* This week’s WVON mayoral debate appearance by Sen. James Meeks is something of a racially charged goldmine.

For instance, Meeks claimed during the debate that mayoral opponent Rahm Emanuel kept African-American leaders “out of the White House,” and said of Emanuel, “He’s never done anything for African-Americans.”

There’s more, so watch…

I asked the Meeks campaign twice yesterday to explain the White House allegation, but did not hear back.

* Also, early in the debate, WVON went to a commercial break and left the video microphones on. It’s a bit tough to hear at first, but Meeks privately explains to Carol Moseley Braun about how “When white people were in the [school] system, resources, you name them. Art, music, all of that stuff was going on. When black and brown people are just in the system, they took out everything.” Watch…

It’s not that he’s necessarily wrong. It’s just that the clip may show how much he sees things as a racial issue.

* And a day after saying that women, Asians and Hispanics are “not people who have been discriminated against,” and aren’t “people of color” and therefore should not receive affirmative action benefits, Rev. Sen. James Meeks tried to calm things down a bit yesterday. It didn’t really work.

His first attempt at backtracking was to say that only white women should be excluded from affirmative action programs. But his comment just fanned the flames…

Hedy Ratner, co-president of the Women’s Business Development Center, was already “furious” at Meeks. She argued Thursday that, if anything, the 5 percent set-aside for women “should be higher.”

“Is he saying that this should be an African-American city with policies only for African Americans? I’m surprised that a candidate for mayor who wants to represent the entire city would exclude a majority of its citizens,” she said.

Paul Cerpa, executive director of the Hispanic American Construction Industry Association (HACIA), said the federal government has made it clear that the “presumptive group” of those historically discriminated against includes blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans and “women, regardless of ethnicity.”

“To draw the line in the sand and say, ‘This is only mine — not yours’ doesn’t allow everyone to play in the sandbox,” Cerpa said.

* Meeks tried to backtrack again yesterday and didn’t really succeed…

In a somewhat ambiguous statement issued Thursday afternoon, he said “all minority- and women-owned businesses deserve their fair share of city contract opportunities.”

However, it immediately adds, “Chicago has a history of systemic corruption in its minority- and women-owned business program and (a history that) that African-American-owned businesses are the most underrepresented among city contractors.”

* Meeks then attempted an apology of sorts on ABC7…

“People are making much ado about nothing,” said Senator Meeks.

Meeks apologized for–as he put it–”a bad choice of words”. The point he says is that African Americans receive only 70 percent of city contracts and have been criminally shortchanged by minority front companies.

“The federal government has deemed that this program is a corrupt one and we need to fix this program,” said Sen. Meeks.

Whatever you think about affirmative action programs and the very real problems with fraud, you can’t argue with the fact that Sen. Meeks has done a terrible job of communicating.

A couple of years ago, Meeks and I sat down to talk after he’d said something or another about some racial thing. I scolded him pretty good, saying he’d been a black preacher for so long and a black legislator for so long that he apparently never bothered to learn how to talk to white people (and, I should’ve added, “everyone else”). I told him that he needed to learn some basic communication skills. Obviously, he never did.

* Zorn thinks the initial flap over affirmative action will force Meeks out of the race…

And that’ll about do it, folks, for the mayoral aspirations of Mr. Meeks, which were already a bit of a long-shot due to his social conservatism and the presence on the ballot of three other prominent African American candidates (two if you don’t count Roland Burris, which, come to think of it, you probably shouldn’t).

The question now is whether he’ll drop his increasingly unlikely bid before the election on Feb. 22 and try to gain some political leverage by offering his support to another candidate, or whether he’ll carry on to the bitter end.

My prediction is he’ll drop out.

On the other hand, Meeks could be hoping for a black backlash. We’ll see.

Thoughts?