support were shown, to applause.

In her speech, Steinem argued that there was a major sexist component to the murmurs from some quarters suggesting Clinton should abandon her presidential quest.

There is, she said, “a great deal of pressure at play for her to act like her gender and give in.” Several shouts of “No!” came from the crowd. Steinem went on: “It’s a way of reinforcing the gender roles, right? Men are loved if they win and Hillary is loved if she loses…But maybe we shouldn’t be so afraid of an open convention that actually decides something. After all, it was an open convention in New York City that gave us Abraham Lincoln.”

Steinem’s speech offered, Letterman-style, ten reasons why she was supporting Hillary. Most were serious, though one of the more flippant was “We get Bill Clinton as Eleanor Roosevelt.”

Steinem, like any good politician, also made sure to praise her surroundings. True to her own spirit, though, she did so in less decorous terms than any candidate for office would dare.

Other than Austin, she said, “there is no community in the whole world that understands how to include everybody, how to be serious and have a good time at the same time, how to be fan-[expletive]-tastic” quite so well.

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign sends over the following statement from Howard Wolfson: "Senator Clinton has repeatedly praised Senator McCain's courage and service to our country. These comments certainly do not represent her thinking in any way. Senator Clinton intends to have a respectful debate with Senator McCain on the issues."