Gilmore. Alexander. Morrison. Obama. -- The Week of the Black Smack Down Arrives (at last).

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Somebody take the microphone from the pundits and give it to the poets.

Time and again poets prove the best bet -- from street to cybersphere -- to hold that mic responsibly and to wed a decent command of language with a healthy dose of honesty.

Mind you, if you hang out in a lot of well-mic'd rooms full of poets, you'll understand the deep limitations inherent in that statement. But still. Listen up, CNMSNBCFOXABCBS. Enough already.

Two recent dot-com articles have got the idea and to damned good affect. Poet and writer Brian Gilmore breaks down the Clintons and their dirty-politics approach to race strategy in his article, Stacked Deck on EbonyJet.com. Yes, I know. EbonyJet.com? If you didn't have any inkling that the words "Ebony/Jet" could even cross your mind at the same time thoughts like Relevant, Thoughtful, Contemporary, Hip or 21st Century Political Coverage, the team they're assembling over there -- including Gilmore, a respected D.C. poet and criminally underrepresented political writer -- seems to be working hard to change your mind.

Salon.com must be reading da Scrypt too, 'cause they jumped up for the SmackDown properly and they couldn't be more timely.

If you haven't heard today that Toni Morrison endorsed Barak Obama, welcome to Monday, sit the hell down and listen up. Morrison, whose completely out of context quote about Bill Clinton being America's "first black president" continues to be bandied about widely as the Democratic primary race gets narrowed down, first by the media, then by the rest of the Pavlov-pup echo chamber, to a head-to-head Obama/Clinton match up, delivered her endorsement in a characteristically beautiful letter to Obama. Any Monday where a Black, American novelist's (does she carry "the women's vote," "the black vote," or "the literate delegates for the state of Ohio?" -- I'm sure CNMSNBCFOXABCBS will expound on that this evening) presidential endorsement is front page news is a Monday I'm glad as hell I woke up for. Sure, the irony of what many folks would like to believe was a "first black" being upset by an actual first black is lovely. But sho' nuff that's not where the conversation need stop.

Elizabeth Alexander's right-on Salon.com piece, Our first black president?, published at almost the same moment that Morrison's endorsement hit the blogs (you'll want to ignore the nice white liberals who can't keep Alice Walker and Toni Morrison separate.), takes that conversation further. Alexander, a widely celebrated and much-loved poet and scholar doesn't just say what needed saying -- Black folks have been having this conversation at kitchen tables and on message boards, through text messages, in class rooms and across the basketball bleachers and locker room floors (yes, I know, sometimes we play basketball and engage in informed political debate at the same time) for weeks, months, years. What Alexander has finally done is say it loudly and publicly, in a "mainstream media" outlet, and with a gracefulness and precision that is glaringly absent from the mass of Max Headroom political commentary.

"Black" isn't a cute moniker, a stylish accoutrement, nor a "down-home" way of speaking. An actual black man now stands before the nation, making the case for why he thinks he is the best choice for president. Regardless of what happens in the weeks and months to come, America is listening.

Let's hope so. In fact, let's go further: let's hope that America continues listening to a rich diversity of voices like Gilmore, Alexander, Morrison and, yes, Obama, and gets busy parroting their opinions and let-it-be-saids with at least the same hyperbolic excitement as Morrison's "first black president" phrase.

Smack Down Report:
Obama in South Carolina -- SMACK DOWN
Morrison in the most interesting presidential endorsement of the year (sorry, Oprah) -- SMACK DOWN
Alexander & Gilmore on the Clintons -- SMACK diddy DOWN down

Poets & Writers vs. Punditry: 15-Love.