About 25 years ago, a restaurant chain called “Sambo’s” went under. The black community felt offended to have the children’s story of “Little Black Sambo” and his tiger butter pancakes resurrected in a racially equitable society.

Just weeks ago, GOP candidate Rick Perry’s family hunting lodge made headlines around the globe. The offensive name of that lodge, “Niggerhead” was not even printable in many newspaper editors’ views, so the headlines read something like, “Ni**erhead” or, “Ni##erhead” or even, “N&&&erhead.”

We got the message.

Now a black man, albeit one who expresses little if any sympathy for the civil rights struggle of blacks in the United States, is the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. Herman Cain seems to revel in his, “I made it on my own: so can the rest of you” arrogance and he professes no bond with those who see this nation’s historic mistreatment of people of color as a legitimate political issue.

Playing the race card in America has become tiresome, especially when the race card is played for no reason. Crying wolf when there is actually a racist in the woodpile is one thing, but holding America silently hostage with the implied threat that one’s blackness signals a, “You’d better watch out…” scenario is unacceptable. More to the point, such a standoff feeds racial hatreds that have been placed just below the surface since Martin Luther King had a dream, but have never really disappeared. Today, too many of the pre-1960 prejudices against blacks still percolate beneath a thin veneer of political correctness, but they are still frighteningly there.

The election of Barack Obama brought some of America’s racism back to the surface. Now Herman Cain’s political ascension raises the question of how Republicans and others will react to a presidential ballot which may have only black men from which to choose. It also raises questions about Cain’s own views on racial and ethnic equality.

No one mentions that Mr. Cain became a financial success in business as the CEO of a restaurant chain with a name just as inappropriate as “Sambo’s.” “Godfather’s Pizza” is every bit as offensive to many Italian-Americans as “Sambo’s” was to some blacks. Most of us are hard-working, honest, educated, contributing citizens weary of the endless Mafia stereotyping the media and people like Herman Cain toss our way.

It’s important to mention this to point out that racism isn’t a one way street and a black man like Herman Cain is every bit as capable of profiteering on the backs of a white minority as many blacks would accuse white executives of doing to people of color. In short, Herman Cain may not be worse than the average racially insensitive politician, but he certainly is no better-- and someone ought to say so.

So we have finally achieved full equality. Two black men get to run for president and one of them shows as much disdain for blacks and others in this country as any ignorant white racist might show toward people of color.

Somehow I don’t think this was the outcome blacks and whites marching together in Selma had in mind.