ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s black leaders say they’re not surprised to see Gov. Sarah Palin at the center of the controversy over injecting the race issue into the presidential campaign.
Palin, Republican John McCain’s running mate, has repeatedly insisted that Barack Obama’s former preacher, the inflammatory Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a legitimate issue even though McCain himself has said it’s out of bounds.
“She has no sensitivity to minorities,” said the Rev. Alonzo Patterson, a Baptist minister and president of the Alaska Black Leadership Conference. “She’s really inciting a lot of African-Americans to get out and vote.”
Since taking office in December 2006, Palin has had a sometimes tense relationship with black leaders, who say they have been ignored in their efforts to get more minorities hired in her administration.
Last week, in the final debate of the campaign, Obama himself noted the hateful tone of some of the McCain-Palin crowds, singling out Palin herself for not doing enough to ease the friction.
Among Palin’s 417 appointments or reappointments to boards and commissions since taking office in December 2006, 240 have voluntarily identified their ethnicity. Eight are black, 49 Alaska Native, six Asian or Pacific Islander and one is Hispanic.
