Writing about why “articulate” has become a pejorative when used as an adjective to describe a well-educated, well-spoken black man or woman, columnist Jonah Goldberg delves beyond the reflexive outrage of perceived racism to uncover an inconvenient truth:

The New York Times ran a lengthy essay by Lynette Clemetson on the troubling and pernicious racism behind the oft-used compliment for well-spoken black people. The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson penned a similar meditation arguing that "articulate" is essentially code for not scary to whites. "It's being used to describe a black person around whom white people can be comfortable," writes Robinson. …

But nowhere do Clemetson and the people she interviewed address the fact that not all of black America is as articulate as Condoleezza Rice or D.L. Hughley. It's as if white America just made up the idea that proper diction and speech is lacking in some quarters of black America. …

[T]he whole "Ebonics" fad -  a social-science neologism conceived to describe black slang as a distinct dialect, which it is -  was designed to cover up the fact that large numbers of black Americans are not articulate in mainstream American English. But as Bill Cosby and others have noted, simply because Ebonics describes something real doesn't mean it's in the best interests of black people to embrace it.

[T]he word "articulate" … is it not the code word some are making it out to be, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore and even Biden himself are routinely described as "articulate," and President Bush is relentlessly dubbed "inarticulate," yet nobody thinks that means he's being called "black."

Wait a minute – Clinton was our first black president, so how come nobody kicks up a fuss when he’s described as “articulate?”

San Francisco Values

Historic preservation makes for some strange bedfellows, as The Wall Street Journal reports.  The State Armory and Arsenal, a 200,000-sqare-foot Moorish castle built in 1914, became derelict after the National Guard stopped using the facility in 1975. No developer could come up with a plan to rehabilitate and repurpose the imposing structure located near San Francisco’s Mission District that did not run afoul of the city’s Planning Department or zoning laws:

Over the years, developers suggested turning the 1914 building, which is a mile from City Hall on the edge of the Mission District, into a church, storage space or an apartment complex. …

In December, Peter Acworth, chief executive of the Internet porn company Kink.com, bought the landmark building for $14.5 million. Last week, Kink began shooting bondage films at the site, and the Planning Department doesn't have a problem with that.

Mr. Acworth says city officials were especially pleased that he planned to use the Armory as is, without making big changes to its interior. … In fact, the building's very details - the dungeon-like boiler room, shadowy rifle range and wet basement - appealed to Mr. Acworth. …

Mr. Acworth's fait accompli has now sparked a heated debate over San Francisco's real-estate planning maze. …

The flap has drawn in the mayor, Gavin Newsom. Last week, Mr. Newsom announced plans to hold a community meeting to discuss use of the Armory and revisit city-planning rules. "I'm not going to moralize it, but I don't think this is the appropriate place" for a porn film studio, says the mayor, who recently admitted to having an affair with his re-election campaign manager's wife. "This is a city with a housing crisis, and now here we are with an adult studio near schools?"

Don’t Worry, Turkey Will Get Another Shot

Vartan Oskanian, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia, wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Turkey Misses Its Chance With Armenia,” arguing that Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s assassination last month could have been the catalyst for a healing dialogue between Armenia and Turkey:

In the days immediately following Dink's shocking death, allegedly at the hands of a fanatic Turkish nationalist, we in Armenia and others around the world wanted to believe that the outpouring of public grief would create a crack in the Turkish wall of denial and rejection, and that efforts would be made to chip away at the conditions that made the assassination possible. We all hoped that the gravity of this slaying and the breadth of the reaction would have compelled Turkey's leaders to seize the moment and make a radical shift in the policies that sustain today's dead-end situation.

However, after those initial hints at conciliation, the message out of Ankara has already changed. Last week, according to the Turkish media, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said there can be no rapprochement with Armenians because Armenians still insist on talking about the genocide.

The prime minister is right. Armenians do insist on talking about the genocide. It's a history-changing event that ought not, indeed cannot, be forgotten. However, we also advocate a rapprochement. And one is not a precondition for the other. …

Oskanian also points out that Dink’s brutal murder – his bullet-riddled body lay in the street for nearly an hour before the police bothered to get to the murder scene and to remove the corpse – gives the Turkish government political breathing room:

First, it makes Turkey less interesting for Europe, which is exactly what some in the Turkish establishment want. Second, it may scare away Armenians and other minorities in Turkey from pursuing their civil and human rights. Third, it can frighten into silence those bold Turks who are beginning to explore these complicated, sensitive subjects in earnest.

The Stiletto thinks Oskanian’s points are all well-taken. However, she does take issue with the opening sentence of his op-ed: “Ankara has let a rare moment pass.” Unfortunately, it is not rare for Armenians to die at the hands of Turks. Armenians have been repeatedly massacred by Turks since the middle of the 19^th century, culminating in all-out Genocide from 1915-1917 as they sought to rid themselves of the hated Armenians once and for all. And Dink’s murder suggests that Turks can’t seem to break their nasty habit of killing Armenians – the journalist’s assassin shouted, “I killed the Armenian” before running off.

If a prerequisite of opening a dialogue on rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey is the murder of an Armenian living in Turkey, The Stiletto is sure other opportunities will present themselves sooner or later.

Think The Stiletto is being a tad overwrought? Consider this article about the seaside town of Trabzon, which The New York Times describes as a “hotbed” of Turkish ultranationalism:

All eight suspects in the plot to kill Hrant Dink, a nationally prominent editor, came from nearby, and links to other ultranationalist crimes here are beginning to emerge. …

Ogun Samast, 17, a high school dropout who has confessed to the killing, was arrested with seven others in connection with the crime. …

Other prominent crimes here have had a common motivation of extremism in upholding nationalist values. A local McDonald’s restaurant was bombed in 2004, chosen as a Western target, and there was an attempted lynching of a group of leftist protesters and killings of two professors from the local university and of a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Andreas Santaro.

But it was not until the police found personal links between Mr. Samast, the confessed killer of Mr. Dink, and Yasin Hayal, an ultranationalist convicted of the McDonald’s bombing, that a web of connections between various crimes came to light. Mr. Hayal is being charged with inciting the Dink killing. …

Expressions of anger are easy to come by, as are defenses of Mr. Samast and the killing of Mr. Dink. …

Sunday after Mr. Dink was killed, crowds attending a game at the soccer stadium here waved Turkish flags. One group opened a huge banner saying: “We’re from Trabzon. We’re Turks. We’re all Mustafa Kemals” — a reference to the founder of the modern Turkish state.

That was a rebuttal to the many thousands of Turks in Istanbul who attended Hrant Dink’s funeral carrying signs that read: “We’re all Hrant Dinks. We’re all Armenians.”

Nationalism of the former sort “embraces intolerance towards the other, superiority over minorities and not only fear but also hatred toward the foreigner,” said Professor Ali Carkoglu of Sabanci University in Istanbul.